this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
197 points (99.0% liked)

History Memes

2913 readers
740 users here now

A place to share history memes!

Rules:

  1. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.

  2. No fascism (including tankies/red fash), atrocity denial or apologia, etc.

  3. Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.

  4. Follow all Piefed.social rules.

  5. History referenced must be 20+ years old.

  6. Avoid posting AI-generated content whenever possible.

Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world

OTHER COMMS IN THE HISTORYVERSE:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
PugJesus@piefed.social
Deceptichum@quokk.au
PugJesus@lemmy.world
197
Like Castro and Lenin and Cromwell and Robespierre and- (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 day ago by fellow_human@lemmy.zip to c/historymemes@piefed.social
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Context: the classic "power corrupts" cycle. Revolutionaries promise freedom and justice, but the second they get a taste of absolute power, they suddenly decide it's too good to give up. Castro, Lenin, Cromwell, Robespierre... they all started as "men of the people" and ended up as the very tyrants they swore to overthrow. The meme just takes that historical pattern and makes it hilariously blunt.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 4 points 23 hours ago

There are plenty of cases of this NOT being true, mostly when the person did not choose the power for themselves. Case in point: Presidents George Washington and James A. Garfield. Power doesn't corrupt; corrupt people seek power.

That being said if you guys wanted to elect me dictator I would absolutely obliterate our current oligarchy and then totally give up power voluntarily as soon as I was done :)