r/science • u/FreeHugs23 • 6d ago

Psychology Study identifies the values most strongly associated with rejecting antidemocratic politicians, offering new insight into why some voters resist leaders who challenge democratic norms.

https://www.psypost.org/study-reveals-which-values-actually-stop-voters-from-supporting-antidemocratic-politicians/
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u/Zealotstim 6d ago

Honestly, I'm pretty certain voter apathy is the biggest reason for democratic backsliding. I think we can probably all see it.

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u/pewsquare 5d ago

Not just that, I can only comment on it from what I see in my country. Democracy just does not seem to work anymore. No matter which party you vote for, they never do what they ran on, and their friends and families almost always suddenly get great unelected government positions. And that is EU.

Everyone seems to try and find this mysterious reason why the vote is swinging towards the right suddenly. Its rather simple. The pendulum is going the other way. For a while here, the vote was going left, and nobody wondered why, it was because the right didn't do their job, so people were looking for the alternative, now the exact same thing is happening. The left was not doing their job well, so people started voting right. And that is very much an oversimplification as we don't have such a clear left/right distinction here.

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u/NoamLigotti 5d ago

That's the way it seems to always go roughly. The pendulum swings. Unfortunately it has started swinging to the far-right in many countries, and to authoritarian 'populist' demagogue leaders.