How did rulers and dictators get so good at dominating people who don't like them?

Et tu Brutus? Or in other words, they don’t.

Chain of Command is the best I can come up with.

Love the avatar, Hypo_.

Dictators generally come into office with a promise of sweeping reform, message of nationalism, and an army of thugs, who enforce adherence.

Divide & Conquer

Presumably the each of the cronies is getting something that is in his best interest, and they need to continue to support the dictator in order to get it. Get enough cronies with their best interests at heart and they will happily help the dictator to keep down the common folk. If the dictator is assassinated by a well-meaning citizen or by one of the cronies seeking to fill his place, another one can rise. It’s really hard to change a corrupt government from within.

Make sure they don’t know things could be better. Information is tightly controlled as are people’s actions. If you wear them down, eventually they’ll give up in resignation. Fighting back isn’t worth it for most people (or at least, they don’t think it is).

Fear

I think a lot of them are quite charasmatic and convince people that they are going to do good if put into a position of power and then by the time people realize who they really are it’s too late. They already have too much power.

Oh that’s a little harsh on the mods don’t you think? :¬) I mean, I like them, well most anyhoo.

@ucme You got me there, what a chuckle, I was not particularly thinking mods when the question came up. It came from a conversation with my brother over noted douches of the past like Stalin, Castro, Caligula, etc.

@Hypocrisy_Central Yeah, tell it to the judge ;¬}

Once you control the police, the military, communications and the banks, there isn’t a helluva lot the opposition can do to you.

@Espiritus_Corvus To a point the army will follow, then they get pushed over the line at least some of them, Hitler had all sorts of descention in the ranks and if they were not trying to assasinate hime they were not following orders. But even as things were sliding South and he was loath my many in his ranks they followed. A sniper on a hill and a commander leading him in the garden to a favorable spot and it would have all been over.

@Hypocrisy_Central Yep, and they all ended up on meat hooks. With all the hills and gardens in Cuba and North Korea, somebody really should warn the Castro brothers and Kim Jong-il about these snipers you speak of.

^ There are all sorts of science calculations about the placement of the bomb, the structure absorbing the blast, etc. truth is they did not use a large enough bomb, had they; it would not have made a difference they would not have ended up hooked. In short, I guess it is the fear of lose over the desire to gain. If you believe this here is all we have, I guess one would rather live under the foot of oppression until death than to risk the unknown of death (or the known nothingness) for a chance at freedom, no matter how fleeting.