Comment by StrauXX

No they don't. The issue with dictatorships is that your powerbase rurns from "the people" (or a wealthy subset of the people, depending on how well your democracy works), to a small group of powerfull supporters. Army generals, police chiefs and so on. Even if you were an angel, the power dynamics of dictatorships don't give you the ability of doing all too much for the general populace. Thats the beuaty of democracy. Your power base is (indirectly and delayed, but still) the people. This aligns incentives and power dynamics between power holders and regular inhabitants much more than in any kind of autocracy.