Via Open Culture:
Nobody likes a despot — even despots know it. But actually identifying despotism can pose a certain difficulty — which despots also know, and they'd surely like to keep it that way. Hence Encyclopedia Britannica's Despotism, a ten-minute Erpi Classroom Film on how a country slides into that eponymous state. It uses the example of Nazi Germany (which might strike us today as the most obvious one but back in 1946 must have felt almost too fresh), but generalizes the concept by looking back into more distant history, as far as Louis XIV's immortal remark, "L'état, c'est moi."
Let’s all keep in mind what progressives are fighting for—and against—this Independence Day.