Not your grandma’s authoritarians Today’s authoritarian rulers realize that civil society has the potential to support democracy and pry loose their grip on power.
—
Christopher Justin Einolf,
The Conversation,
26 Sep. 2025
Typically reserved for autocrats and crime bosses, sanctions can be devastating.
—
ABC News,
ABC News,
14 July 2026
Conquerors and autocrats may win the immediate battle by bullying their subjects into submission, but their empires inevitably crumble the moment their iron grip falters.
Because, after all, as in all of Haber’s novels, the point is not really what is happening in the world but what is happening in the mind—in this case the mind of the pettiest of tyrants.
—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
1 July 2026
Aegon, dragged out of King’s Landing by spymaster Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) in an effort to save him from the fratricidal Aemond, gets an up-close look at the petty tyrants who have sprouted up in the countryside thanks to his impetuous rule.
The invisible power of the unelected despots of data and tech lords must be diminished; if families cannot control the disaster of digital addiction, states will have to legislate for them.
—
Simon Sebag Montefiore,
The Atlantic,
28 June 2026
The Boys – Season 5 (Prime Video) Things have gone from bad to worse in the final season of The Boys, Prime Video’s irreverent superhero satire about America succumbing to charismatic despots and fascistic opportunists.
An America where justice brings down oppressors and lifts up the ordinary.
—
Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Tribune,
21 June 2026
And did the advocates of this collective pedagogy imagine their children rising to heights of power, only to view the darker nations of the world through the same violent lens as their oppressors?
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