Masha Gessen made a memory for me one morning in 2014. Ukraine had just voted to reject the anti-European pro-Russian leadership, flouting the will of Putin. She predicted the result would be some form of 'rape'. This of course was prior to the Russian seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, and attempts that persist to this day to acquire Ukrainian territory under the guise of a civil war in Ukraine.
Masha has since become a regular writer for The New Yorker and she propounded "Rules For Autocracy" for the Era of Trump (and Putin). This article is an update of the rules.

Any of you have your own personal take?

Mine is a little of the specfic 'autocracy' issue. I believe the age of Trump has spawned a kind of idiocracy or more accurately Ideocracy that involves a combination of BS and incompetence. The result is a kind of freedom for those who do not let trumpism turn them into knee jerk trumpettes or anti-trumpists.