[throwaway_65123]

It's not because they are nice and tolerant.

People are threatened, brainwashed and provided with semblance of comfortable life in equal measures. Like that boiled frog, little by little they lost all their basic fundamental rights and freedoms to the point where a large part of the populace doesn't even question what's happening and those who do can't do anything about it. It is a profoundly disheartening to see what happened to the country and how very few cared.

[argiopetech]

This could be referring to any one of a number of nations, I'm afraid.

Nicely summarized.

[smackeyacky]

Wait. Is Norway a distopian nightmare like Russia? Did that happen yesterday and I like missed it or something?

[stjohnswarts]

Yeah I think a lot of people in the West don't understand that 80% of the Russian people support what Putin is doing in Ukraine and to his own people.

[shiroiuma]

This is what Western people don't understand about ALL dictatorships. They think that some jerk somehow got a few henchmen with guns and took over the whole country, and now millions of people are all too scared to do anything about it. That's simply not the case; dictators exist because they have popular support, and plenty of it. Dictators are human too, and can easily be murdered in their bathtubs. When they live a long time as dictator, it's because most of their people support them.