One of the biggest traps of autocracy is the sense that "one great leader must save us" and then turning into villifying all the other leaders, or a hatred of "politicians."
Usually politicians are the main victims of dictatorships, and leadership must be shared among many
when leadership has checks and balances and is focused on institutions not individuals, then it is more stable in a transition. When instead of silencing other leaders or having arupt turnaround cycles, various opposition leaders denounce the propaganda against others it would be

a major force against autocracy.
Autocrats also enjoy provoking their oppositions to unrealistic cycles of holding one opposition leader up as "the hero" and then people turning against this person and their family with senseless hate when results aren't immediate (they never are
this makes propaganda very easy, and accusing the innocents. This also makes a stable civic space very hard to build unless the cycle breaks (and it must break for democracy to come)

If the leader of opposition faction A sees a disinformation campaigns against leader of faction b mounting, and abuses such as property seizure, imprisonment, and torture. Then leader A should support leader B to create a healthy civic culture.

From the Spanish Empire to modern day Venezuela, authoritarians seize literature and books.

I also want to poll people on twitter to see if a scene I'm working on is too dramatic but then I forgot I have a professional twitter and am followed by many embassies.

You know you are a fiction writer if you come up with some really dramatic scenes that could jolt authoritarian propaganda but then are like "wait this is how it could be manipulated"

To better understand the current geopolitical space, study the 18th and 19th centuries.
In a world where autocrats seize property (and pets) of opposition leaders
Propaganda seeks not to convince but to cause apathy
Rulers are united not for communism or nationalism but for absolute power
and mercantalism is all in vogue. We are more like Les Miserables than 1984. Check out my latest piece
https://open.substack.com/pub/emilyhausheer/p/to-understand-geopolitics-read-les?r=1r92u5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

@Leopoldo López 👍 and Felix Maradiaga's case highlights why we in the US/Europe should bring this to the table as a key policy concern.

Autocracies don't just imprison the body, they have new forms of prison such as exile, taking away citizenship, taking your homes and dogs.

A regime that seizes homes, dogs, and citizenship is a regime that should not be in power in the 21st century (or ever)

Leo will always be Venezuelan.
I am working on a law enforced by the OAS and EU to make birth citizenship impossible to remove. I never knew a regime could take your dogs and home. Exile makes repression worse it does not end it