Legitimacy is treated as a substance—something a ruler possesses, accumulates, or inherits. This is another illusion. Legitimacy is not owned. It is temporarily tolerated. Every structure that claims authority survives on a rolling lease: renewed each day by compliance, inertia, fear, habit, or lack of alternatives. When this renewal stops, legitimacy does not weaken—it vanishes. There is no legal mechanism, constitutional clause, historical achievement, or moral narrative that can outlive su...
