Victor Davis Hanson Quotes

No authoritarian leader cedes power easily or turns it over to bodies he cannot control.

Military dictatorship, you can focus on it, you can fight it directly. It's a band of power-driven people.

I beheld absolutism in all its power; and I felt encouraged to enter into a struggle against Augustin I.

The whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost.

The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty

Unlike monarchs, who pass power to their heirs at the moment of death to ensure the survival of the regime, tyrants must simply survive as long as possible.

Authoritarianism doesn't fall on a nation like a book falling from a shelf and striking you in the head. It rolls in like a slow tide.

From one tyrant to another. That is the world we know, now

Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than their preachings.

The first country conquered by any dictator is his own country.

If Saddam were to be replaced tomorrow he would probably be replaced with someone who's just as bad or worse than he is.

We have a war dictator who was not elected, he snuck in. so he punishes people that threaten him in any way, or even say something he doesn't like. It has no resemblance to democracy.

Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states.

For 73 years a totalitarian regime ruled the country. Totalitarian regime.

Aside from the occasional genocide, oppression, evil and torture, etc., it is inarguable that public policy could be implemented more rapidly in an autocracy.

Dictators are interesting, no?

All executive power --- from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators --- has the outward appearance of efficiency

Feelings of marginalization and cries of separation are symptomatic of countries where rulers find power sweet and intoxicating, where power is coveted, and when acquired, painstakingly guarded.

Oppressive government is more terrible than tigers.

The army and the government needs a dictator.

The rule of several bad men does not last long, and easily decays to the rule of a single tyrant.

Even the most repressive regimes seek to maintain the fiction that they have the people’s interest at heart.

As Republics have risen and fallen, a transition from party to personal government has preceded every failure since the world began.

The more brutal the dictator, the harder to oust.

Spineless politics do not change the mind of a tyrant.