one thing I know about being from a country struggling against 30 years of dictatorship...there is no Big Bang. you excuse more and more, ignore that voting/elections are rigged, and you wake up 30 years from now with the same leader. https://twitter.com/williamcson/status/1309154858092691458

opposition are killed/disappeared in secret, not al at once, but incrementally, consistently. intellectuals are banned, again, not all at once, but incrementally, consistently. people struggle and fight, the state stabilizes itself by building alliances with other dictatorships

time passes, more people die, more people disappear, in a way that is so banal that it becomes the connective tissue of everyday life.

more importantly, people refused and still refuse at every conceivable moment