Fear is autocracies' fatal flaw. They come to power and hold power through fear, force, domination, threats, lies, imprisonment, and killing. So, they think that terrorizing and instilling suffocating fear is their greatest strength. And it is up to a point.
But where causing fear becomes their fatal flaw is when people are too afraid to tell their fearsome leaders the truth. Nobody could tell Putin that his army was weak. Nobody could tell Putin Ukraine was strong. Nobody could tell Putin that America would lead Europe and other parts of the free world to help Ukraine humiliate him. They were afraid. And Putin is likely to lose Russia as a result. The fear that he saturates his country with will likely kill him.
Nobody could tell Hitler he was stupid to open a second front against Russia in WWII. They were afraid. And he ended up hiding in a bomb-proof bunker and killing himself.
Nobody could tell Mussolini that he was stupid to try to be a second Caeser. And he was hung from a lamp post and beaten to death.
Nobody can tell Xi in China what he doesn't want to hear? I don't know but that seems likely to me. I hope he doesn't invade Taiwan.
Nobody could tell Trump that he lost the 2020 election (in his trusted inner circle) and he will end up being indicted and likely in prison.
Fear keeps the leaders from knowing what is going on underneath them. Nobody can tell them what they don't want to hear. No one can tell them that they are fallible, human, vulnerable, wrong, dumb, and just like everybody else. They "shoot the messengers". And remain ignorant, willfully ignorant, and eventually topple like the Great Osymandius of Shelly's poem - once mighty and long gone and long forgotten.
So, autocracies' ignorance fed mistakes are fatal flaws which lead to their collapse. Tragically, they cause enormous terror, hardship, and suffering over the course of their terrifying, dominating rules.
Democracies are clumsy, slow, inefficient, pulled in many directions - but stronger than autocracies, dictatorships, and fascist regimes. They have a much better chance of having leaders seeing and knowing things they don't want to see or hear. If we are lucky they modify their actions as a result.
Ignorance is fatal. Knowledge is painful but can be decisive and allow a sustaining governance.
