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.”

  • Album@lemmy.ca
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    The people who dont want to be told how they live desperately want someone to tell them how to live.

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      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.

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

    • DBT@lemmy.world
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      To have others be told how to live, which is how they prefer to live already.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        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

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      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.

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      Regardless of if it’s true, you shouldn’t use that word.

      However its all perspective, an intellectual disability is described as 30 points below average, because a 30 point difference is noticable.

      So even just two people at the end of the first standard deviation would experience that.

      Being three standard deviations above average isn’t that rare, about 1 in 1200, about the same rate as people who transition oddly enough, so it’s a good comparison.

      If you’re “lucky” enough to be over 145, about 84% of everyone else is at least 30 points below you.

      It’s like real life Idiocracy or old school Cassandra. Shit seems so simple but no one listens.

      Even then bro, dont resort to that word.

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          They used to be bad, now they’re not.

          Maybe it will change for this one too, but it’s not our decision currently

        • aidan@lemmy.worldM
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          I agree it is relatively arbitrary, I removed the comment because of the effect it has on the tone of the community- not because of the history of the word.

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            Yeah, I had another comment where I discovered the number is much higher (1 in 208, roughly). I’m not great at ratios, so 1 in 1200 didn’t sound that rare, especially if you’re in areas with a lower LGBT+ demographic. In hindsight, it makes more sense, as I know a few trans people myself and my city isn’t even that large.

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          That says 0.51% of adults, and under 18 rates are higher.

          1/1200 is 0.83%

          0.32% is close enough for an “about” on social media, if we add in under 18 it would get closer, but I’m not doing that much math.

          Neither is exactly 1/1200 tho

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            1/1200 is .000833… So .08%. That’s not how the calculations for finding X in Y people work.

            And the source I linked specifically says 1.6 million people in the US aged 13+ identify as trans, which is 0.48% of the 333.3 million people in the US.

            We were both wrong, it’s approximately 1 in 208 people. 333,300,000 / 1,600,000 = ~208.

      • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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        Dude, context matters. Things can be insulting or not depending of where and when phrase was used. Every smart person understands the intent behind that sentence, and that it was a hyperbole.

        Don’t assume other people can’t read context and the intent, because if you do, you’re actually insulting their intelligence

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          Every smart person understands the intent behind that sentence, and that it was a hyperbole.

          You really typed that out and didn’t see the issue?

          People with intellectual disabilities can still use social media, they can still pick Lemmy, and they can still see your comment.

          And it’s not up to you or me if it’s offensive in any context.

          Do you use other slurs like this? Go to a pride parade and start dropping F bombs? BLM protests your just letting the n word fly?

          It’s not up to them if it’s offensive, its you’re call if the context makes it ok?

          Just stop man. You’re not helping yourself.

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            People with intellectual disabilities can still use social media

            Yes they can. Do you suggest they can’t read with comprehension? You’re actually insulting them by implying that they’re too dumb to understand my intent.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        It’s amazing to me that people have issues with medical words, which are turned into epithets, which are then removed from the medical lexicon because they have become epithets, and would use that to derail a discussion on the fact that a full third of Americans don’t want to live in a democracy.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          What derailed the conversation was use of slurs…

          But if you really want to pull out the old “what’s really a problem is people complaining about bigotry” cars from the Republican deck, go for it.

          Unfortunately it wouldn’t be surprising these days, moderates keep acting more and more like trump supporters. Someone asks for basic decency and they get accused of bad faith.

          Did you not see how that worked out for Republicans?

          Be better

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
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            1. I’m not a moderate.

            2. Yes, I saw perfectly how that worked out for Republicans. Corporations are massively scaling back their diversity initiatives and support for the LGBTQ community because the right are allowed to play word games. Also, they elected a fascists once and are on the verge of doing so again, partly because certain alleged Democrats would rather whinge about labels which scares the ignorant masses that make up the voting population.

            3. One-third of Americans want to be governed at the end of a gun barrel. But please, keep on being so concerned about civility while Republicans push forward their destruction of America.

      • BlackLaZoR@kbin.run
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        Oh yeah, everyone wants their own benevolent dictator that fixes the wrongs of this world with necessary force.

        And then Hitler gets into power…

        • outdated2139@lemmynsfw.com
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          I wouldn’t say that everyone wants their own benevolent dictator, but the ones who have that view can only picture theirs in power. I’m sure Hitler had a bunch of people who liked what he was doing.

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      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.

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        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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          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.

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        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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          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.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    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

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      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.

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          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.

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      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).

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      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%

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        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.

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      It’s more than that, but some of them accidentally believe that democracy is good.

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      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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        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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      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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        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.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
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      Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.

      • Karl Marx

      If you go far enough left, you get your guns back!

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • Ele7en7@lemmy.world
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          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.

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee
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        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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          It sounds like the person you’re responding to is saying the accelerated option isn’t being effective?

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              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

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      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?

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee
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        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.

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    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”

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      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.

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        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.

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          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.

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            If you ask people about policies and not self-identification, Bernie’s ideas have massive support from all Americans. It’s political discourse that has swung right, not the views of typical Americans.

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          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.

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    “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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      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.

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      They could but that would be wrong since the split is only 4% between the left and right (L-25% and R - 29%).

      • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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        Nope. 48 percent of Republicans, 38 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Democrats.

        • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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          I am literally reading from the article… And even with your numbers democrats are still quite terrible…

          • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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            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.

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              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.

              • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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                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.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    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

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    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?

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      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.

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        I’m not saying their transition to democracies liberal democracies

        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.

        • ours@lemmy.world
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          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.

    • m0darn@lemmy.ca
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      France under DeGaulle?

      Edit to add: It’s not an assertio, it’s a question I don’t know the answer to.

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        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.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        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.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • Soleos@lemmy.world
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          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.

        • Soleos@lemmy.world
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          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.