[ojbyrne]

I believe a significant number of people would answer “yes” to your final question, or at least complain that your leadership shows authoritarian tendencies, much like Victor Orban, Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte, etc.

On your first paragraph it seems to me a reasonable argument that if all the chemical companies in Germany dragged their feet, obfuscated, and ideally just outright refused to supply the government with poisonous gases, once it became clear they were being used on people, less people would have died.

[shadowprofile77]

Your statement about authoritarian tendencies is interesting. While I don't doubt that leaders like Trump or Duterte have them, it's a tricky situation to base such a label on their intentions or words alone. The vast majority of political leaders work towards the maximization of their own power regardless of their speaking style or underlying government type (Trump's overtly bellicose manner vs. say, Obama's much more diplomatically toned engagement with the public, other government branches and media). Either way though, I ask that you or anyone name how someone like Trump actually exercises(d) executive power very differently from a leader like Obama:

Both engaged in many of the same drives towards furthering their own personal political agendas during their respective administrations and while Trump says many things more baldly, and certainly lies much more flippantly, I fail to see how either his executive decisions or administrative pushes were or are in any notable way actually more authoritarian than those of Obama.

Just because one leader speaks more blandly than another doesn't mean that their fundamental governing power is much different, or that the more bellicose sounding figure is somehow an authoritarian if he or she is still fully constrained by the rest of a democratic government apparatus.

Furthermore, many if not most of the tendencies towards much broader presidential authority that Trump currently enjoys were established by a whole history of executive expansion which came before his term, and some of those started under much less visibly aggressive presidents. Focusing on what the orange man says more than on the deeper dynamics behind his office seems to me like more an exercise in ideological labeling than sound analysis of what authoritarian leadership means.

[adnzzzzZ]

>I believe a significant number of people would answer “yes” to your final question, or at least complain that your leadership shows authoritarian tendencies, much like Victor Orban, Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte, etc.

Someone showing authoritarian tendencies does not mean the country is under authoritarian rule. I don't like Bolsonaro but he is very far from having any real power in the country. And I would say the same of Trump. I don't know anything about the others.

>On your first paragraph it seems to me a reasonable argument that if all the chemical companies in Germany

Why would they do that? Hitler was popular because he actually fixed a lot of problems in Germany at the time. Either way, my argument is still that businesses shouldn't support or not support any particular politician. They should just move on with their business impartially, even if "democracy" is being threatened or if their product is being used for evil. It's not your job to judge how people use your technology.

[ojbyrne]

I really enjoyed and would recommend the Third Reich Trilogy [1], especially to anyone who thinks Hitler was “popular because he actually fixed a lot of problems in Germany at the time.” Hitler was never popular, he just appeared that way because he suppressed all opposition.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Reich_Trilogy

[adnzzzzZ]

Yea, just like I'm sure Trump was never popular, he just appeared that way because of... fake news and misinformation! Yea, no thanks. The way history is rewritten around touchy subjects is very clear to anyone paying attention, and it's always the same thing. In the future a book written about our time will use fake news instead "suppression of opposition" as the reason for why Trump was never actually popular. I would tell you to go read actual sources of information at the time: newspapers, books written from German citizens during those years, that kind of thing. You'll get a much more accurate view of history that way.

[pmyteh]

Trump was never popular, at least if you define 'popular' as having positive approval ratings. Maybe in inauguration week. Not afterward[0]. He was obviously popular with some people, but not the country as a whole.

Not sure why reading a censored German press would give you an accurate view of public opinion, either; and the German citizens' writings will vary depending on which citizens you read, and how circumspect they were about writing.

[0]: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...

[adnzzzzZ]

Well, isn't it convenient that most of the information coming out of Germany isn't useful because the bad man had his hands on it? I'm sure in the future historians will also disregard most of the information coming out of Trump supporters as part of the misinformation campaign, conspiracy theories, etc, and only the official narrative will be regarded as valid, because that's how history goes.

Since you recommended me a book, I recommend you this book in return https://www.amazon.com/Human-Smoke-Beginnings-World-Civiliza...

[pmyteh]

No, it's extremely inconvenient that we can't straightforwardly compare public opinion in authoritarian countries with non-authoritarian ones. FWIW the consensus in political science is that the Trump white house has substantially increased levels of misinformation (though there has been a decent amount under previous administrations), and that his popularity is genuine and enduring, though balanced by a larger genuine and enduring unpopularity.

I didn't intend to recommend a book - the link is just a graph of Trump's approval polls over time - but I thank you for yours. I'm not a particularly big fan of 'official narratives', not least because I study issue frames and so many of them are self-serving.