Across the world, traditional norms of democracy are deteriorating. In many countries, such as Russia, China, India, and many more, democracy is being replaced by authoritarian leaders. Although these leaders are all very different, they have many similarities, which can and ought to be used to identify them before they become problematic.
The most central part of any authoritarian rule is the cult of personality. This cult is built up over many years, to the point where citizens are not voting for any policies in particular, but for a candidate. This cult serves two purposes, to maintain popular support for the leader, and to prevent the leader from suffering a coup. Through the cult of personality, all problems can be deflected off of the leader and onto his, the word his is used because not a single female strongman has emerged around the world, subordinates. Furthermore the cult of personality prevents the leader from falling to any coups, as all popular support is clustered around him. Therefore, the cult of personality is able to protect the leader from both internal and external threats.
One of the most common strategies used by leaders is to frame themselves as one of the people fighting against the elites, despite being one of these elites, and will use that to portray themselves in a positive manner. An example of this is in Africa, where a certain ethnic minority had controlled much of the government for centuries. A new leader made a public point of removing that minority from the government, earning himself a lot of popular support. However, as time went on into his reign, this minority gained control over much of the government again. Therefore showing that this leader did not truly mean to reform or change anything, but simply to bolster his image.
Many authoritarian leaders use racial tensions or racial fear to secure their rule. For example, in India, although 80% of the population is Hindu, a leader called Modi was able to campaign on the fears that the Hindu majority was being repressed. This strategy was very effective as Modi was able to effectively polarize the country, with his side having 80% of the population and the other side only having 20%. Furthermore, he was able to deepen the polarization through his racist policies against muslims. This has led to a strengthening of his base, despite disastrous policy around events such as covid.
Strongmen despise freedom of media and speech as it cuts down on their authority. Especially when strengthening the cult of personality, an obedient media is essential to a strongman. This allows him to completely control the flow of information to the people, and even to frame his bad decisions as good ones. Furthermore, strongmen can use the media to spread their own disinformation, allowing them to reach younger generations of people. Overall, strongmen are able to use the media to stem the flow of information reaching people and to only let people learn about the information and the statistics that they want them to hear about and that will frame them in a positive light.
It is nearly impossible to stage an effective coup against a properly running democratic system from the outside, so strongmen leaders first ascend to power legally and then take it by force. An effective example of this is Hitler. Hitler gained support in Weimar Germany in the late 1920s, and tried to use that support to take over the country. However, he was ultimately unsuccessful, which led him to the realization that he needed to topple the system from inside. Once he was able to get his way into a top administrative role, it was easy for him to unravel democracy and set himself up as a dictator. Therefore, in most if not all scenarios, strongmen start off as respectable democratic candidates who win their country's election.