dictator (potential . . . ) n.: man on horseback
[This term refers to a man (often but not necessarily a military figure) whose ambitions, popularity, and influence may afford him, or seem to afford him, the position of a dictator, often during a period of crisis. It derives from General Georges Boulanger, who often rode on a black horse, and who was picked by a group of royalists to lead a coup against the Third Republic in France in the late nineteenth century.]
The name of the [Ross] Perot danger is fascism. … Take away the anti-Semitism of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and the Marxist ideology of Fidel Castro, and Ross Perot fits the model of the fascist dictator perfectly. … In his own image and that of those who mindlessly support him, he is the savior of America, not a big man on horseback but a little man on a billion dollars. (Andrew Greeley, “Mindless Populism Boosts Perot—and Fascist Specter,” Chicago Sun-Times, 5/31/1992.)
