Meanwhile, 44 percent backed the American tradition of competing branches of government as a model, if sometimes ā€œfrustrating,ā€ system.

Why would people want to live under an authoritarianā€™s thumb? Itā€™s rooted, experts say, in a psychological need for securityā€”real or perceivedā€”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 groupā€”especially if it is the ā€œrightā€ group whose interests will be protected. Recall the Trump supporter who, during the 2019 government shutdown, complained, ā€œHeā€™s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.ā€

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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 itā€™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%

      • candybrie@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I wonder if itā€™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.

    • NABDad@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Itā€™s more than that, but some of them accidentally believe that democracy is good.