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[Egan_BW]

That graph.

[smjjames]

Oh wait, I know the source, mentioned in 538 http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democracy-meh/  actual source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/americas/western-liberal-democracy.html?_r=1 (not paywalled)

It seems to be, in part, generational.

[martinuzz]

I've found some (unsourced, admittedly) graph that could maybe explain why the world is starting to go to shit/anti-liberalism recently:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have no idea why young people hate living a good life in a country that doesn't kill them for their beliefs, but it's apparently a thing now.

Nah, that's not a representative graph. Netherlands at 50% highest is just a joke. We are more likely up there with Sweden. Either it's complete fake, or they asked 10 people and call that statistics.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It may have to do with their methodology or question format, which as far as I can see are unpublished. For example, they claimed that half of older Americans but only a fifth of younger Americans would be opposed to military rule if the government couldn't do its job. But what are we talking about here? Are we "running the bureaucrats out" or has Washington DC been hit by a meteor? Because I'd oppose military rule in the former but support it in the latter.

[smjjames]

The 538 article does make a point that it doesn't neccesarily mean that people don't like democracy, just that people are frustrated with it not working. Which comes back to the whole populist wave.

Basically, correlation isn't causation.

[Strife26]

It may have to do with their methodology or question format, which as far as I can see are unpublished. For example, they claimed that half of older Americans but only a fifth of younger Americans would be opposed to military rule if the government couldn't do its job. But what are we talking about here? Are we "running the bureaucrats out" or has Washington DC been hit by a meteor? Because I'd oppose military rule in the former but support it in the latter.

That's still not delineated enough. There's things the government could do where following Mattis when he crosses the Potomac would be reasonable and just (not many, and with how much we've already watched the Constitution die by inches, who knows when we'll actually hit that point).

The more statistics like that I read, the more I think that people don't answer surveys honestly, or at least consider it in the super hypothetical "Nixon declared elections and habeas corpus permanently suspended" instead of anything more realistic.

[Reelya]

e, ironically."
Did I mention that the DMV had a big ol Christmas tree when I visited - in mid November?  Fortunately they were really nice, so I ended up feeling welcome anyway, but in my opinion it's not appropriate.

Christmas trees aren't Christian symbolism however. Since it is a secular addition to the holiday it doesn't count.

[Strife26]

e, ironically."
Did I mention that the DMV had a big ol Christmas tree when I visited - in mid November?  Fortunately they were really nice, so I ended up feeling welcome anyway, but in my opinion it's not appropriate.

Christmas trees aren't Christian symbolism however. Since it is a secular addition to the holiday it doesn't count.

There's people who would seriously argue that any connection to Christmas, no matter how tenuous is unacceptable. 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Let's be real here: Christmas trees are accepted because they're popular, not because they're a "secular addition to a religious holiday". Which also isn't true, they're a different religious addition to a religious holiday that became marginalized by modern culture into something typically but not always secular.

Same reason the absurd argument that "Under God" is taken to not be a specifically Christian reference and thus not a violation of the Establishment Clause, even though it obviously is. Popularity trumps (eeeyyy) everything.

[Reelya]

That graph.

Drawing on data from the European and World Values Surveys, the researchers found that the share of Americans who say that army rule would be a “good” or “very good” thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995.

1 in 6 would prefer a US Army Junta? That's on par with the number of people who voted for the winning candidate.

[Neonivek]

I already had to watch a movie about the War of Christmas.

Perhaps Trump will deal with it later

[Wolfhunter107]

It may have to do with their methodology or question format, which as far as I can see are unpublished. For example, they claimed that half of older Americans but only a fifth of younger Americans would be opposed to military rule if the government couldn't do its job. But what are we talking about here? Are we "running the bureaucrats out" or has Washington DC been hit by a meteor? Because I'd oppose military rule in the former but support it in the latter.

From what I heard, the survey had people rate the necessity of living in a democracy on a scale of 1-to-10, and the graph only shows those who gave an answer of 10. The article I read(Unfortunately, I don't remember where that was) showed a graph that had most of the rest of the respondents answering between 9-5, with only a small minority giving 1-to-5s.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not deeply surprised if that's true. Stop doing bad meth(odology), goddamn it.

[smjjames]

That graph.

Drawing on data from the European and World Values Surveys, the researchers found that the share of Americans who say that army rule would be a “good” or “very good” thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995.

1 in 6 would prefer a US Army Junta? That's on par with the number of people who voted for the winning candidate.

Military rule could just mean having a general or other high ranking military as a President. We'd need to see the actual question to know for sure whether the survey was a good one or not. Plus information on methodology.

Just saying 'military rule' without defining what the question means by 'military rule' is a rather openended question.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Keep in mind that this was also the year where a poll with a non-shit methodology found that Americans under 30 preferred, over both Clinton and Trump:

-Obama Invictus

-Selecting a random American by lottery

-Being obliterated by a giant meteor