Olson's Rules for Dealing with Autocrats - Part III

Don't Hand Autocrats Hammers with Which to Hit You

Over the next two weeks I’ll be laying out my friend Trygve Olson’s Seven Rules for Dealing with Autocrats and Their Enablers.

From Tryg: “I wrote these when I was working with those worldwide fight for Democracy in their nations, and they are just as applicable today with what we’ll face in America in the coming months.”

You can read Parts I and II below:

Olson's Seven Rules for Dealing with Autocrats - Part I

Rules for Dealing with Autocrats - Part II

Rule 3 of 7: Don’t Hand Autocrats Hammers with Which to Beat You

“The game you are in, the battle you are fighting, isn’t about policy or ideology. They will use what you say to divide you from your allies, who you need to win the battle for democracy.”

The entire basis of Donald Trump’s attacks on Democrats is “We’re all bad. We’re all liars. We’re all hypocrites, at least I’m willing to admit it.” He and the Republicans spend years creating the “Biden crime family” specifically to show that all politicians are corrupt, and he’s no different.

In 2017, when asked about Vladimir Putin’s psychopathic murderous streak, Trump responded, “What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?” This calls the question: Is America great? Are we really better? If everyone is equally bad, than Trump is no better and no worse than anyone who’s come before him.

Let me repeat that. When Republicans make outlandish statements, they’re not trying place facts before the viewer, make an intellectual argument for their point of view, or being neutral arbiters. They’re telling Americans that they’re correct to be as cynical, disconnected, and disaffected with their government, their politics, and their leaders.

Trump benefits from what I’ve codified as “The Discount Rate.” He’s been a terrible human being in public for 60 years. No one has ever had any expectation he’s any different than he is. When yet another scandal breaks, the distance between how Americans thought of him before and after the news is narrow, because they’ve only ever known him as a bloviating, self-centered, narcissistic scumbag.

Voters forgiving the double-standards of politicans, “Do as I say, not as I do,” for centuries. In 2024, though, enough of them were upset, disgusted, or disbelieving enough to stay home or pull the lever for someone they knew to be an empirically worse choice, and they did it anyway.