After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

  • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    If you think the US goes away when the authoritarians take over,

    The US is authoritarian, your statement seems to imply that it isn’t. it’s a dictatorship of capital, as someone living in the US, your humanity is largely contingent on your ability to pay rent. Those who are unable to will end up unhoused, the targets of state violence, disenfranchised, and increasingly likely to end up in the worlds largest prison system.

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      6 hours ago

      The world is authoritarian, including China. The US under Trump and his cronies is more authoritarian than before to an extreme degree, and you guys think that’s great. So, no whining about authoritarianism from you please.

      • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        and you guys think that’s great

        I don’t, and I don’t think anyone else commenting here does. just another unfounded assertion

        I think that the US was authoritarian before Trump, and it will continue to be after him unless the political economy fundamentally changes.