First Post of 2026: Welcome to a World of Romanticized Authoritarianism

The Western world has a paradoxical relationship with authoritarianism. Non-democracies the world over are roundly criticized for their inability to uphold human rights, protect minorities, and ignore citizens' desires for more freedoms and better livelihoods. Yet, in the corporate world, too many fawn over titans who run their corporations as personal fiefdoms, managing through a combination of a cult of personality and one-man decision-making. How come Elon Musk and Steve Jobs are almost glorified for having dictatorial powers when actual dictators are simply bad people?

The simple answer is that the corporate world allows people to vote with their feet. Don't like Musk or Jobs? Feel free to quit your job at Tesla or Apple, don't buy their stocks, and take your talents and money to competitors. But most people in authoritarian states have neither the talent, language skills, nor the resources to simply up the stakes and go live in a different country. In a world that is becoming ever more anti-immigrant, few countries would kindly take in millions of political asylum seekers anyway, no matter how much they sympathize with their plight.

So if people cannot escape political authoritarianism with their feet like the corporate counterpart, what's the realistic alternative? Donald Trump seems to have an answer. His first major action of 2026 is to conduct a regime change in Venezuela, essentially launching an undeclared war against the country, kidnapping the president, and indicting them for narco-terror charges in a local court in New York. In the first major toppling-the-government initiative since Afghanistan and Iraq, America has proven that it really is, well, America, with unopposed power to do anything across the Western Hemisphere.

It helps that Venezuela has a shadow government in waiting with international credibility. When the Nobel Peace Prize last year was awarded to María Corina Machado, the face of the organized opposition and refugee from Venezuelan law, she officially gained the Western moral nod to lead, should something happen to the incumbent Nicholas Maduro. Now that Maduro sits in a New York prison awaiting trial, the natural question for political watchers everywhere is how she will go from a lady calling for a coup to an actual administrator of a country with an economy in free fall.

Yet, by toppling one dictator, Trump has proven himself to be edging ever closer to becoming one himself. There are many legitimate ways to negotiate Maduro's downfall. Negotiations could have been had for free passage and personal protection should he decide to step down willingly. Failing that, the US president could have consulted international law, the UN, American allies, and Congress. Trump, in his rush to arrest the head narco-terrorist, did none of these. And by giving himself the power to ignore institutional constraints, a precedent is set for future regime changes.

In that respect, Trump is setting himself to be no different from Jobs was at Apple and Musk at Tesla. If it's fair game for an executive chairman to decide that a price war or a hostile takeover is needed to take down a rival, why shouldn't a sovereign nation do the same? And if a company can grow from lobbying governments for more funding and favorable laws, then why can't the government itself use underhanded ways to give itself some advantages, such as, say, kicking out an anti-American political leader and helping itself to oil from another country?

In this world that equates corporate and political authoritarianism, states can fall and change just as quickly and radically as companies can. The world barely batted an eye at Israel officially recognizing Somaliland, likely in exchange for access to ports and military facilities. A taboo of recognizing breakaway states without international backing has been breached. It'll galvanize all separatist movements worldwide, and particularly so in Africa, where plenty of ethnic grievances persist against arbitrary colonial borders. 

Last year's Israel-Iran War has already shown that the world is headed toward a might-makes-right one. But any dictator craves public adoration for their strongman style, a la Musk or Jobs. Putin sought to restore glory. Netanyahu went for the survival of the Jewish race. Trump sought it to protect the American people from drugs. But from the draft dodgers in Ukraine to starving children in Gaza, to the undocumented Venezuelan refugees fanning across the Americas, those who suffer the most from the romanticization of authoritarianism didn't choose their plight. They want to vote with their feet in peace.