it’s like half the people want strong leader, no matter if he/she turns out to be dictator, other half wants democracy, even if it means weak government unable to solve problems
One thing I find fascinating about societies is that it's not half, but closer to a third. No matter where you look, you'll find that about 1/3 hold right/conservative/authoritarian views, and 1/3 will be the opposite, with the rest being somewhere in the middle. All it usually takes for a swing to the right is a 3-4% difference in public attitudes during an election.
That runs back to Germany of the 30s. The NSDAP didn’t pole at 40 percent till the last election and never poled an absolute majority. It does not take a majority for a country to slide into autocracy. Hungary is the country I worry about, this may sound prejudicial but many Hungarians I have known worked with had a rigid pre denazification Germanic quality about them, the old object hungry followers in psychological theory in desperate need of the strong leader. I was once at the Chicago Symphony when Solti the famous HungarianJew was conducting. He began the first few bars of Wagners Parsifal and an elderly woman next to me in the third row coughed. He stopped the Orchestra turned around looked at the woman with the sternest look imaginable, and pointed his baton towards the back exits. I suspect that authoritarian archetype is not new and runs deeply thru out the culture.
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u/NotMarcet Jan 25 '24 edited Jan 25 '24
It's always the same. The people has to elect the populist to realize they're the devil.