The Long Memo (TLM)

For Trump, dictatorship isn’t a choice—it’s a survival strategy.

Power isn’t about doing the right thing—it’s about staying in control. The first book in the TLM Book Club, The Dictator’s Handbook, lays out why leaders, whether democratic or autocratic, follow the same ruthless playbook: reward your coalition, eliminate threats, and never, ever trust the people.

But the reality of power doesn’t care about theory. As The Dictator’s Handbook makes clear, leaders don’t act in the public interest because they are good people. They act in ways that maintain their power, and if they don’t, they don’t stay in power for long.

By the end of class, they understood why dictatorship isn’t a choice—it’s the natural order of power when constraints don’t exist.