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Comment by thrway63245 | Hacker News Reader

The USA managed to do something special: replace the cult of personality with the cult of the Party. There are two parties, but their followers are quite rabid and would probably kill for their party if told to. So if we expand the criteria for "dear leader" to include parties I think the US would be at a 7 or 8.

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If this was the case there wouldn't be so much hagiography for any given president or presidential candidate.

I also think a 7 or 8 rating is way too high for the US even on a party level. A 7 or 8, given the Kims are a 9 or 10, would probably be more along the lines of a Xi (observing that former heads of state of China have been unceremoniously retired, which shows that personality only goes so far even in an effectively single party structure).

There are people who won't talk to anyone from the political religion opposite to theirs. Both sides call each other Nazis. And they'll vote for a candidate from their party even if the candidate would have to rule without regaining consciousness before they'd consider the other party. I think that's a pretty extreme level of brainwashing.

Yes, but you'll find rabid rabble rousers in spectator sports as well. While this may say something about the polarization of the parties, it says a bit more about individual and group psychology. And doesn't say much at all about the organization of power in the US.

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