As a despot, I’d be a lovable leftie – just be sure to smile at my dog

Good news for megalomaniacs, career politicians, and uncles whose passion for certain pockets of history has gotten pretty suspect lately: fascism is back! Again!

We’re only a few days into the second-biggest geopolitical circus in recent memory, and it’s already weirder, bleaker, more transparently evil than the last time. Nazi-style salutes on stage, unrepentant criminals pardoned, claims of divine intervention … and that was all within the first 24 hours of a little orange someone’s second term. Who knows what sensationalised headlines will dominate the news cycle by the time this column goes to print? It won’t be long until this second wave to the right rushes to other shores, and the pessimist in me – or by now am I just a realist? – is braced for other countries to elect similar idols. Tyranny is catching.

Credit: Robin Cowcher

There are better writers than me, more qualified and better-informed journalists and political commentators with the skills and newspaper inches to analyse, explain and rally against what’s happening now and what will surely follow. Glued though I am to the news, surprise is one emotion not sitting close to the surface. When people tell you who they are, believe them, etcetera. This time around, I’m not shocked, dismayed, or even in disbelief. I find myself … unimpressed.

I’ll come right out and say it: I’m not a huge fan of genocide, racism, stripping people of their rights, institutionalised oppression, class wars, media manipulation, or policies that drag us all back into the Dark Ages, and I’m not quite sure why these despots-in-waiting are. If you had infinite resources and unchecked power, wouldn’t you want to use them to, if not make the world a better place for literally everybody, then enshrine yourself as a hero to more than just your knot of rabid followers?

I’d make a pretty good dictator, I think. My mother and all my exes would agree. My personality is a heady mix of petty, empathetic, strongly principled, and needy for approval. If I’m going to go down in history, let it be for something good.

Sure, I’d enact all the policies you would expect from a north-side Millennial leftie who spends all her time with socialists, vegans and lesbians:

That billionaires shouldn’t exist. That every red cent over $999,999,999 should be funnelled into eradicating climate change, poverty, racism, sexism, institutionalised inequality, domestic violence, homophobia, obstacles to medical care, and overfilled animal shelters, and that only once those problems have been permanently solved, should we revisit tax reform for the 0.001 per cent.

That governments shouldn’t be stacked with blatantly corrupt fossils and sycophants, and that religious texts shouldn’t be the basis for medical laws. That if someone has been found liable for sexual assault, they don’t get to hold positions of power.

That ordinary people shouldn’t have guns. That literally nobody needs massive utes with blue-white LED headlights that burn through people’s corneas. That property hoarders don’t need this much government support. That soulless corporate monopolies that underpay employees, under-tax themselves, violate workers’ rights, churn out landfill fodder and cripple industries have no place in society. That people should be allowed to live their lives as best suits them, so long as it doesn’t hurt someone else. Were I the supreme leader of millions, I would simply choose not to bomb hospitals or attempt to eradicate entire demographics. I’m revolutionary that way.

I’d plant forests, improve infrastructure, reduce coffee prices, give every child a puppy. I’d ban single-use plastics and outlaw e-bikes on footpaths. Give the people what they really want and colour me beloved.

I’d make a pretty good dictator, I think. My mother and all my exes would agree.

But I’m not all fluff. I’m only human, and the power would certainly go to my head.

In my little utopia, I’ll ban all Christmas music except River and Last Christmas – watch as rates for brain aneurysms plummet between November and January every year. If someone sends unsolicited close-up pictures of their genitals, their mother will immediately be notified, and the public shaming will commence. Prison for anyone who watches videos on public transport without headphones. A year of hard labour per minute someone spends mansplaining the stockmarket. I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I could see myself looking the other way on firing squads for people who don’t smile at my dog on walks, and my best friend’s secretly married ex-boyfriend.

Under my iron fist, the law of the land is less “Your body, my choice” and more “Everyone just be cool, OK?”. Wow, I make authoritarianism look so easy.

But I’ll never make it to the top job. It takes a certain kind of psychopath to reach tyrant status. I’m not bloodthirsty enough, not fuelled by self-loathing, not so insecure I’d burn the world down to keep myself warm.

So all I can do is watch the same story play out, history repeating itself until the lesson it’s trying to teach us actually gets learned, the same old plot with a brand new cast. I can’t find the remote to change the channel. Wake me when the show’s over, won’t you?