Meanwhile, 44 percent backed the American tradition of competing branches of government as a model, if sometimes “frustrating,” system.

Why would people want to live under an authoritarian’s thumb? It’s rooted, experts say, in a psychological need for security—real or perceived—and a desire for conformity, a goal that becomes even more acute as the country undergoes dramatic demographic and social changes. People also like to obey a strong leader who will protect the group—especially if it is the “right” group whose interests will be protected. Recall the Trump supporter who, during the 2019 government shutdown, complained, “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Weird coincidence, but have you noticed how Trump’s approval, when it’s at its absolute lowest, always hovers around 32%?

    • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Stupid people who don’t know how the system works think that they will someday be wearing the boot. They think because they kiss the boot that they’ll never be stomped.

    • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      They are a part of our DNA. Perhaps the tribe in the jungle needed bootlickers to survive and we inherited that DNA.

      We never were civilized. We added extra steps to the (concrete) jungle and pretended we were.

    • Tujio@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It was a disturbingly close call which side of WWII we were gonna land on. In 1939 the second-largest Nazi party in the world was right here in America.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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    4 months ago

    “Susan Sontag was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10% of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10% is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80% could be moved in either direction” —Kurt Vonnegut

    • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, I like to call that the 10-80-10 principle. That’s why it’s so important to keep the arguments up for why we should vote Blue no matter who. 10% want to fuck everyone over. And they’ve managed to convince another 22% that they are right. We’re all screwed if we don’t get the 68% that aren’t assholes to vote Blue.

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        The ballot box still works AFAIK (as shit as First Past The Post voting is)

        Are you an accelerationist?

        • Kedly@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          It sounds like the person you’re responding to is saying the accelerated option isn’t being effective?

            • Kedly@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              Lol that’s fair. The States IS a country that considers gun ownership a HUMAN RIGHT and doesnt understand how insane lumping gun ownership with being able to access drinkable water is

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    The Founders were ONLY CORRECT when they said we’re allowed to Shoot Up Elementary Schools. Everything else was WRONG!

    -Pro Life Republicans.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    That’s what the Germans though in 1932, too. Maybe those idiots now should have a look into some history books about that era to see what happened next.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    32% of americans are chickenshit responsibility abrogators that want everything they do to be dictated to them. Religion has been a major primer for that mindset

  • gmtom@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Hmm I wonder what 30% that is…

    I also wonder if there is any overlap between that 30% and people that have a bones for “freedom” and “liberty”

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      If you check the poll it’s not what you’d expect. The self-identified left had 25% support. The self-identified right had 29% support. The self-identified center had 37 PERCENT support. There’s apparently a thirst for some strong authoritarian radical centrism.

      • Xanis@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I struggle to trust numbers nowadays. After being on Reddit for 11 years and now here on Lemmy, and around the Internet my entire life, lemme tell you about why people would self-identify as something else for a moment:

        Because they are anonymous.

        There are a huge amount of people who are on the Right on Lemmy trying to pass off as Blue, or blue-leaning.

        • figaro@lemdro.id
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          4 months ago

          As someone who is quite left, I find myself less radically left than many on Lemmy. My beliefs basically fall exactly with Bernie Sanders, which is more left than probably 95% of the entire country, but that isn’t left enough for some people.

  • Album@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    The people who dont want to be told how they live desperately want someone to tell them how to live.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They don’t want to be told how to live while simultaneously having someone force others to live like them.

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      They want their opinion mirrored back at them by someone in power so they don’t have to take responsibility for their own opinions.

      A close friend of mine is a woman of color and her bosses want the same things from her. They wants to hear their opinion come out of someone with her skin tone so they feel justified and not responsible at the same time. I imagine these are similar phenomenon.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Also fun fact:

      Every tabletop scenario he ran (think like a UN version of Risk) in which the Authoritarians had control, they wiped out everyone with nuclear war including themselves.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        4 months ago

        If I remember correctly, even after giving the authoritarians a do-over, they still fucked it up.

        Meanwhile, the people in the other group who scored low on authoritarianism like solved the climate crisis and world hunger.

        Some people are legitimately bad at politics and stuff, and it’s not the people the authoritarians are mad about.

        • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Yep lol. Every chance they got they blew themselves and everyone else up. It was quite the crazy read on a flight from Boston to Chicago lol.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        4 months ago

        I don’t think we’ll go out that way, but I do 100% believe our greed will be our “great filter” that we do not pass. :(

        • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          with dwindling resources on a warming planet, I think the likelyhood of a significant nuclear exchange is dramatically increased - perhaps even inevitable.

          agree with the great filter. it makes me think that humans, having acted as a great filter for our hominid family tree, are about to reap what we have been sowing for the last 200k+ years.

          or this could be a one of many catalysts for speciation. I sometimes feel that some people are already a different species. not better, not worse (not willing to engage in subjective morality) - just different, with different goals, problems and problem solving tools.

          • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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            4 months ago

            the likelyhood of a significant nuclear exchange is dramatically increased - perhaps even inevitable.

            Yes. Never has anybody used a weapon only once forever. As long as nukes still exist, they WILL get used again someday. We can’t help ourselves.

    • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      I mean, I imagine if someone like Bernie Sanders became Dictator for Life; the quality of life for 99.999% of Americans would improve; so purely in a thought-experiment kind of way, it works.

      The issue with even the most benelovent dictatorships is the matter of succession.

      • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yup, that is the exact problem of benevolent dictatorships. No matter how good it is in the short term, the long term will always end in disaster at some point or another.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Braindead, or supremely selfish and would love a regime that enforces their unpopular desires over the democratic choice?

      • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Which is still braindead. What happens when their perfect leader can no longer serve? Even if a dictator 100% aligns with you, you’re a fool to support them.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    a decade later, somewhere on 4chan

    be me
    hardcore Trump supporter
    Trump wins, I’m ecstatic
    world starts going to hell, WW3 kicks off
    married with three sons, trying to keep everything together
    decide to start a construction company, war efforts boost business
    build a bunch of buildings, making bank
    get elected to local office, life is on the up and up

    land a huge contract, biggest yet
    build the place, turns out it’s a gay bar
    fml
    media catches wind, calls me part of the “woke agenda”
    sons get drafted into the war, proud but terrified
    trying to keep the family safe as the world burns
    business takes a nosedive, firebombed by extremists
    every building I’ve ever built gets torched
    house goes up in flames, barely escape with wife

    wife blames me for everything, says I’m the reason we’re targeted
    receive word from the front lines
    “All three of your sons killed in friendly fire”
    caskets arrive the next morning
    wife loses it completely, leaves the country, I’m left alone

    arrested, accused of contributing to “trans agenda”
    just a foreman trying to get by, now rotting in jail
    every dream turned to ash
    life was supposed to be perfect
    now I’m just a broken man with nothing but regret

    tfw everything falls apart because of one misguided decision

    sadpepe.jpg