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‘CEO whisperer’ says US tycoons are privately anxious of Trump’s ‘Maoist’ leadership
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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politics
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The problem being that for many people (including my own ex, apparently, both to my and my kid's utter shock), authoritarianism and communism/socialism are synonyms. For those folks who got fed the propaganda and had no real reason or desire to question it, that's the characterization that works the best to communicate the threat.
For reference, an actual conversation:
"Man, Trump is going to make the U.S. a full-blown communist country"
[Me and Kid: Mouth agape, silence for about 5 seconds]: "I'm sorry, WHAT?"
"Yeah, you know, communist, like Russia was with Stalin".
"...do you not know what communism is?"
"Yes, it's when there's an authoritarian dictator."
"No, that's authoritarianism."
"Oh. I've never heard of that before."
Yeah we know a large amount of the population has a middle school level intelligence and an elementary school ability to read. Doesn't mean we got a cater to morons instead of publicly educating them.
If smart people are so smart, why aren't they in charge?
Checkmate nerds!
True, but part of this is impact and speed. As an uneducated person, you can immediately grasp what's intended here and why it's bad. Takes longer, and probably time you guys in the U.S.* simply don't have, to better educate folks to come to the same ultimate conclusion in large enough numbers.
Your education systems are widely gutted, general level of political knowledge is poor, and you have folks speed running to old school authoritarianism with the support of a lot of dumb people - and those folks are very close to the finish line. You. Don't. Have. Time. I'm not saying I'm a fan but there's a practical component to this.
*Noted that this is an assumption and you may not live in the U.S.
Wow…that’s just wild.
It was a very weird conversation. Most of the time I didn't think about the education gap between myself and my ex, but that was one of (to be fair) maybe three times it was illustrated.
Credit where credit's due, she's pretty clever in most other respects, just not this stuff as much. And it's not like I'm an expert myself, I just know the difference here 'cause school.
School didn’t teach me much of anything in regards to history, and my post-secondary education was in regards to buildings, not politics. I’ve never really understood the “education” argument when so many educated people I know are honestly pretty dumb save for the highly specific thing they’re trained in, and even then you can tell they were good enough at school to pass and that that doesn’t necessarily mean they can do their jobs well. School, in my experience, can even be quite difficult if you have a bad professor and go outside the bounds(I had mostly good ones and two that pretty much no student, or even some other professors, has ever truly liked but who unfortunately ran the program).
For me it’s about curiosity, mostly. I have plenty of gaps in my own knowledge but I try to actually learn stuff as I go.
These are very fair criticisms, and curiosity is key. It's more about the opportunities to follow your curiosity/get exposed to ideas that may at first be outside of your interests. Formal education can facilitiate that well, but you're right that it's not the only way or the best way for everyone. Learning never stops.