benefit of others. So, instead of seeking common ground upon which they could build a coalition, they see only threats to themselves and their party. And it is this division that the tyrant further exploits, by playing to their divisiveness so to conquer.
Such is the way in which the tyrant transforms into a totalitarian personality. Left unchecked, the tyrant’s extreme irrationalism forms around a personalized logic run wild over which there is no effective external oversight or accountability – only a generalized acquiescence that results in people normalizing the abnormal to become total. And that is what differentiates this new form of government – defined as a logocracy14 – from fascism, state authoritarianism, or Nazism, as “there is no longer any rule of an ‘idea,’ no matter how perverted it may be, but of the logical process itself which could be deduced from the idea as its logical premise.”15 In other words, within the logocracy, there is no need for a such tools as single party or ideology, state control of the media, a secret and terroristic police force, or concentration camps. All is driven – including which if any of the above-mentioned tools to use in what circumstance – by the whims and madness of the totalitarian leader.
Accomplishing such, the tyrant as totalitarian effectively admits ideas no longer matter, only the appearance of process does. Thus, the method consciously pursued is to present arguments for his policies and actions on logical imaginings that exist beyond reason and must be accepted by others on the basis of trust, as one thinks of when hearing the statement ‘God chose to make me the greatest ruler history has ever seen.’
The tyrant as totalitarian achieves this goal through a simple trick: by taking what otherwise would be a conclusion reached through and proven by facts and reason and deduction, he instead makes his conclusion a premise, from which can then “reason” his way to doing anything he wants as he can claim all his arguments and all his actions follow from his initial assertion. He could claim, as he does, ‘I rule the country, and I rule the world’ and follow up on that statement by issuing executive orders that dissolve government agencies, cancel the distribution of international aid, close cultural institutions that have existed for hundreds of years, and overthrow sovereign nations as he has done in Venezuela and Iran in what has been described as wars 'of whim,' the latter of which challenges what is presented as a strategy involving hemispheric restraint but raises the issue of war crimes; he could claim, as he does, ‘Only I can fix the economy’ and subsequently impose arbitrary tariffs despite historical evidence and expert recommendations such tariffs would weaken the economy, curtail successful business practices, and wipe out stock market gains that supported personal investment portfolios built across a lifetime.
He could claim, as he does, ‘immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country’ and then place certain groups in prison, exile them to other countries, or tease and quite possibly choose to eliminate entire races as was done in the past if he so desires; he could, as when asked who owns the natural resources when he overthrows a country, claim, simply, ‘me’ and do with that revenue what he will, such as securing it in overseas banks where there would be no federal oversight on its use or way in which it was expended; he could claim, as he does, my power is constrained only by ‘my own morality, my own mind, it is the only thing that can stop me,’ and move to do whatever he pleases, whenever he chooses. All follow if you accept his logic that his actions stem arguably and procedurally from the premise he presented, from what he has already concluded is in his best interest.
The tyrant as totalitarian also maintains his power and position, and solidifies his desire for total control, through an equally simple technique: by bombarding the minds of the populace with unsubstantiated propositions, nonsensical arguments, and actions, the tyrant forces the minds of his subjects to spin and spin upon themselves trying to make sense of the nonsense, engaging all in movement –
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