Exactly - and most Americans are naive on dictator behavior. The fastest way to turn a functioning country into an enfeebled mess is to have a dictator on one side and on the other, a reactive 'liberal' party whose new sole purpose is to prevent dictatorship. This never works well, because the opposition party tends to believe a big swing to the far left is a good antidote to authoritarianism, while history shows it is not. Several Latin American and South East Asian countries provide perfect case studies in how not to counter a dictator.