During my Wednesday marathon of documentary watching, I saw one about American nazis. As it turns out, in the 1920’s and 1930’s, many Americans were unhappy with our experiment in democracy. This unhappiness grew after the stock market crash and the depression began. Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan were popular across the US.

Many people believed that a strong leader unfettered by Congress was needed to set things straight. America needed to focus on its own needs and stop worrying about the rest of the world. The nazi craze preceded Hitler and his genocide of Jews and others he disliked.  The American version was aimed at rebuilding the US as a Christian nation. It was fascism. Even the New York Times published articles praising Mussolini and the wonderful progress he was fostering in Italy. Fascism was trending. World War II ended the craze, and populism led to a return to democracy. The documentary “Nazi Town, USA” aired in January and is available to view online.

This documentary frightened me. The story looked disturbingly familiar. What’s happening here now resembles what happened in the 1920’s. A disturbingly large number of Americans believe that democracy (the popular term now is “the Democrats”) can’t effectively govern our nation. They want a strong leader like Putin in Russia. Congress, elections, and the courts are viewed as barriers to success. A self-proclaimed demigod, the former president has proclaimed that he can restore prosperity and bring happiness to the land.

The temptation is to blame the former president. He’s not the root cause any more than the Grand Wizard of the Klan. Given the current sentiment in the country, if someone were to kill him, another would take his place. The problem is a loss of faith in democracy’s ability to right the ship. Our government has become dysfunctional. The two houses of Congress are controlled by opposing forces. Cooperation, even when both agree, doesn’t happen.

Take the immigration situation. The Far Right and the moderates in both houses agreed on a plan to strengthen the southern border. The president supported it. The Grand Wizard, former President Trump, pressured his supporters to kill the bill, even though it contained exactly what he wanted. Why? He said it would help the Democrats in the election. He believes putting him in power is more important than protecting our country.

In the last few decades, the meanings of Right and Left have changed. In the past, conservatives believed in a smaller Federal government and a balanced budget. Christian fundamentalist churches became more political and used the pulpit to advance causes and candidates that their leaders supported.

how to become a dictator

Following the news and this documentary, I think I understand the rather simple process one follows to become the next Putin, Hitler, or Trump. It’s not complicated at all.

Dictators get to power by getting popular support. The idea is to build a base of followers who will help spread the word and convert more people to your cause. Trump started with endless speeches against the flood of illegal immigrants entering the American southern border. His solution was easy to understand: build a 2,000-mile wall to keep them out. He went on to say that these illegals were criminals, sex and drug dealers, and terrorists.

In the beginning, he also said that he wanted to root out illegals living in the US and deport them. When someone told him that many of these illegal residents were family members of Hispanic voters, he dropped that cause.

The immigration issue drew a lot of support among white lower-middle-class people. These, almost exclusively Christian people rallied around him. In 2015 he rocketed from 18th in the presidential race to second in a matter of weeks.

Trump recognizes the importance of his base. He knows that to keep them motivated, he needs to keep feeding them easy-to-digest information that will resonate. He also took a hint from talk radio and demonized anyone who opposed him. He gives them demeaning nicknames: “Crooked Hillary,” “Sleepy Joe,” etc. Putin handles the problem of opposition a little differently; he simply has his opponents killed. Trump can’t do that yet.

Keeping things simple is the key. Isolating issues that resonate with his base and expanding it is critical. All fascist dictators use this playbook. They hide behind nationalism. They isolate their country.

Once they get into power, they have to lock themselves in power. The base isn’t reliable enough to do that. Putin used money to consolidate his power. He made billionaires of his powerful friends. He courted the military leaders and made them rich. Once a dictator controls the military, revolution is nearly impossible.

When Trump was president, he tried to do this. He worked to get the generals to support him. They didn’t buy his line. Our founding fathers were smart. They knew that power-hungry fascists would try to retain power.

When his base wasn’t quite big enough in 2020, Trump tried to stay in power despite losing the election. Trump never backs down from a position. A decade after Obama proved he was born in the US, Trump still insists that he is a foreigner. Trump, and many of his more ignorant followers, still believe that the Democrats stole the election.

Dictators know that people have trouble staying with issues. The base is much happier hating a person. That’s why you see demonstrations against a government aimed it its leader. Biden is the enemy, not a policy the base is told doesn’t work.

Demonize the people. Trump demonizes the entire Democratic Party, accusing them of being communists and dangerous to the country. He acts as though theDemocrats are a cohesive, unified mob. He ignores the fact that the party has a ton of different, often conflicting factions no different than the Republicans.

The key to becoming a dictator and killing democracy is building a majority base. You simplify complex issues into bite-sized bits easily digested by undereducated citizens.

Democracy isn’t an easy form of government to preserve. Every citizen has to understand the core values that keep it alive. The people have to be able to peacefully remove a leader from power when they want change. Democracy doesn’t guarantee good government. It allows the people to change things when they want. As long as the government supports checks and balances and the peaceful transfer of power, democracy will survive and serve the people.

There is no question that our democracy is messy, often slow to make changes, and often wrong. The government can tie itself into a knot. That’s the price of a system that fairly represents the country’s citizens. Sure, a single dictator could just get things done. All you have to do is look at a little history to see how that turns out.

Even if Donald Trump had all of the right answers, I would oppose him. He has made it clear that if he is returned to office, he not only intends to stay there, he wants to suspend the constitution to consolidate his power. Why? He says because it is good for us. No, not good for me.

Hint, hint

Everything has been on hold for the last few days. We both have/had a bug that makes us need to lie down. I spent all day Wednesday in bed watching PBS documentaries. Well, mostly watched; I snoozed a lot too. Mrs. Lion managed to put in a full day’s work and then went to bed. We got take-out Chinese food (bad) for dinner.

As you probably guessed, there was no spanking or sex. It was the last thing on our minds. That’s not entirely true. Mrs. Lion did agree that it’s been a while since my last orgasm. She also made it clear that the orgasm is second on her list. A spanking is her first order of business. I agree, in case you want to know.

As a writer, I think I can describe every experience. I’ve written a lot about my complex and often conflicting feelings about being spanked. It’s hard to admit that so much of my life connects to having my bottom paddled. Like it or not, it does. Mrs. Lion has her own difficulty articulating the role spanking plays in her life. The easy part is that she spanks me because I need it. That’s the same reason she gives me oral sex. She wants me to be happy.

For a long time, I figured that was the only reason she spanked me. I knew that enforcing rules was mostly a game she liked to play. The fact that playing effected positive changes in me was a nice extra. I like the idea of domestic discipline. It’s a subject that I’ve spent a lot of time writing about. In the harsh glare of daylight, I have to admit that there really aren’t that many issues in our marriage that would benefit from disciplinary spankings. Mrs. Lion would have divorced me years ago if there were.

I think that Mrs. Lion likes domestic discipline, too. She enjoys catching me breaking a rule. She gets a glint in her eyes when she informs me that I forgot to do a chore. It doesn’t really upset her if I forget to set up the coffee pot or remind her of punishment day. I know that. She likes the game. You know what? It doesn’t matter. The result is the same. I get what I need, and she has fun.

When it comes to the actual activity of beating me, things get more complex. For a long time, she genuinely disliked spanking me. Over several years, she said that she stopped having bad feelings about beating me. She said that it became just another thing she did for me. There were no emotions attached. Vacuum the bedroom, beat the lion, all the same thing.

If that’s how she feels, I’m fine with that. I think that there is more under the surface. Mrs. Lion doesn’t like to drill down into her feelings. I could be completely wrong, but I think spanking me is more important to her than just another way to keep me happy. I think it has value for her as well.

Of course, she’s the only one who can know that. It would be nice if she found some pleasure in it, too. If not, we are certainly OK. I’m getting what I need, and Mrs. Lion gets some extra cardio exercise.

turning the tables

One of the more amusing aspects of spanking is how it self-cures one of a submissive’s most annoying habits: more. One constant in BDSM that leaks into disciplinary relationships is the “greedy bottom.” Nothing is ever enough. I have to admit that I’ve suffered from this, too.

If the primary activity is spanking, no matter how pain resistant the bottom’s butt, it’s fairly easy to push him to his limit. If a request for “more” is greeted by a serious increase in spanking force, speed, and length, the bottom (me), will be sorry he wanted to step things up.

In most BDSM activities, the top has to work long and hard to provide stimulation for the bottom. More bondage, more CBT, more…well, you get it, means more work for the top. More spanking does require additional effort from the top, but she has considerable leverage in terms of the amount of suffering she can deliver without breaking a sweat.

Most spanking toys are designed to make it easy for the top to have a strong effect on her bottom. As Mrs. Lion has learned, changing to a heavier wood paddle, or just swinging a bit harder and faster, will make me yelp and scream. I used to ask for more serious spankings. I rarely do that now. Why? Because Mrs. Lion is happy to oblige and I’m always very sorry when she does.

A camping-out chaos from our recent move has replaced our routines. Mrs. Lion has been fighting a virus that has made moving difficult. She finally feels better and is back to unpacking. She just came into my office to show me a treasure she unearthed. It’s the very painful bloodwood paddle she enjoys applying to my bottom. She was smiling when she showed it to me. She said that she hasn’t found the strap that holds me down, but is confident it is going to emerge soon.

That strap does a pretty good job of holding me down. After a few minutes, it tends to slip down and needs adjustment and retightening. Being her helpful mate, I found something that might solve that problem, a heavy-duty safety harness that fastens around the waist. It has D-rings on either side. I’ve ordered cinch straps that will allow Mrs. Lion to cinch me down to the spanking bench with no chance of me moving.

She just returned to inform me that she found another box that contained more paddles and the tie-down strap. She said that there is a third box with more spanking implements. Howerver, she is happy with what she’s found. That means I won’t be.

Our move and Mrs. Lion’s treasure hunting have made it very obvious that we both want spanking to continue. In contrast, my pubic hair has been growing for over two months, and Mrs. Lion feels no urgency to set up our waxing equipment. I’m not rushing her to find it; I’m just pointing out that she made spanking a priority. Waxing is arguably less work than spanking, yet Mrs. Lion’s clear choice is the paddle.

She’s admitted that she doesn’t mind spanking me. She isn’t turned on doing it, but doesn’t mind the activity. I think that she may like spanking me. I’m not saying that it’s sexual for her; just that it’s a kind of fun. OK, I want to think that she has a good time doing it. We both know that I need her to spank me regularly. It’s how I’m wired. We also know that the game of catching me breaking a rule and then getting punished is fun for both of us.

Even after all these years, we still haven’t worked out just how often my bottom needs tanning. Calculating this is a little complicated. Maybe we need to consider how often Mrs. Lion needs to spank me. Once we both admit that spanking is more than just punishment and want it, we can approach it more comfortably. I suspect that the outcome will be much more frequent trips to the spanking bench.

Mrs. Lion has been a bit under the weather. We canceled our trip to see “The Fantasticks.” It’s over an hour away to the theater. She needs to take it easy after work. Once she feels better, she plans to spank me. She intends to improvise since she hasn’t located her paddle collection boxes. She’s tried my hairbrush once or twice in the past. It is very effective. I just bought a bath brush. Believe it or not, I need to use it in the shower. I’m not unaware of its potential to bruise my bottom as well.

She surprised me when she said that she also hadn’t found the strap she used to keep me still on the spanking bench. No, I wasn’t surprised that she couldn’t find it. I was surprised she mentioned it. She said spanking me is much easier when I am strapped down. Live and learn. She was a little surprised that I wrote that my throat sometimes hurt after all my yelps and screams. It doesn’t happen too often.

Every time we move, some stuff disappears. In the move before this one, my point-and-shoot digital camera vanished. I bought a new one. I wonder if I shouldn’t order a new strap for the spanking bench. I’ll hold off until we’ve had a better chance of locating it.

We both know that too much time has passed since the last time I was spanked. Our routines have been disrupted between packing, moving, and unpacking. I’m not sure, but I think that Mrs. Lion also misses our disciplinary activities. After all, she has been spanking me for more than two decades. That’s a long time to be doing something you don’t particularly like.

One thing that I’ve wondered about is whether my vocal reactions to her swats affect her. On some occasions, she has preliminarily ended a spanking when I was making a lot of unhappy noises. Other times, she ignored my protests and continued far beyond the ten-minute timer. I’m always grateful when she stops early, but later, when the sting recedes, I wish she had continued. It’s probably better for both of us if she sends a consistent message that I can’t control a spanking. If she sets out to spank for ten minutes, then she should follow through.

I’ll be sorry I wrote this.