The biggest issue of politics is that it is not seen as managing 100 million people but as stupid terms of left and right.
There’s no left when managing 100 million people There’s no right when managing 100 million people
There are 10000 different characteristics of each person and the ruler has to choose the right action for or against the right person. That is politics. It is not liberal, it is not authoritarian. An ideal ruler is liberal against one who’s liberal and authoritarian against one who’s authoritarian.
When we stop seeing politics in terms of these stupid terms, all will be solved!
Nah. Yes, one sways people here and there according to ideology and winning elections is important, but work of a politician is to manage system as a whole, it is to divide responsibility to next layer of hierarchy, check how much of policies are implemented on grassroots by taking feedback from grassroots and hold that next layer accountable and incentivize or penalize them. Those in next layer will take care of layer below them till things reach the last layer.
Obviously more layers will lead to more cost (commission, corruption, etc.).
As far as I know, authoritarian means that who implements his decision irrespective of whether population likes or not. Such behavior is important in some times. Liberal means that who allows freedom. That too is important in some cases. There’s no middle right, middle left, left and such crap. If I were a politician, I’d simultaneously be at complete scale, precisely because it’s a useless scale.
I really don’t know the meaning of word politics, polity, etc. but I understand very well influence, elections and decision making which are real concepts to me. Statesmanship for me, is the most difficult thing, to be divided into simple duality of right and left.
Sorry, but that is a very incomplete and IMHO naive analysis you are doing here.
How do you as a politician actually get “your” hierarchy to follow your orders?
I never said that your grand story needs to win over a majority.
Authoritarian politicians usually get by through winning over a dedicated minority of state bureocrats and/or the police/military who then terrorize the rest of the population into submission.
I’m pretty sure those who aren’t authoritarian also have the same strategy of winning over a minority and controlling a majority. The only difference is in that case the majority believe that they’re not being terrorized and they really believe the ruler acts in their best interests.