In current times, democratically elected autocrats include Putin of Russia, Orban of Hungary, Erdoğan of Turkey, Chavez/Maduro of Venezuela, Bukele of El Slavad

In current times, democratically elected autocrats include Putin of Russia, Orban of Hungary, Erdoğan of Turkey, Chavez/Maduro of Venezuela, Bukele of El Slavador, and more. Jumping back a most notorious autocrat, Hitler was democratically elected. Autocracy is not typically imposed by conquest, it is mostly created by corruption of institutions. It is not binary, it is on a scale. In full democracies, all the institutions of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, are independent and serve as checks & balances against each other. And the institutions of society, industry, trade, press, academic, sport, social, etc. are also fully independent. Under autocracy, all of these governmental and societal institutions are corrupted to bend to the will of the autocrat, often by his using force of government to his corrupt ends. This is exactly what Trump just admitted to and Zuckerberg just did — he threatened Zuckerberg with unfair government actions, and Zuckerberg is now converting Facebook to work to further Trump's goals instead of remaining an independent institution. Here's just a few resources on elected autocrats [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-new-autocrats-who-dismantle-democracies-from-within/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-the-new-auto... [1] https://nps.edu/-/nps-professor-takes-a-deep-dive-into-elected-autocrats https://nps.edu/-/nps-professor-takes-a-deep-dive-into-elect... [2] https://academy.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/democrats-and-autocrats-pathways-subnational-undemocratic-regime-continuity https://academy.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/democrats-and... [3] https://press.umich.edu/Blog/2022/07/Elections-in-Modern-Dictatorships-Why-Do-Some-Autocrats-Tie-Their-Hands-by-Credible-Elections https://press.umich.edu/Blog/2022/07/Elections-in-Modern-Dic...