#4: Storms and Streets Break Regimes

You know what scares authoritarians the most? It’s not elections. It’s natural disasters and mass protests.

Why? Because those are two events they can’t fully script or control. Both are highly visible. Both force people to reevaluate what kind of leader they really have. And both are uniquely revealing. You can’t fake how you respond to a massive earthquake, hurricane, fire, pandemic or famine. You also can’t fake how you respond to mass protests.

Natural Disasters as Information Reveals

Autocrats work hard to control the narrative. But natural disasters operate outside their control. Extreme heatwaves, snowstorms, tsunamis, and floods don’t follow talking points. They demand coordination and competence and speed. And when the state fails to deliver, everyone sees it.

That’s why disasters are so dangerous to strongmen. They don’t just expose a government’s capacity. They expose its priorities, its cronyism, its blind spots. And they affect everyone including the strongmen’s biggest believers.

In May 2008, a massive earthquake struck China’s Sichuan province, killing almost 90,000 people. At first, the Chinese government responded quickly, allowing some media coverage and even limited international aid. But soon, cracks appeared.

Thousands of children died when poorly built schools collapsed. Parents began protesting, demanding to know why so many public buildings had crumbled while government offices continued to stand. When authorities tried to silence them, the protests grew. It took the earthquake for ordinary citizens to realize how broken their government actually was.

In January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti, killing over 200,000 people and leaving millions homeless. The Haitian government responded slowly and incompetently. When relief came it was mostly from international NGOs, exposing just how weak and hollow their own government had become.

We’ve seen this dynamic in the U.S. as well. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, George W. Bush’s approval ratings plummeted. His slow, confused federal response together with images of mostly Black residents stranded on rooftops, exposed how unprepared and out of touch his administration had become.

And in 2020, COVID-19 did the same to Donald Trump. He downplayed the threat, attacked public health officials, and focused more on the stock market than on saving lives. But the crisis exposed what many had suspected: there was no real plan. Trump’s illusion of competence, at least to some of his supporters, collapsed. Seniors and independents shifted their support away from him and he lost the next election.

Protests as Political Stress Tests

If natural disasters reveal a leader’s capacity to govern, mass protests reveal something even more dangerous: the level of support they actually have.

Protests test the regime. They show whether people are willing to risk their safety to oppose the government. They show how broad and deep the dissatisfaction really is. And they force a response, in real time, for everyone to see.

That response itself also provides valuable information to the public. It shows whether the president has the support of the military, the loyalty of the police, and the discipline to handle an angry and swelling crowd. It also requires something many wanna-be autocrats don’t have: restraint, experience, and patience.

The instinct of most strongmen is to crack down fast and hard. But that almost always backfires because it reveals malice and cold-heartedness instead.

In Belarus in 2020, when mass protests erupted after a rigged election, Alexander Lukashenko responded with violence. It worked in the short term, but at a cost: his legitimacy vanished and so did much of his international support.

In Egypt in 2011, Mubarak’s violent crackdown only brought more people into the streets. The army eventually abandoned him, sensing the public had turned. Once that happened, Mubarak’s game was over and he quickly resigned.

Protests are hard to manage even in healthy democracies. In autocracies, where power is centralized and dissent is feared, they’re potentially explosive. A single misstep can send hundreds of thousands into the street. The information they reveal is powerful.

What Comes Next in the U.S.

The United States will almost certainly face at least one major natural disaster if not several in the next three and a half years. The U.S. averages 10 to 15 federally declared disasters per year. We are also likely to see more mass protests, especially if his administration cancels or delays elections, or charges political opponents with “treason” or “terrorism.” For many Americans, protest will feel like the only tool left.

What can we expect from Trump in a moment like this?

Trump is surrounded by loyalists who tell him what he wants to hear. Few have deep experience in crisis management. Many have shown themselves to be unqualified, self-interested, or openly hostile to democratic norms. If his administration is tested by large-scale disasters or national protests - and it will be – it’s going to respond slowly, defensively, and ineffectively.

That matters. It matters because it hurts citizens. But it also weakens the regime. If the government can’t manage a flood, a fire, or a protest without overreaching or falling apart, even core supporters will wonder if the president is fit to lead. And it won’t just hurt his party’s chances in the next election, it’ll make it much harder for him to govern because criticism will start coming from all sides.

That leaves us in an uncomfortable but important place. No one wishes for a disaster. But in fragile political systems, it is often the crisis that reveals what people have been unwilling or afraid to see. Poor leadership, empty institutions, and a loyalty-based inner circle are easy to overlook in quiet times. They’re impossible to ignore in emergencies.

And protests? They are one of the last ways people can express collective dissent when other channels are shut. If Americans aren’t yet ready to take to the streets, a single, undeniable moment of government failure might be the thing that finally convinces them to act.