Remember how In 2016, Donald Trump, then justa presidential candidate played ‘We Are the Champions’ at the Republican National Convention, while he emerged in near slow motion on a foggy stage?
Remember Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long walk in 2018 to his inauguration before starting another six years in power at the Kremlin? His presidential march ran longer than five minutes and it reminded one of a Bond movie where a key character is introduced with a theme music subliminally telling us to adore and fear him. There was even a limousine, a never ending red carpet and applause to turn an official ceremony into an event .
Kim Jong-un calls himself the ‘Supreme leader’ of North Korea and turns his birthday into a national festival.
Hitler was a master orchestrator of grand ceremonies and at the heart of each one, was the projection of his power that not just controlled the masses but also their psyche.
So make no mistake, despots like events. They like the white heat of spotlight on them and they bask in it as if to say, “Look at me. Look at me..this is me walking, standing, meditating, picking up something from the tarmac, hugging a world leader, inaugurating this and that and ruling a little piece of the universe. Me!”
And they like mass servility and hate dissent.
No matter what ideology they come clothed in, in the end , it is all about feeding their insatiable ego. And it is about control.
The next time, you are asked to comply en masse to an illogical request, ask what is being achieved through it.
And who is being empowered by it.
The puppets or the puppeteer?
The thing with irrational, ego centric leaders is this. They don’t care about those they rule. Not even those who are on their side. They care about how just a flick of their thumb can move human levers while they live out their cinematic and historical fantasies and play heroes they know they can never be in all honesty.
That is why they need the pomp and the show. And us. To make them feel powerful, invincible and in control.
That is our true purpose in the show reel of their political career. To play the adoring audience. And never deviate from the screen play. This mass compliance results in genocides,
the supremacy of one leader over millions, wide spread apathy, a hollow nationalism detached from the well-being of citizens and cautionary chapters in history. We are living in one such chapter and it is time to turn the page. And switch on our minds.