It can't happen here? Really?
Strongmen are in charge in dozens of authoritarian regimes around the world - Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Brunei, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Republic of Congo, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Libya, Mauritania, Myanmar, North Korea, Oman, Congo, South Sudan, Cambodia, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, The Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tadjikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
So, yes, it CAN happen here.
How do tyrannical leaders seize and hold power? It's starts with the mobilization of disenchanted mobs. It moves to demonization of an independent press. Then the institutions of democratic and parliamentary government are disparaged, ridiculed, infected and weakened. Opponents are purged and power is then consolidated under the authoritarian control of the strongman. Finally, the only accepted truth and rule is that which is propagated by the regime.
The ultimate result is enslavement, death and destruction. Yes, it CAN happen here.
Below is just a partial list of dictatorial rulers of the last century and now.
Kim Il Sung in North Korea
Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam
Pol Pot in Cambodia
Saddam Hussein in Iraq
Yahya Kahn in Pakistan
Hideki Tojo in Japan
Vladimir Lenin the Soviet Union
Emperor Hirohito in Japan
Chiang Kai-shek in China
Adolph Hitler in Germany
Josep Stalin in the Soviet Union
Mao Zedong in China
Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe
Idi Amin Dada in Uganda
Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union
Yakubu Gowon in Nigeria
Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia
Omar al-Bashir in Sudan
Benito Mussolini in Italy
Tito in Yugoslavia
Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia
Ante Pavelic in Croatia
Antonio de Salazar in Portugal
Ataturk in Turkey
Francisco Franco in Spain
Babrac Kemal in Afghanistan
Moammar Gaddafi in Lybia
Fidel Castro in Cuba
Juan Peron of Argentina
Fulgencio Batista in Cuba
Francois Duvalier in Haiti
Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua
Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay
Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic
Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran
Ferdinand Marcos in the Phillippines
Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte of Chile
Salvador Allende of Chile
Enver Pasha in Turkey
Vladimir Putin in Russia
Kim Jong-Un in North Koria
Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea
King Mswate III in Swaziland
Isaias Afewerki in Eritrea
Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus
Raul Castro in Cuba
Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan
Bashar al-Assad in Syria
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai in Afghanistan
Abdelaziz Boutefilka in Algeria
Jose dos Santos in Angola
Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Bahrain
Haji Waddaulah in Brunei
Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi
Paul Biya in Cameroon
Faustin Archange Touadera in Central African Republic
Idriss Deby in Chad
Xi Jinpin in China
Joseph Kabila in the Republic of Congo
Ismail Omar Guelleh in Djibouti
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt
Isaias Afwerki in Eritrea
Gime Wolde Giorgis in Ethiopia
Alber-Bernard Bongo in Gabon
Adama Barrow in Gambia
Hassan Rouhani in Iran
Muhammad Fuad Masum in Iraq
Nursultan Nazabaev in Kasakhstan
Bounnhang Vorachity in Laos
Nouri Abusahmain in Libya
Muhammed Aziz in Muaritania
Htin Kyaw in Myanmar
Qaboos bin Said Al-Said in Oman
Denis Sassou Nguesso in Congo
Salva Kiir Mayardit in South Sudan
Hun Sen in Cambodia
Khalifa Thani in Qatar
Paul Kagame in Rwanda
Abdullah Aziz Al Saud in Saudi Arabia
Hannan Sheikh Mohamud in Somalia
Emomalli Rahmon in Tadjikistan
Prayut Chan-o-cah in Thailand
Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow in Turkmenistan
Sheikh Khailfa Nahyan in United Arab Emirates
Shavkat Mirziyoyev in Uzbekistan
Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela
Tran Dai Quang in Vietnam
Abu al-Hadi in Yemen
Is this list exhausting enough to get the point that democracy is not necessarily the way of the world?