We've Already Been Through Trump: A Letter From Prof. Dainov to US Intellectuals

In February, political scientist Professor Evgenii Dainov wrote a letter to American intellectuals. The occasion was the new term of President Donald Trump and his first actions, which unsettled both Americans and the world. In his letter, the professor tells his colleagues what it’s like to live under a dictatorship, believing that our experience could arm them with useful insight into what is happening. Fellow-professors from Central and Eastern Europe probably did the same.

10 February 2025

My name is Evgenii Dainov; I am Professor of Politics at the New Bulgarian University. Back in the day, I spent a decade heavily involved in the work of the Political Academy for Central and Eastern Europe. Funded by the NDI, IRI and the British Conservative Party, the Academy trained emergent democratic politicians. Quite a number of them are still around and fight doggedly on the side of democracy,
Without timely and targeted American help, we would not have made it to the shores of democracy. We are greatly in your debt.
I am now trying to repay some of that debt by sharing with you the attached document.
Americans have no experience with, nor a memory of authoritarian rule. Central and East Europeans have both the experience and the memory, going back several generations. We know what the Americans will be learning. Now is the time to share our knowledge.
I hope this is useful. But it would not be of any use if the addressees lack that one essential virtue, on which everything else stands: resolute, steadfast courage.

Sincere regards,

Evgenii Dainov

Professor

14 Categorical Imperatives Regarding Dictators

Whatever Donald Trump does – look at these Imperatives. It’s all in here. Do not delude yourself: normalcy is, for the time being, gone.

1. One word lies behind these Imperatives: “relentless”.

2. The Dictator will say the unthinkable and do the unimaginable. Things said and things done will escalate relentlessly; there is never any “breather”, because it would allow people to get their bearings and possibly organize to resist.

3. Initial disbelief at the scale of things, combined with the hope that The Dictator will come to his senses, leads to swift defeat of democracy: by the time people have understood that The Dictator will not come to his senses, it is too late to organize effectively.

4. Escalation is a fundamental dictatorial principle. Its aim is to create a permanent state of emergency, thereby leading to popular clamour for forceful emergency measures to handle the emergency.

5. The Dictator never negotiates with a view to compromise. He plays zero-sum games and will create conflicts everywhere he can, believing that strife is macho and peace is for wimps.

6. When The Dictator promises to do something for ordinary people, he is always lying. When the promised benefits for the people do not materialize, The Dictator will not be bothered: he will blame it on hostile foreign powers and, domestically, on enemies of the people.

7. When The Dictator promises to grab more and more power in order to do nasty things to other people – he is always telling the truth. Believe his threats; do not believe his benevolent promises.

8. After he has concentrated power and staffed the institutions of government with his henchmen, The Dictator will swiftly and with a show of brutality destroy the judiciary, the independent media and the NGOs.

9. The Dictator will go after his enemies and opponents, as well as his friends and supporters. Friends and supporters must be punished preventively, because they are likely to believe that The Dictator has a cause and, at some point in the future, berate him for not serving it.

10. The Dictator does not unify; he divides. The aim is to mobilize the violent minority, encourage it to unleash violence and thus get the majority to acquiesce due to fear. The violence of the minority and the fear of the majority are the twin pillars The Dictator stands on.

11. The Dictator will relentlessly enforce a regime of double-think and double-speak. The aim is to eradicate the very notion that there is truth or fact. In the end, truth is what The Dictator says.

12. That truth will vary day by day. The aim is to keep everyone off-balance and silent.

13. The Dictator will practice arbitrary repression. There will be no rules and no predictability. The intention is to make everyone know that, whatever they do or not do, they may be next. The ultimate aim is to eradicate the very idea of predictability and security: to instill the conviction that everything depends on The Dictator’s whims.

14. The Dictator can be stopped only with superior force. Before that becomes available, resistance must start on day one and confront all dictatorial moves. The earlier the resistance begins, the nearer the moment when superior force will become available. 

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