What is the purpose of the dashes in this excerpt from "totally like whatever, you know? " "declarative sentences—so--called because they used to, like, declare things to be true, okay, as opposed to other things are, like, totally, you know, not— have been infected by a totally hip and tragically cool interrogative tone? "
a)to demonstrate uncertainty about the normal flow of ideas
b)to indicate an approval of the normal flow of ideas
c)to interrupt the pattern of speaking in the normal flow of ideas
d)to create a unusually normal flow of ideas

The answer is C) To interrupt the pattern of speaking in the normal flow of ideas.

Explanation:

Mali Taylor in "Totally like whatever, you know?" uses the stops, commas and words "like", "totally", "you know" and hyphens to create a speaking pattern with breaks and demonstrate a stop in the normal flow of ideas.

whats the last sentence of the passage?

historically speaking, military dictators usually come into power

as the result of a military coup d'etat that was successful against  

whatever form of government existed before.  

sometimes the military dictator was put in place by winning a civil war.  

    occasionally military dictators conduct phony 'elections'  

in order to claim that they were elected by the people.

but there are never any serious candidates running against the dictator.

when a dictator becomes too old for governing his country,

he usually tries to arrange for one of his sons to take over power  

after he is dead and gone.  

when that is not possible, some secret decisions within the military

results in the next dictator taking power

—whether by means of an 'election' or another coup d'etat.  

    countries with little experience of other forms of government

often assume that a military strongman is their natural leader.  

military dictators want to stay in power for as long as possible.  

often the only way they leave office is feet first,

that is, they must die or be killed while still in power  

before the next form of government will take over.

explanation: