dictablanda means A soft-handed dictatorship. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
Why this word is great
DICTABLANDA — [Noun] A dictatorship that exercises power in a relatively lenient or soft-handed manner, often preserving a veneer of basic civil liberties. Borrowed from Spanish dictablanda, a portmanteau of dictadura ("dictatorship") and blanda ("soft"). Unlike dictadura, which evokes the iron taste of a gun barrel, or totalitarianism, which commands the soul as well as the street, a dictablanda is a calculated performance of forbearance. It is the newspaper that critiques the economy but never the president's family, the protest allowed in the designated square but not beyond it, and the secret police who monitor but do not always arrest—a bargain of quietude for a simulacrum of normalcy, which is often tyranny's most durable deception: the belief that one is not entirely unfree.
noun
- A soft-handed dictatorship.