Why do people support dictators? How do dictators come to power? We teamed up with history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat to answer the internet's burning questions about authoritarianism and fascism.
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Understand -
The Billionaire Class can never allow election of Democrats to the WH or majority in Congress. Billionaire “progress” & profits under Trump would be immediately reversed & taxed. Dictatorship must be perpetuated & all that’s left after destroying Fed institutions, courts & the press.
It's risky being a dictator; many get killed, often by their own inner circle. So the question is, why don't we kill them more often? We owe them nothing and they have no legitimacy.
If the inner circle is loyal it’s hard to get near them but what if someone did, does the country revert to democracy or does another dictator step in? In Trump’s case, he has the appearance of legitimacy because he was “elected”. His assassin would be killed immediately.
There is the 4 year time bomb in the US. If he denies his term limit he's fair game. If someone's votes don't add up and they deny the election, they're fair game. Perhaps in the US it will turn out to be suicidal to be dictator; one can only hope.
A smart ruling class loves democracy because they can plan for a happy and long retirement. Dictators are notoriously bad at retirement planning, and they live in a state of constant fear. A smart leader wants a robust democratic system for the same reason car drivers want working traffic lights.
Sometimes I feel it’s a battle between less educated and more educated layers of the society. When the less educated group wins, it’s a start of a dictatorship.
Approx. 21% of US adults struggle with comparing information or making basic inferences, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and 8.1% are functionally illiterate. We do not teach critical thinking in our schools. We underpay teachers and underfund schools.
First, they lie and they cheat. I do not think there is any way Trump “won” legitimately in 2024–between massive Russian interference, Musk’s money and hacking operations, Republican voter suppression and finally a corporate media that boosted him and trashed Biden/Harris at every opportunity.
Same reason those people believe in conspiracy theories and organised religion. The real world is chaotic, complex and confusing. Dictators promise a simple, binary model of the world which low IQ sorts find easy to understand and therefore deeply reassuring.
STEM educations lack critical thinking beyond empirical data. Their lack of education in humanities, philosophy, rhetoric, ethics, political theory, and psychology usually primes them for illogical fallacies in their day-to-day life.
This STEM hatred is stupid. Most of my colleagues have all of those things and don’t fall into those traps because believe it or not we have to take those classes. We also out earn everyone so we have a higher profile and the rote memorizing dumbasses that exist everywhere get a bright light.
Hate? I'm calling out the lack of critical thinking in a basic STEM education path. Why would I hate educated engineers and scientists? That makes no sense.
‘Education means to have learned to learn. STEM students shouldn’t need classes on civics, or other subjects, to know enough about them to make reasoned decisions.
Yet here we are. If I had a dime for every educated engineer who threw eugenics stats at me I could buy a six-pack. It's not a coincidence that a love of totalitarian societies and tech bros go hand in hand.
In my experience low educated people are vastly more likely to espouse conspiracy theories than people who have completed education to A-level / equivalent standard / gone to university.
MENSA is a specific association for people with high IQs, generally though the only people that apply only have high intelligence in IQ and none of the other dimensions to intelligence because it’s literally all they got.
I know what MENSA is and I'm not sure why you're making such a big deal of it - my comment never mentioned it. I mentioned IQ as shorthand for intelligence .
In America it’s because of the perversion of Christianity ☝️these white gop Christian’s are fucking evil bastards who use an imaginary enity to control their base of brainwashed followers
I often wonder if the evangelicals will delete themselves out of the social experiment with the anti vaccine rhetoric. Measles has surpassed last year and it is March. Things are getting interesting around here.
Comments
The Billionaire Class can never allow election of Democrats to the WH or majority in Congress. Billionaire “progress” & profits under Trump would be immediately reversed & taxed. Dictatorship must be perpetuated & all that’s left after destroying Fed institutions, courts & the press.
Her work needs be part or required curriculum.
"Do not go gentle into that good night...
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
Motherfucker!"
We need some new RATM.
Because it‘s easy, requires minimal thought, and is dopaminergically rewarding.
#Accountability
#Diversity
#Equity
#Inclusion
#Accessibility
We can grasp these ideas through universal, quality, life-long, free education for all US children and adults.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
"Nazi plunder"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_plunder
An officer in Franco's army (the Nazis helped Franco). https://youtu.be/XC01-jsfL10?si=U9TuA8A6Gop2q2gC
They wanted to simplify as "Good vs Evil"... That's not enough.
What happened? How did they gain support? Why did their electorate allow it to happen?
Lessons we haven't learned.