An excerpt from The Despot’s Apprentice. Donald Trump’s Attack on Democracy by Brian Klaas:

Over the years, I have learned that most despots are not only twisted, they are also incompetent. They are often bumbling, tragicomically unready characters who are defined not by their disciplined efficiency or effectiveness but by their reckless authoritarian instincts and impulses. Sometimes, those instincts are married to a destructive ideology, such as Nazism or Communism. But much of the time, despots are driven by narcissism, an unquenchable ego that yearns for fame, public adoration, and stardom. For many authoritarian leaders throughout history, their greatest fear was that they would be nobodies—once gone, soon forgotten. Despots fear being, as Trump often says in his most stinging insults, someone “that you’ve never heard of.”

You can read more here: https://www.salon.com/2017/11/13/of-course-it-can-happen-here-trumps-not-a-despot-but-hes-no-friend-to-democracy/