system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Eli5: What does it mean when an autocratic leader falls into a "Dictator Trap"?
gpt
No dictator can be everywhere and do everything.  
They depend on people to tell them things, and do things for them.  
The problem is that dictators are human, and humans don't like people telling them they're wrong, something they want to do is stupid, or something has gone really really bad.  
And when you tell a dictator he's wrong, something they want to do
is stupid, or something has gone really really bad, they start feeling upset.  
And when they are upset they can make the person who made them upset dead or far far away and nobody can stop them because they are the dictator.  
So after a few years, all those people are dead or gone, and the only people around are people who always tell the dictator that they're right, that what they want is smart, and things are going well.  
Which is a problem because sometimes dictators are wrong, want something stupid, and things are going horribly, and nobody tells them and things keep going worse and worse.  
In addition, being the kind of person who always tells a dictator they're right often aren't very good at actually doing their jobs. Meaning that things go bad much more often.  
  
So that's the dictators trap. A dictator tends to end up surrounded by people who tell him everything is fine and right, while screwing it up and making it stupid. 

Now when things get bad enough, you can't hide it's bad anymore, so the dictator might kill you or send you away. You realize that everyone else is feeling it. So you might have the idea that killing the dictator is safer, and that anyone who actually brings it up to the dictator might be killed by the dictator because everyone plotting against him is REALLY bad. So it often results in a bunch of people getting together, and the first sign the dictator gets that anything is wrong is when they start killing him.