32 percent of Americans believe a military regime or authoritarian leader would be a good way of governing the country.
newrepublic.com
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.”
The people who dont want to be told how they live desperately want someone to tell them how to live.
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.
Nailed it, this 💯
You just perfectly described the Candace Owens and Dave Rubin phenomenon.
They don't want to be told how to live while simultaneously having someone force others to live like them.
To have others be told how to live, which is how they prefer to live already.
Exactly.
They support him because they believe he is like them, so they won't need to change anything. It's everyone else that will be forced to be like them that they want...
I hope I'm not spreading misinformation, but I believe one of the victims of the assassination attempt had a flag on his Facebook page that was a play off of "don't tread on me" and in it's place was a tank with "tread on all of them."
I fucking hate these people so much
Sounds like they're just looking for a daddy.
The people who don't want to be told how to live want other people to be told how to live thinking they'll be left alone.
They are authoritarians.
A guy in the 90s foretold what will happen, who they are, and why we must outvote them
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.
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. :(
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.
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.
Neurodivergent here.
Never grew wisdom teeth.
I'm definetly a branch species
yup. the rise in diagnosed neurodivergency isnt just because tools are better. I think we have genuine, solid frequency increase.
please stay safe.
It's the chemicals in the water. They do more than just turn frogs gay.
You mean... cancer?
Many plastics are very similar to endocrine signalers. Your body can't differentiate the two. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9885170/#:~:text=Long%2Dterm%20exposure%20to%20plastic,%2C%20and%20reproduction%20(39). exposure to these types of chemicals can cause changes in expected phenotype expression. Sincerely, your local autistic bi, furry.
performs the arm-flap mating dance
fully automatic finger guns
I'm just going off what his report said.
And he nailed them to a fucking T
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.
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.
A nuclear civil war... can't say I'm surprised.
I’m glad at least they aren’t hiding it anymore
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
At some level, people just want a particular policy. It's silly to pretend a democracy where I never get what I want is going to be more attractive than a dictatorship where I get to unleash my libidinal id.
And you can't just blame this on religion. Religiosity has plummeted over the last 40 years, but we seem to be as accommodating towards fascism as ever.
The fall of the spiritual dictator in the masses is what scares them
Yes, one of the reasons for this movement being started decades ago, and coming to a head now, is the decline in what people considered to be the correct values, aka their values. Religion is in decline, conservative political positions are getting less popular, mainstream culture is slowly moving away from catering, pretty much, exclusively to white, straight, christians. They are being backed into a the proverbial corner. The only way they see a future for their dominance is by force.
That's what it certainly seems like
32% of people know their preferred way of doing things are unpopular and will not get their way unless a regime that agrees with them is in power, because democracy would favor the majority.
Religion can of course drive an entitlement that's very dangerous (people asserting a higher power justifies their particular view), but more mundane motivations can easily drive people to demand they are right over the majority).
TIL 32% of Americans are idiots.
Wait … I knew this already. Never mind.
You can pretty much ask almost any insane thing and it somehow always comes out to at least 30% of Americans.
I sometimes wonder if it'd always the same 30% and there just 30% idiots, or if that 30% spans multiple topics and groups of idiots and its actually higher like 60%
30% of Americans think that feet and legs should be removed and made illegal
Thats why they named it head and shoulders, the anti bottom torso movement scared them off.
I wonder if it's something like 25% of survey respondents are just picking the most outrageous thing and 5% actually believe that way. I remember a while ago on a survey about being ok with political violence, they tried to control for that kind of thing and it dropped the numbers a lot.
It's more than that, but some of them accidentally believe that democracy is good.
Alternative headline: "32 percent of Americans are fucking braindead"
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.
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.
Braindead, or supremely selfish and would love a regime that enforces their unpopular desires over the democratic choice?
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.
I should of scrolled down before saying the same this myself.
And this right here is exactly why leftist should never give up their guns.
If you go far enough left, you get your guns back!
That's not far left, that's just left of center. Don't buy the American bullshit that socialism is an extreme, it honestly isn't.
No shit, Democrats are right leaning moderates these days. Too bad a third party has no chance at getting anywhere because I'd be all for a socialist party.
Doesn't look like keeping them is doing much either.
The ballot box still works AFAIK (as shit as First Past The Post voting is)
Are you an accelerationist?
It sounds like the person you're responding to is saying the accelerated option isn't being effective?
Yes it was, but honestly if I make a comment that a pro-gun American can see as negative against, I am aware I will be downvoted heavily.
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
No, Canadian.
An overwhelming majority of California and New York leftists disagree with you and have neutered themselves in order to prevent black people from organizing during the segregation era protests and now the reason is for children's safety from school shooters.
What do you say to those people?
Probably the same old electoral reform gobbledegok.
First Past The Post voting yadayadayada Ranked choice voting herpdederpdeboo state level reform possible yabbadabbadoo
Then have them acuse me of being a secret Republican Russian because I didn't suck Joe bidens dick with a big enough smile.
Even well-meaning authoritarians can do terrible things, to say nothing of their eventual replacement. Look what happens to otherwise great companies when the founder dies and is replaced by someone just looking to maximize next quarter profits.
What short-sighted utter fools.
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"
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.
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.
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.
Even without active deception there's plenty of self-deception. People like the aesthetic of "I'm my own person, not beholden to left or right" while voting left or right every election.
That would be the 'benevolent dictator' crowd. Strong amongst the military and business/tech investor class.
We fought a fucking war over this and people still seem to love licking boots.
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.
Yet a other reason the working class must never disarm
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.
I just wanna wear my crocs :(
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.
a decade later, somewhere on 4chan
sadpepe.jpg
I'm not sure I find the idea of a 4Channer with a wife plausible.
Introducing, the female 4channer. Enjoy!
Was that from before he was elected?
“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
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.
Here's the problem with your partisanship. If you give a party your unconditional support, then they have no reason to cater to your needs. All they have to do is just to be slightly better than the alternative. Which is exactly the current situation and which is also exactly what makes the Democratic party today so unattractive. For the independent electorate it's feels as though they are being coerced into voting Democrat. That's not good for anyone.
I believe it's conditional on the only other option being actual fascism.
Ah yes a bell curve
Can’t they just say Trump supporters?
They could but that would be wrong since the split is only 4% between the left and right (L-25% and R - 29%).
Nope. 48 percent of Republicans, 38 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Democrats.
I am literally reading from the article... And even with your numbers democrats are still quite terrible...
Dude… I quoted that FROM the article.
“A PRRI study last October found that 38 percent of Americans (and 48 percent of Republicans, 38 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Democrats) think the country needs a leader who will “break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right.”
Stop making shit up.
Did you notice that your numbers dont match the headlines? The headline and main part of the article is about the pew study which I quoted from.
Stop making shit up.
So…. You didn’t even read your own article. That’s fucking embarrassing. Maybe read it. See for yourself that I copied those numbers DIRECTLY from it.
Jesus man…. You really should delete your shit.
Leopards ate my face energy
News just in. At least 32% of Americans are brain dead.
The Founders were ONLY CORRECT when they said we're allowed to Shoot Up Elementary Schools. Everything else was WRONG!
-Pro Life Republicans.
This coming from the "if you exchange freedom.for security you will enjoy neither freedom nor security" folks.
Just a quick question: give me one, ONE simple example of a successful military dictatorship that didn't take the country to hell and left damn near all its citizens poor, suppressed, and suffering?
I hate a military dictatorship but to play devil's advocate: South Korea and Taiwan?
I'm not saying their transition to democracies was bloodless or clean but they managed. Those two are extreme examples and not models, one country built after a war that split the country in two, the other fleeing the mainland to create its own state. But I'm stretching to find a better example.
FTFY - so-called "liberal democracy" is about as democratic as "social darwinism" is Darwinist. And those are two terrible examples to use - they only went pretend-democratic after the fascist regimes murdered and tortured any elements in society that could be called democratic with a straight face.
If that's what you want for the US you might just as well start marching with the fascists.
Taiwan probably fared better than Korea in that regard.
Arent both democracies now?
That was my point, these hand-picked examples didn't end up as hellholes. That said, it wasn't always smooth, lots of blood in SK's hand. I was playing devil's advocate.
In any case, the USA is not in the desperate situation these countries were in.
France under DeGaulle?
Edit to add: It's not an assertio, it's a question I don't know the answer to.
That was not a military dictatorship, was it?
Not really. There certainly was a concentration of levers in the government, but while it certainly had authoritarian traits, it wasn't militaristic and was still quite free. There was a healthy opposition.
Whoa, that last question would require historical knowledge, and education is Satan, didn't you know?
Thailand regularly has military coups.
Also.... Do you really want a military dictatorship run by right wing Christian extremists with an obsession with the end times with access to nukes? Just something to ponder about.
Would you accept a US military coup to remove bunch of right wing Christian extremists that have taken things too far?
It might actually get to that point. Not hoping for it but it wouldn't surprise me
Sparta
Maybe the citizens weren't suffering but their massive slave population definitely was. Heck, the reason they trained so hard was to put down slave revolts.
Sure, but that wasn't the question.
There is no country, democratic or authoritarian, on this planet that currently doesn't rely to some extent on exploited, indentured, or enslaved non-citizens, either domestic or abroad.
We need a robotic slave force.
Slavery? Really? That's your example?
Well yeah, they asked for a simple example, I gave one. What's wrong with that? The discussion is already in the realm of "military dictatorship" which aren't exactly known for respecting human rights/freedoms of non-citizena. The question was about the sustainability of such systems for those deemed citizens.
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.
I'm not sure they can read.
How charitable! I know they can't.
Maybe have 20th century european history as a YouTube short would work? If it's kept under 20 or 25 seconds?
Sorry, those books are banned because it hurt some fascist fee fees...
Reactionaries believe that all of the problems they face are due to the fact that the wrong people are ruling.
They are 100% in favor of a neo-feudal pseudoaristocracy where billionaires are unleashed to rule the States as their fiefdoms and will impose their vision upon their subjects.
Reactionaries do not value individual autonomy except for the privileged man who runs the factory, farm, or family; all others should do as they're told or face his wrath.
They do not believe in structuring society to be fair and equitable, as is evident by their crusaides against DEI, holding police accountable, women, LGBTQ people, the non-religious, the unhoused, progressive taxes, and welfare.
All they care about is power to enact their will on others.
The dissonance is astounding. The average mouth breathing MAGA is either so poor and stupid that they don't realize that their taxes are going to go way up and their services like Pension and medical will evaporate. The other type of MAGA supporter is probably a fairly well off enough to insulate them from the worst of this (except the tax shift to them) but are happy because they get to openly hate the people they see as a problem which will lead to blow back that they can't understand. Bad times ahead if trump wins guaranteed
Know what FINE! I say we give them a Democrat run military regime that imposes our beliefs on them under threat of execution. This solves a couple problems. It lets them feed their persecution fetish, so they can finally cum and chill the fuck out. It also alters their stance on the issue. Conservatives don't care about anything until it happens to them. Once they see how their fun ideas plays out against them, they will actually care about the issue and how it affects others. A lot of their "imma bring down the gubment with mah AR-15" clowns will find out their ideas are as impotent as they are. After their wet fart of a revolution fails, and a few years of learning what real oppression is, we voluntarily go back to a democracy.
Could be fun times!
32% is all you need. Thanks to the perpetual minority rule established by electoral college system
Probably should have rewrote the constitution every 20 years like Thomas Jefferson said we should.
32 percent of Americans are fascist bootlickers
Weird coincidence, but have you noticed how Trump's approval, when it's at its absolute lowest, always hovers around 32%?
Not at all a coincidence.
I think that's what they are saying.
32% of Americans want to be Nazis? Sad to see.
Civics, politics, and world history classes. Is nobody taking these anymore? Sheesh.
Not anywhere the Republicans can control the school curriculum
It has worked SO WELL for...
Well I wouldn't want to bother them with history.
Here they go through Europe biggest fuck ups 90 years later. I'd say enjoy the ride but they'll pull the whole world in.
The people who think this have never had to truly struggle in their entire fucking lives. Fat little American piggies who think that everything will stay the same in every facet of life under their military dictatorship, as if nothing bad could ever happen to them and bad things will only happen to the people they hate. They take for granted all of the freedoms and luxuries they enjoy daily and never once consider how quickly those would vanish for them too.
"He's not hurting the people he's supposed to hurt."
From this and other polls it really does seem that most countries would be immeasurably improved if a good third of the population were to spontaneously combust.
I think I know which third it should be.
Username checks out.
Bad news: the 1/3 authoritarian segment of society seems to be a human trait. Culture determines how the trait is expressed.
So fire them into the sun but statistically the hierarchically-minded, active-amygdala, contrarian and cruel segments of the genome will just always be there.
This is probably the primary challenge of the human condition: graduating from a troupe species with ling-refined tribal techniques for handling the problem individuals, to a noöspheric global species successfully coping with with emergent problems due to mass "civilizational" effects.
True, although it might buy us time to get some shit fixed before they repopulate and start complaining about how things have improved.
Advocates genociding all authoritarians
Gets put in line for the solar express
Surprise!
This country is cooked that number is way too high.
The nation built on native American burial grounds using slavery didn't work out? Say it ain't so!
I hate this country more and more every day.
I'm 100% in favor of me being a dictator for life but otherwise I'm pretty sure democracy is a good idea.
This right here. Even as a kid studying history, I never understood why someone would support a dictator. When I was like 9 or 10, we were learning about WW2 or something, and I said, "Wait, Mrs. , you're saying people wanted Hitler to be a dictator and voted for him? Why would someone give up the possibility of being leader themselves?!" I couldn't comprehend how someone wouldn't want to at least have the possibility of having supreme executive authority.
Like, if it were me in charge, then I'm all for it, but some other person? HELLLLLLLL NO! It could be Gary down the block, and he's an asshole.
Fucking Gary - I completely agree.
Being a dictator is a prison with a firing squad at the end of your sentence.
I'd rather take LSD and play valheim.
I'll do it. Put me in coach.
I'll outlaw most private vehicles, fund public transit, convert corporate governance to market socialism (the employees of a company should own the company - not rent seeking investors).
After all that, bring on the bullets.
I would NOT want to be supreme leader for life, but I’d like to think I’d do a lot to benefit people. Y’all could, and usually do, do worse than me, but you’d have to catch me first
At this point, I would be unsurprised if a third of Americans voted for an industrial meat shredder for President, even after it had been repeatedly and clearly explained they would be marched into it at gunpoint if it won. The lower part of our bell curve is… well… very, very low.
So you're saying trump could shoot his supporters in the middle of Fifth Avenue and they'd say "Nice shot sir!"?
Maybe Republicans would pick a more moderate candidate if they weren't shackled by First Past the Post voting to a giant flaming turd.
Maybe democrats would pick someone who doesn't support genocide.
But capitalists hate competition... thus FPTP voting remains.
This sounds about right. If you look at the rise of authoritarian parties in Europe you will see numbers sitting between 25% and 35% too. I have a feeling that this might just be an innate personality trait that people are born with. Some people are more submissive and prefer strong leaders, even at the cost of personal liberties. I mean, we already witness this in other aspects of life.
If you think about very early human history, like the first civilizations, I believe there's an answer there. Hunter gatherers were relatively egalitarian, but then we started settling into larger groups/cities. The cities needed to protect their food stores from the rest of the humans who were basically still hunter gatherers, and had no qualms about taking any food they could get ... as well as enemy cities that might come for the food or treasure or women or whatever. (The city people also went out and enslaved the hunter gatherers, but that's a different part of the story.) In this environment if you hesitated to kill your opponent then they would kill you, so the most ruthless killers (sociopaths) were seen as heros and protectors and often rose to leadership or king status. But, you needed your protector/king to be the most ruthless sociopath in the land to protect you from the next city over's ruthless sociopath. These sociopaths have pretty much continued to rule ever since. It made sense back then, because there was no way for regular (not sociopath) people to survive without the protection of sociopaths. My theory is that it holds over today for the more fearful and stupid among us because they don't/can't understand that we no longer need psychos to protect us.
How very in-American of them. I thought those conservatives were all about 1776 and independence from a king/dictator. I guess it’s more like they want their king is charge to crush anyone who has slightly different views.
The conservatives during The War of Independence were The Loyalists. The progressives were The Patriots
I read some research somewhere that found that about a third of the people in any given country are authoritarian shitheads (paraphrasing). The problem is that the unique structure of the US system of government gives said shitheads outsized power and representation relative to their numbers.
Well, good news for them!
Anyway, I blame the 24 hour news cycle.
If you ask the same people if they would want a leftist military regime or authoritarian governement they would beg for democracy. These people have no scrouples. End of the day they just want to be left alone like everyone else. It's just lashing out because they themselves don't want to change.
(scruples)
“Leftist military regime” is an oxygenated moron.
Every time a leftist government rises to power and then defends its own existence, we call it a military regime.
I have a hard time believing the questions or something is not skewed to get such a high result.
You really can't imagine that 32% of Americans are idiots? If anything, I'm relieved the number isn't higher.
32% of polled Americans who will admit it out loud, mind you. That number is absolutely higher. Pew Research found 43% of American adults trust Fox News and they trounce other cable news channels by a long shot. We ain’t never gonna make it.
2/3rds of my neighbors aren't. more like 10%
They didn't agree with a statement that explicitly endorsed authoritarianism or military dictatorship. They agreed with a statement that is being interpreted as the equivalent of supporting those things.
And the question itself is very open to interpretation. Does "strong" mean decisive and principled or cruel and dictatorial? Does interference refer to the normal balance of power between the three branches of government, or is it referring to extreme dysfunction, or even unconstitutional actions taken by courts and/or congress that violates constitutional principles.
And here's where the Democrats run into a massive problem.
The Democrats are running on two fronts: A policy position, and warning people of the authoritarianism that Trump and the GOP will bring if they return to power.
The problem is that the Republican base is basically saying "Yeah. We know. We want it that way. Screw your policies." And they have enough on their side to actually win the election. How the hell do you compete with that?
Education
I agree with you. This is where I just throw my hands up and concede that this is the will of the people. Our democratic form of government affords people the freedom to choose to be sheep. Isn't it beautiful?
30% ain't the will of jack shit that's just the new lizardman constant
This election, like the last one, isn't about convincing maga extremists or lifelong Republicans to vote for the first Democrat in their lives. It's about convincing people in the middle to vote against Project 2025. I know it's insane, but there are still enough "undecided" voters that they will literally decide the election. That plus turnout. If enough people vote, Donald Trump cannot turn this country into an authoritarian regime.
I hate this so much.
"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a
Hero[Dictator]"Pardot Kynes
If only we could give them what they want and let them have their own shitty fascist country somewhere so they'd leave us alone.
No, they will have to pay the iron price for that.
Some people's need to be ruled by a King is very real. It's how their brain works.
So much for "Give me liberty or give me death!".
I guess a Christian fascist theocracy is a good option for some.
Weirdly, the percentage who agree with that statement, by political affiliation, are: Left - 25% Right - 29% Center - 37%?!
Two completely different things in this climate. Anyone else remember when Gen. Miley literally went behind Trump's back to assure China that the military would block any of his (possible) tantrums?
don't leave out that trump said milley should be executed for treason
Yeah. Tbh if it came down to military dictatorship or another Trump term, which is almost guaranteed to be a moronocracy, I'd take the latter
I’m sure 32% of those 32% would say that authority should allow abortions.
Silver lining, we outnumber them 2:1.
That won't count for shit when only 20% of us have guns or whatever the number is. Almost all of them do
They're absolute cowards anyways. They get scared of a trans person in the bathroom or someone with slightly too much melanin in their skin walking by. They'd just implode or run away in fear if they see their opposition with a gun. Also, I'd say a lot more non-nazis than 20% have guns in America. Plenty of normal people have them
You can still shoot at shit your scared of, and generally they do a lot of it. It's really dangerous to hand wave away shit like that.
Y'all are fear mongers.
Because its fucking scary have you seen what the people involved with project 2025 are saying?
One step closer to: "We forgot how to make cheese, y'all!"
Thank God we're not a democracy.
- Republicans
Insanity. I have seen these people in operation my whole life, and I still don't understand this type of thinking.
Sigh.
The stupid minority. Only stupid people who don't bother learning about the world would think this. Minus the very few who just wanna use the situation to get rich.
Well then we know that 32% of people in America are not fond of America. I'm fine with the whole Trump bullshit of "kicking them out", but let's make it about these assholes and not the people who are here to have a functioning democracy.
Work towards peace, prepare for the inevitable.
SocialistRA.org
One of my gramps fled fascism in Italy. Always warned me that a lot of people want someone to tell them what to do, primed to receive commands. That side is filled with rebels, flexible and rational people that operate in shades of grey.
On the other side, I have a cousin who had a strict dad, retired military guy, good soldier, no doubt. Cousin loves Trump. That side is more blue collar, less education, less financial means. Cousin never had to deal with emotions, couldn't have done so in a safe environment with her dad around anyway, yelling at her all the time, telling her exactly what to do, why to do it, how to do it.
She would get harshly punished for very specific things and her folks would make sure she understood the just desert of it clear. She's never led anything of her own, never started anything for herself. She's very attached to the idea that people get what they deserve and has a hard time related to anyone different from her, which are defense mechanisms and marks of her emotional immaturity. Like, she cannot fathom that there are innocent people in prison who have pleased guilty. Her ability to think for herself is as stunted as her compassion for others. She needed serious education and travel, exposure to other cultures and ideas, she got a certificate, a job, and an apartment instead. Super attached to her personal property. Cannot fathom the idea of not being angry if for example something was stolen from her that she was fully insured for. Obviously she has a gun and feels like it keeps her safe.
She has authoritarian sympathy engrained in her. It is her attachment style. Loud shouted orders are her love language.
Dumb as a brick.
I remember reading long ago that the best form of government is actually a benevolent dictatorship. The problem is that dictatorships never stay that way and doing anything about it becomes extremely difficult, if impossible.
So basically, leaving it all up to one person is a bad idea.
Hopefully that's how many people vote for trump as well
32 percent of America has never been in the military, or were in the old boys club when they served.
You do not want the military running the show.
32% of Americans don't understand the constitution.
Then move to Myanmar.
32 percent of americans have chowder for brains
Polls.
Polls are fantasy. They're bullshit. They're a distraction at best.
Polls are lazy journalism's crack. Joining X-formerly-twitter as lazy journalism's vodka.