The Smart Authoritarian's Guide to Undermining Your Opposition

And what a smart opposition can do to protect itself

Many people claim to know What Democrats Need Do to Win and are shouting about it on social media. A lot of the advice is better suited for campaigns run in the 1990s or early 2000s. Personally, I really like Project Enduring Majority’s recommendations. Following

Will Robinson

and

Amy Pritchard, ❌👑

on here is also a good corrective.

As good as they are, these strategies are designed for a political, legal and media environment that, if it still exists, has numbered days. While I 100% agree that making personal connections, expanding the map, and building an always-on digital media ecosystem are essential for Democrats, they won’t be enough to withstand what’s coming. U.S. elections will be increasingly shaped by closing-space dynamics; wartime tactics are needed.

I’ve been working with the political opposition in closed and closing spaces for more than twenty years. I’ve seen opponents of entrenched political power be crippled by the pressure of building a resilient, broad-based opposition movement. The Azerbaijan opposition in 2004 faced many of the same obstacles as Russians in 2010, Turks in 2014, 2018 and 2023, and Georgians and Serbians in 2025. And, as Democrats inevitably will face in 2026. Democrats have to prepare now for the kinds of elections these movements have faced, rather than hope for the type of elections we’re used to. It’s not 1992, 2008 or even 2016.

Authoritarians have a big tool box for consolidating power in a weakened democracy: dark money and weak campaign finance laws; aligned oligarchic control of media outlets; elite capture, and control of the judiciary. But one of the most effective ways to gain the upper hand in a backsliding democracy is to neuter your opposition.

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If you’re an authoritarian who wants to weaken your opponents without the bad optics of putting them in jail, existing tools work great. Additionally, most can be used on opposition at all levels of government, even in the federalized system in the U.S. While they’re going work best at the national party level, impacts will shape dynamics at the state and local levels as well.

The big advantage to playing divide and conquer is that your opposition does a lot of the heavy lifting of undermining itself for you. Furthermore, the damage can take decades to repair. Meanwhile, you can focus on trickier tasks like ensuring the loyalty of the judiciary and security services.

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I’ve rated each divide and conquer tactic on a scale of 0 to 10 in terms of destructiveness for the opposition. Zero is rather benign and reversible. Ten can produce generational fracture. Here we go:

• Disrupt fundraising channels. Democrats don’t, for the moment, have problems fundraising. That will change when big donors are pressured by the regime to not give, or are punished economically for having done so. Given the outsize importance of money in US campaigns and the general spinelessness shown so far by the economic elite, this will be one of the first real squeezes. Provoke loud fights over who is getting contributions, from whom and what they promised to do or not do in exchange for them. Also, Act Blue is the best tool Democrats have for small donor fundraising. Surely something can be done about that. Destructiveness rating: 7

• Stoke internal conflicts: This is a no-brainer. By their nature, political parties have internal divisions. I’ve been told Democrats have a few. Lacking an always-on firehose to pump garbage into the information environment, and without a sealed information silo to shield its supporters from the regime’s firehose, fractious Democrats are poorly equipped to navigate an information environment specifically designed to inflame internal conflicts. Destructiveness rating: 8

• Provoke disunity: In countries where political oppositions have been out of power for decades, establishing governing credibility is essential. That’s one of the reasons why Ukraine’s Nasha Ukraina put Viktor Yushchenko, a former Prime Minster and central bank governor under Leonid Kuchma, at the top of their ticket in 2004. Many longtime activists grumbled because of his alignment with Kuchma, but the opposition agreed to unify behind him and he won the presidency. Democrats don’t need MAGA figures for governing credibility, but the decision to include people who are associated with corrupt or discredited regimes always causes internal strife that can be exploited (see: Cheney, Liz). The destructiveness of this dynamic depends on how well parties can mitigate internal opposition and build a unified coalition that includes disgruntled regime defectors, so it’s important to get right. Destructiveness rating: 7

• Complicate election strategies: The Georgian opposition tore itself into even more pieces when some opposition parties chose to run candidates in the October 2025 local elections while others boycotted. Should the opposition participate in rigged elections to try to win a few seats and influence the system from within? Or, should they boycott and draw attention to the rigged system by refusing to participate in it? It’s a strategic dilemma for the ages. Facilitate the fights over it by quietly offering incentives for some parties to participate. Destructiveness rating: 8

• Create a “constructive” opposition: Creating your own opposition is Managed Democracy 101. Friend of MAGA Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia is a master at this. So was Putin, when he still cared about optics. After you incentivize fence sitters to run in fraudulent elections, demonstrate your commitment to democracy by letting some of them win (they won’t complain about a bit of fraud because they don’t want their own legitimacy called into question). Then, reward donors for contributing to some campaigns and ignoring others. Finally, ensure material or political reward for your “opposition,” particularly media access, if they’re willing to criticize their own side for not being “constructive.” Voilà! You’ve created an opposition that’s beholden to you if they want to accrue the benefits of power (it’s not selling out, it’s buying in!). Plus, they undermine their allies for you. Best of all, the vicious opposition fights over the question of who is the “real” opposition will fuel public battles for generations. Destructiveness rating: 11

• Decapitate leaders: Not literally, of course! If you do that it’s harder (but not impossible) to maintain elite capture. You can buy loyalty and deepen divisions by weighing in on the side of the weaker/more incompetent candidate in a leadership fight. Accumulate real or fake ammunition against emerging leaders who could pose a threat. With the volume of data you’ve already collected on everyone, and media controlled by your corporate allies, you can ensure no one promising gets traction. Anyone considering a run will also imagine how her or his vulnerabilities might play when broadcast on X. Outcome: smart, ambitious people avoid politics, leaving only craven opportunists and morons (who are alway present, just diluted by smarter people, in well-functioning systems). Destructiveness rating: 9

No team plays a good game on an uneven field. If an opposition codes as incompetent it could be because it genuinely is. It could also be that it faces obstacles intentionally designed to make it look feckless (a chicken-and-egg debate popular in Turkey, Serbia, Georgia and Russia). It’s usually impossible for voters to tell which is the more influential variable, so most default to “the opposition is feckless and full of incompetent morons so we might as well keep voting for the guy who deports all the brown people.”

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Unfortunately, there are few, if any, silver bullets in response to these challenges. It’s very hard to resist, but strong parties with deep roots in their communities, internal coherence and transparency and a record of accomplishment are more resilient than hollow shells with big fundraising lists and heavy consultant loads.

Some responses to divide and conquer tactics include:

• When schisms are provoked, prioritize unity; Democrats enjoy high 40% support, which would be a source of envy in Georgia or Russia. Lose 10% because of a fracture and the movement’s ability to overcome structural disadvantages in the legal, electoral and media environment diminishes. Look, the Pope agrees and people say he’s infallible.

• Build strong opposition coalitions that include labor, faith organizations, security services and business. The U.S. electorate is closely divided and many voters will simply never leave Trump. Give cover to defectors and secure every vote you can get, especially from non-traditional corners.

• Build fundraising resilience by decentralizing, so one platform or type of platform can’t be closed down by the regime.

• Implement internal party transparency, accountability, strong internal communications and inclusive decision-making, especially around candidate selection. This facilitates unity.

• Foster multiple leadership nodes so one damaged leader doesn’t weaken the whole movement. This tactic is well-suited for the U.S. federal system. Blue state governors are already delivering the goods.

• Promote information integrity education for all, but especially for older, non-digital native voters. Help supporters understand which fights represent genuine differences of opinion within the party and which are inflamed by outside agitators. Provide the context for the fights, identify who is instigating them and most importantly, explain what’s at stake. Moldovan President Maia Sandu did a masterful job of exposing efforts to split her coalition in September’s election. Read what she did to secure her party’s majority in parliament despite massive Russian influence operations.

• Develop legal strategies to identify and challenge election/campaign finance violations by the regime, build broad political alliances in opposition to the violations and implement communications strategies to make sure voters know about them, know who is responsible and understand the implications.

• Keep an eye on the weather. Elites constantly put a finger to the wind to check the direction. When it shifts, be ready to pull them and their resources into the big tent, especially if they control media outlets. Pick them off one by one and split the other side’s coalition. Adjudicate the conflicts after you win.

The Trump regime is speed-running a decade or more of democratic backsliding in one year. It took Turkey that long to get to a point where most of these dynamics were solidified. Even then, people (myself included!) denied they were happening. Don’t make that mistake. This job will hard enough without the delusions.

The writing is on the wall. Fighting last election’s battle rather than preparing for what’s coming next is political malpractice.