George Orwell anticipates the political Left circa 2021

Now I will tell you the answer to my question.  It is this.  The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.  We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.  What pure power means you will understand presently.  We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.  All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.  The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.  They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.  We are not like that.  We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.  The object of persecution is persecution.  The object of torture is torture.  The object of power is power.  Now you begin to understand me.

~ George Orwell, 1984

Edward Gibbon on the delusion of a benign dictatorship

[The Romans] must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the destruction of that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices of the emperor.

~ Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volume I, Chapter III, Part II)

Charles Bukowski on the difference between democracy and dictatorship

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.

~ Charles Bukowski

Register & Vote
1968

Tom DiLorenzo on how Lincoln rationalized the suspension of constitutional liberties

Having suspended habeas corpus, Lincoln ordered the arrest and imprisonment of virtually anyone who disagreed with his views - views that were new, radical, and not yet subject to any debate by the people's representatives in Congress or by the judiciary...  Lincoln rationalized this suspension of constitutional liberties - at least in his own mind - with the rhetorical tool of falsely equating the Constitution with the Union... [even though secession] was certainly the belief of most Americans at the time.  In the end, it was Lincoln's willingness to use brute military force, not his legal reasoning or his rhetorical talents, that allowed him to get away with such a radical assault on constitutional liberties.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, pp. 132-133

Marching in Step to the Music of the Union

Time magazine on the tendency of dictatorship to go to war

The dynamics of dictatorship are such that few who have studied Fascism and its leaders can envision sexless, restless, instinctive Adolf Hitler rounding out a mellow middle age in his mountain chalet at Berchtesgaden while a satisfied German people drink beer and sing folk songs. There is no guarantee that the have-not nations will go to sleep when they have taken what they now want from the haves. To those who watched the closing events of the year it seemed more than probable that the Man of 1938 may make 1939 a year to be remembered.

~ Time editors, "Adolph Hitler. Man of the Year, 1938," Time, January 2, 1939

Lew Rockwell on Trump: "It's a big bonus that all the right people hate him"

It's a big bonus with Trump that all the right people hate him... To my knowledge, there's never been a dictator-businessman.  That says something. Doesn't mean there couldn't be a first time, of course...  I think it's good not to be part of a gang.  Maybe you'd have some new approaches.  It's one of the things that scares the whole regime about him, that he's unpredictable.  And of course I think that's a good thing because if he's unpredictable maybe he'll actually do something good, as shocking as that might be.

~ Lew Rockwell, interview with Jay Taylor, August 30, 2016