It's the same with Putin. EU-Russia had a good working relationship where Russia sends oil&gas and EU sends Mercedes and Adidas and live happily. However this is not enough for the megalomaniacs at the top, this is boring they need to be conquerors they need their place in the history books be longer than a chapter.

Maybe going forward there must be safeguards against power accumulation. The checks and balances obviously didn't work, so something more potent is needed.

In Europe it took Putin, Erdogan and the others 20 years to come the place where Trump reached in less than a years, so US needs it much more acutely obviously.

BTW this is not only about protecting the society from their existence but also protect the society from their sudden disappearance. With such concentration of power, the power of the nation often dies with those people. If they survive long enough to transition power peacefully, the best they can do is to leave it to their son and their sons often turns out to inherit the brutalities without the skills.