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?
I would define authoritarianism as a form of social organization based on submission to authority. When the ruler of a nation exerts their authority, the people of that nation are expected to submit to that authority, as subjects of that ruler.
Totalitarianism is an extreme form of authoritarianism, in which the authority is concentrated to one individual, or a small council of individuals, with all dissent forcibly removed. These are your blatant dictators, like Mussolini or Stalin.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The “rule of law” is a submission to authority, and a ruler needs to use their authority in order to maintain that submission. The only people who would seek out a position that requires them to do that would, necessarily, be authoritarian. Someone who was anti-authoritarian would reject such a position.