Apathy. That's all it would take. The sheeple following what a government controlled media put forth.
Dealey Plaza, where an unsuspecting President was shot by a psychotic sniper.
How long did Joseph Stalin live? How long did Mao Tse Tung live? Were they killed by snipers? Were they overthrown by popular uprisings?
Anyone can kill an unsuspecting person.
It's a lot harder to kill someone that's prepared and expects attempts on their lives at any time.
Sorry, Tiger, I'm not attempting to downplay the use of resistance fighters. Resistance fighters can pave the way for an uprising or the overthrowing of a government but they, in and of themselves, cannot get the job done without, at some point, directly opposing government controlled troops.
An unscrupulous dictator, with no morals, no sense of compassion, paranoid to the extreme, and controlling a core of troops to support staying in power would be an extremely hard proposition to assasinate.
Do you think the MSM is government controlled and would accept government troops unleashing WMDs (you made WMDs the standard in your first post) on Americans in order to go after the few who would be actively committing acts of violence against the government? I can't see it. That would be a 180 degree turn around from the MSM I see today. I also think the surest way to end apathy would be such action.
An unscrupulous dictator, with no morals, no sense of compassion, paranoid to the extreme, and controlling a core of troops to support staying in power would be an extremely hard proposition to assassinate.
Thousands of other pols and bureaucrats wouldn't be though. Mayors, judges, legislators, LEO chiefs of all kinds. If enough kept turning up dead the pressure would turn back towards the top.
Sorry, Joe, no guerrilla force has ever been defeated on its own soil.