>>2734211>>2734252Let me expand on what it’s actually like living in a hybrid regime and how most of them really function. People in the West talk about “democracy” like it’s some perfect metric, but the reality in a lot of places is very different. Instead of one dictator and his handful of cronies, you end up with two or three big families and thousands of little tyrants. They spend their time competing with each other just enough to protect their own turf, but never enough to actually challenge the system, because nobody wants to rock the boat.
They entrench themselves in key regions and the military is either an underfunded bystander or an active participant that takes a cut from all parties while controlling a region of its own. Like the others, it has little interest in upsetting the balance. The result is a government that stagnates, nothing really gets built, Infrastructure rots, police and public services get scraps. Meanwhile the wealthy isolate themselves in a handful of rich enclaves and gated colonies far away from the actual cities.
This has basically been the pattern in a lot of Latin-America, Africa and parts of Asia since the end of the Cold War. It’s this cycle of corruption and stagnation and nobody has the power or the incentive to actually force development. That’s why controversial as it sounds, even a reactionary dictatorship will be a better option. Take the Dominican Republic under Trujillo. He was brutal and repressive, no question about it, but power was centralized in one man. When he ordered highways built to connect rural areas to cities, they got built, because nobody could tell him no. Anyone who tried to delay things or skim money risked a bullet to the head.
Those kinds of projects created jobs, expanded infrastructure and helped build a middle class. That’s a big part of why some Dominicans still defend Trujillo today. I get why they say it. It’s the kind of reality that a lot of Westerners both on the left or the right don’t really understand.