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Wouldn't it be weird if that didn't shape their perception? It's not surprising that people are less trusting when an authoritarian is in power.

postingawayonhn 1y ago
But the assumptions should always be that one day someone like that could take power and gain access to that data.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. They're not hard to spot; people warned about the current guy for a decade before he took over. What's happening right now is not because the government had a database lying around and an unspecified authoritarian picked it up. What's happening is that after a specific authoritarian staged a coup against the government, he was nevertheless allowed to continue his anti-democratic efforts. Trump should have a 27 year sentence like his Brazilian compatriot Bolsonaro, who in monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, similarly affected a coup against his government. Had we actually prosecuted those crimes the way Brazil did, we could still be talking about how to prevent theoretical authoritarian governments from abusing their power. But now we have a specific instance, and in this case, all the anti-authoritarian measures in the world mean jack if the government just allows actual insurrectionists to run for president, which is barred by the Constitution for a good reason. In that case they're just asking for it.
  - slg 1y ago
    >The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. This was the true motivation for my comment. It's futile trying to design your laws to withstand the dangers of a future authoritarian regime taking power when that authoritarian regime can just as easily change or ignore those laws once they take control. Our government is experiencing a rubber hose attack, the strength of our encryption doesn't matter.
    - ModernMech 1y ago
      Yup, the fight against American authoritarianism happened between 2015 and 2025. It's now over, authoritarianism won. All that's left now is for it to burn itself out as people bear the consequences they refused for a decade to entertain were possible. We spent 10 years warning about him, pointing out his specific authoritarian tendencies, January 6 was predicted years before it happened, but when people said "he's not going to leave" they were met with mockery. Who tf cares about databases when their plan was to just use their power to throw out entire states worth of votes? The entire J6 plot was that Pence was to reject the certification of the vote so that states could send "alternative electors" who voted for Trump, which would have disenfranchised millions of people at once. What is the law supposed to do against such anti-democratic "might makes right" depravity? At that point, the players have abandoned the game entirely, they're playing by different rules, your laws are meaningless. Edit: to the dead comment below me: > If you actually believed you were living under a dangerous, authoritarian government you wouldn't be posting about it on the internet. You'd be scared shitless trying to delete any trace of this connected to yourself. Bro, I'm already labelled part of a terrorist organization by this government for my political beliefs. There's nothing I can say here or elsewhere that would change that, so at this point my fate is locked in because I'm not going to change what I believe. There's not point in hiding anything, now is not a time for hiding, it's a time for speaking your mind. These people are authoritarians, but they are not all powerful. Yet. They have no consolidated power. Yet. They 100% want to, but that's not going to be possible as long as people continue to speak out. Read Timothy Snyder's, On Authoritarianism. He describes what you suggest is the rational response as "obeying in advance", which is the primary way in which the authoritarians seize power -- it's freely given by people who are too afraid to push back.
      - decremental 1y ago
        [dead]
  - pjc50 1y ago
    The problem is that people really want authoritarianism, to use against their enemies.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      >The problem is that people really want authoritarianism, to use against their enemies. Look no further than a typical HN comment thread on a niche public policy issue. They are rife with people scheming up all sorts of ways to thread the needle of public policy so that government enforcement action far in excess of what the public would support can be brought to bear on whoever is on the wrong side of whatever the issue being discussed is.
      - ModernMech 1y ago
        Yeah, if you go into my comment history from just this week there's a guy who told me "We won the last election. We can and will, with sadness but determination power, turn the power of the state against you and make you leave us the hell alone." That's the mindset of an authoritarian. No needle threading here though, just use "the power of the state to" get our way (no sadness detected).
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    It still amazes me that there was no penalty for storing classified paperwork in his bathroom. I always thought that governments treated security very seriously, but apparently not.
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      He got lucky that the sitting attorney general was loathe to appear that he was politically motivated, so was very slow to appoint a special prosecutor. He then got extremely lucky that his hand picked judge was assigned to the case, and slow walked it until he got reelected and took control of the very department that was investigating him. This on top of the fact that the "law and order" party apparently is only for law and order if it's being used against people they don't like. Evidently most people aren't self aware enough to question their own beliefs, who knew?
- rsynnott 1y ago
  I mean I think, while that possibly always _should_ have been the assumption, 20 years ago the assumption would have been very much that someone like that could _not_ take power, and that the worst the US had to fear was the likes of Dick Cheney (admittedly still pretty bad). The idea that the US might just transform into a weird batshit autocracy is really _pretty new_; it wasn't taken all _that_ seriously even in Trump's first term, because, well, the courts will just slap him down, right?
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    I don't think most people realize just how slow the court system is. It's horribly underfunded. They generally come to good decisions, but it takes a really long time, and a lot of damage can happen in the mean time.
dabbledash 1y ago
They should bear in mind that someone they consider an authoritarian will inevitably be elected.
parineum 1y ago
What makes this objectionable is that it's an authoritarian thing to do.
rootusrootus 1y ago
At this point, at least a third of the country always thinks an authoritarian is in power.
- whoooboyy 1y ago
  FWIW, I've believed we've had an authoritarian in power for quite a while now. Obama, Trump, Biden, and Bush have all tried and succeeded in expanding executive power. They've all engaged in extrajudicial killings overseas. Nothing sets me off like seeing people think this behavior from Trump doesn't have shared roots across both parties. Biden kept kids in cages. Obama bombed weddings. Yes, the current admin is accelerating hard but like, prior admins were accelerating. People should really try to stop thinking about politics like it's a two party game where you have to pick a side. Figure out your principles, and start finding candidates who match those principles.
  - rootusrootus 1y ago
    Yes, it has been accelerating a long time. But I worry a bit about toning it down too much by both-sides-ing it. The Dems were no angels, but they most assuredly did not ever try to overturn the counting of the vote for president. They did not relentlessly claim the whole game was rigged. They never openly mocked the citizens who did not vote for them, made policy specifically to spite red states, etc. Or created government web sites like https://www.whitehouse.gov/mysafespace https://www.whitehouse.gov/mysafespace By both-sides-ing this, it plays into hands of the people who support the current abhorrent behavior by claiming they're not doing anything different than their opponents have done. That is patently false, and we should not accept it.
    - whoooboyy 1y ago
      I'm sorry, I refuse to just simply not acknowledge the role liberalism has in the rise of fascism. Whether it's in the past or today, fascism don't just materialize because one guy talks good. It's neither incorrect nor inappropriate to say (neo)liberalism and austerity are direct antecedents to fascist rhetoric. It's not both sidesing to identify and critique the role democrats had to play here, especially when I say the gop is clearly worse. A critical assessment of how the Dems failed to protect us is not only not helping the GOP, it's exactly the sort of root cause analysis that helps ensure the mid terms go OK. Saying now's not the time to criticize Dems is the same sentiment that gets us "vote blue no matter who" when Biden runs but "I think we have to consider our options" when Mamdani runs. It's sticking your head in the sand rather than having to face the fact that the party has a losing platform.
potato3732842 1y ago
>Wouldn't it be weird if that didn't shape their perception? No. I flat out reject the excuse you make on their behalf and consider you lesser than you would be had you not made it. We're presumably discussing adults, not ten year olds or monkeys. They ought to f-ing act like it. These people are almost all likely capable of the emotional restraint and logical thinking and sufficient abstract thought to think these things through and decide whether policy or action is good or bad regardless of if it's their guy doing it or their interest being served by it. The fact that they decline to do so is a failing of them. To excuse it only serves to reinforce or validate it and should be ridiculed.
stronglikedan 1y ago
> It's not surprising that people are less trusting when an authoritarian is in power. The majority of Americans don't feel that way, but did about the last administration, and enough to do something about it. What's surprising is, given that revelation, a few people still actually think that.

postingawayonhn 1y ago

But the assumptions should always be that one day someone like that could take power and gain access to that data.

ModernMech 1y ago
The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. They're not hard to spot; people warned about the current guy for a decade before he took over. What's happening right now is not because the government had a database lying around and an unspecified authoritarian picked it up. What's happening is that after a specific authoritarian staged a coup against the government, he was nevertheless allowed to continue his anti-democratic efforts. Trump should have a 27 year sentence like his Brazilian compatriot Bolsonaro, who in monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, similarly affected a coup against his government. Had we actually prosecuted those crimes the way Brazil did, we could still be talking about how to prevent theoretical authoritarian governments from abusing their power. But now we have a specific instance, and in this case, all the anti-authoritarian measures in the world mean jack if the government just allows actual insurrectionists to run for president, which is barred by the Constitution for a good reason. In that case they're just asking for it.
- slg 1y ago
  >The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. This was the true motivation for my comment. It's futile trying to design your laws to withstand the dangers of a future authoritarian regime taking power when that authoritarian regime can just as easily change or ignore those laws once they take control. Our government is experiencing a rubber hose attack, the strength of our encryption doesn't matter.
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    Yup, the fight against American authoritarianism happened between 2015 and 2025. It's now over, authoritarianism won. All that's left now is for it to burn itself out as people bear the consequences they refused for a decade to entertain were possible. We spent 10 years warning about him, pointing out his specific authoritarian tendencies, January 6 was predicted years before it happened, but when people said "he's not going to leave" they were met with mockery. Who tf cares about databases when their plan was to just use their power to throw out entire states worth of votes? The entire J6 plot was that Pence was to reject the certification of the vote so that states could send "alternative electors" who voted for Trump, which would have disenfranchised millions of people at once. What is the law supposed to do against such anti-democratic "might makes right" depravity? At that point, the players have abandoned the game entirely, they're playing by different rules, your laws are meaningless. Edit: to the dead comment below me: > If you actually believed you were living under a dangerous, authoritarian government you wouldn't be posting about it on the internet. You'd be scared shitless trying to delete any trace of this connected to yourself. Bro, I'm already labelled part of a terrorist organization by this government for my political beliefs. There's nothing I can say here or elsewhere that would change that, so at this point my fate is locked in because I'm not going to change what I believe. There's not point in hiding anything, now is not a time for hiding, it's a time for speaking your mind. These people are authoritarians, but they are not all powerful. Yet. They have no consolidated power. Yet. They 100% want to, but that's not going to be possible as long as people continue to speak out. Read Timothy Snyder's, On Authoritarianism. He describes what you suggest is the rational response as "obeying in advance", which is the primary way in which the authoritarians seize power -- it's freely given by people who are too afraid to push back.
    - decremental 1y ago
      [dead]
- pjc50 1y ago
  The problem is that people really want authoritarianism, to use against their enemies.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >The problem is that people really want authoritarianism, to use against their enemies. Look no further than a typical HN comment thread on a niche public policy issue. They are rife with people scheming up all sorts of ways to thread the needle of public policy so that government enforcement action far in excess of what the public would support can be brought to bear on whoever is on the wrong side of whatever the issue being discussed is.
    - ModernMech 1y ago
      Yeah, if you go into my comment history from just this week there's a guy who told me "We won the last election. We can and will, with sadness but determination power, turn the power of the state against you and make you leave us the hell alone." That's the mindset of an authoritarian. No needle threading here though, just use "the power of the state to" get our way (no sadness detected).
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  It still amazes me that there was no penalty for storing classified paperwork in his bathroom. I always thought that governments treated security very seriously, but apparently not.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    He got lucky that the sitting attorney general was loathe to appear that he was politically motivated, so was very slow to appoint a special prosecutor. He then got extremely lucky that his hand picked judge was assigned to the case, and slow walked it until he got reelected and took control of the very department that was investigating him. This on top of the fact that the "law and order" party apparently is only for law and order if it's being used against people they don't like. Evidently most people aren't self aware enough to question their own beliefs, who knew?
rsynnott 1y ago
I mean I think, while that possibly always _should_ have been the assumption, 20 years ago the assumption would have been very much that someone like that could _not_ take power, and that the worst the US had to fear was the likes of Dick Cheney (admittedly still pretty bad). The idea that the US might just transform into a weird batshit autocracy is really _pretty new_; it wasn't taken all _that_ seriously even in Trump's first term, because, well, the courts will just slap him down, right?
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  I don't think most people realize just how slow the court system is. It's horribly underfunded. They generally come to good decisions, but it takes a really long time, and a lot of damage can happen in the mean time.

dabbledash 1y ago

They should bear in mind that someone they consider an authoritarian will inevitably be elected.

parineum 1y ago

What makes this objectionable is that it's an authoritarian thing to do.

rootusrootus 1y ago

At this point, at least a third of the country always thinks an authoritarian is in power.

whoooboyy 1y ago
FWIW, I've believed we've had an authoritarian in power for quite a while now. Obama, Trump, Biden, and Bush have all tried and succeeded in expanding executive power. They've all engaged in extrajudicial killings overseas. Nothing sets me off like seeing people think this behavior from Trump doesn't have shared roots across both parties. Biden kept kids in cages. Obama bombed weddings. Yes, the current admin is accelerating hard but like, prior admins were accelerating. People should really try to stop thinking about politics like it's a two party game where you have to pick a side. Figure out your principles, and start finding candidates who match those principles.
- rootusrootus 1y ago
  Yes, it has been accelerating a long time. But I worry a bit about toning it down too much by both-sides-ing it. The Dems were no angels, but they most assuredly did not ever try to overturn the counting of the vote for president. They did not relentlessly claim the whole game was rigged. They never openly mocked the citizens who did not vote for them, made policy specifically to spite red states, etc. Or created government web sites like https://www.whitehouse.gov/mysafespace https://www.whitehouse.gov/mysafespace By both-sides-ing this, it plays into hands of the people who support the current abhorrent behavior by claiming they're not doing anything different than their opponents have done. That is patently false, and we should not accept it.
  - whoooboyy 1y ago
    I'm sorry, I refuse to just simply not acknowledge the role liberalism has in the rise of fascism. Whether it's in the past or today, fascism don't just materialize because one guy talks good. It's neither incorrect nor inappropriate to say (neo)liberalism and austerity are direct antecedents to fascist rhetoric. It's not both sidesing to identify and critique the role democrats had to play here, especially when I say the gop is clearly worse. A critical assessment of how the Dems failed to protect us is not only not helping the GOP, it's exactly the sort of root cause analysis that helps ensure the mid terms go OK. Saying now's not the time to criticize Dems is the same sentiment that gets us "vote blue no matter who" when Biden runs but "I think we have to consider our options" when Mamdani runs. It's sticking your head in the sand rather than having to face the fact that the party has a losing platform.

potato3732842 1y ago

>Wouldn't it be weird if that didn't shape their perception? No. I flat out reject the excuse you make on their behalf and consider you lesser than you would be had you not made it. We're presumably discussing adults, not ten year olds or monkeys. They ought to f-ing act like it. These people are almost all likely capable of the emotional restraint and logical thinking and sufficient abstract thought to think these things through and decide whether policy or action is good or bad regardless of if it's their guy doing it or their interest being served by it. The fact that they decline to do so is a failing of them. To excuse it only serves to reinforce or validate it and should be ridiculed.

stronglikedan 1y ago

> It's not surprising that people are less trusting when an authoritarian is in power. The majority of Americans don't feel that way, but did about the last administration, and enough to do something about it. What's surprising is, given that revelation, a few people still actually think that.