And generally PRC citizens don't believe they're living under totalitarianism either. Most drank the koolaid that CCP is whole process democracy that kind of wo

And generally PRC citizens don't believe they're living under totalitarianism either. Most drank the koolaid that CCP is whole process democracy that kind of works, and democratic perception index or other surveys consistently reinforce this notion. Sometimes groups of people simply don't see the virtue or recognize charade of multi party indirect elections that allows any incompetent candidate to run. Expanding on "real thoughts", reoccuring theme is PRC diasphora in "democractic" countries with "free elections" are not particularly impressed by what they see in terms of state capcity versus PRC system. Nor the millions of PRC citizens that travel abroad to these countries and returns to China freely. Sure, no one wants to be unfree, but majority prioritize things like wealth or security while actual freedoms have also dramatically increased since the 90s - even accounting for Xi's rollbacks. People bitching about politics online is like par for the course for any system, the very fact that people can bitch including IRL about politics is sign of how free PRC has gotten vs pre 90s. Granted it's lowkey like it's always been, including under Hu. Reality is for most people from develping countries, which PRC still straddles, "freedom" is fine, but other things are finer and worth putting up with autocracy for.