I’m just trying to understand. Erdogan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, Orban in Hungary etc… Why do these leaders still get so much support after all they’ve done? What do they exactly like about them?
Aren’t these people seeing a massive drop in their quality of life?
Demagoguery, something that Socrates critiqued as a product of democratic systems.
source
unfortunately we have too many candy store politicians across the globe.
Or, distilled into a modern cliché: “What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular.” Elections are contests of popularity, not contests of thoughtfulness or morality.
In Spain the government decided that housing is a basic human right. Sounds awesome, right? But the population voted for its right-wing opposition anyway because immigrant bad.
Problem is that people disagree on who’s the candy store owner. “Let’s make housing a human right” may look like candy if you don’t fully believe in their actual plans to make housing available at reasonable prices.
More precisely, they’re popularity contests where the prize is a powerful position of authority. Of course power-hungry authoritarians are going to compete in that contest.
It’s always wild seeing reading about ancient civilizations having the same exact conversations and challenges we’re still having today.