Sure, we understand why people are going along with it quite well at this point, but who and what are behind the push to remove civil liberties is the more interesting component to this issue in my mind.
If anyone has any resource on this topic, please post - this (and environment) might very well be the most important issues of our time.
There's no master plan, if that's what you're getting at. I think this general drift is the result of a few different things, most of which are older than we'd like to admit:
• A lot of people like authoritarianism • People blame government by default for any problem that doesn't have any more obvious perpetrator (see point 1) • The massive mismatch in military strength between western powers and elsewhere that results in oppression of weaker nations and resultant terrorism
In case you doubt the appeal of authoritarianism just go look at the popularity of Stalin in Russia, or the readership of the Daily Mail in the UK, or the overwhelming political support for the NSA / the PATRIOT Act. Lots and lots of people want to live in a highly authoritarian society and it's worth reflecting on why that is, and whether those people have valid reasons.
I was recently in a former communist country, and took a tour of one of the cities. The tour guide mentioned that a lot of older people weren't so sure that democracy/capitalism is better than communism. Sure, in the communist era people got executed for merely making rude comments or jokes about political leaders, but at least there was working social security, pensions, everyone had a job etc. Whereas post-USSR, often life got harder and the old certainties dissolved.
Authoritarianism is popular because it presents people with a simple deal: support the regime no matter how shitty it gets and in return the government will take care of you - and as long as they have absolute power, if something bad happens to you then it's the government's fault. That government tends to have simple, easily understood solutions for things that appeal to people's animal instincts, like picking someone to blame for something and then executing them. Additionally you will get a comforting story about how by simply being born in this society you are one of the good guys, as opposed to "them" who are the bad guys. All you have to do is not have strong opinions, not be weird, or gay, or a Jew, and fit in with whatever other random biases the leaders have and life will be, if not good, then at least straightforward. And how hard is that, really? Almost by definition most people find it easy to meet that criteria, because they're in the majority.
Contrast with the civil libertarian utopia: if something bad happens to you, it's probably your own fault. You have nobody to blame but yourself. It's not clear what you're supposed to do or how to be a success in life. The government is small and generally refuses blame for things, even if the population is under attack. There is no black/white good vs evil story to hold on to. All around you are people who aren't like you, who don't think like you.
That's just my guess. I would really like to read a well thought out book on the appeal of authoritarianism. I feel like it's an underexplored topic (at least in the modern era).
This is a really salient point and one that comes off as heresy to the standard conspiracy-esque narrative. The reality is that to some extent our slide into authoritarianism is democratic.
Look at the "Arab Spring" -- they got a little democracy and mostly elected totalitarian theocrats. In that case many people want totalitarian enforcement of social norms.
Another place you can see a strong preference for authoritarianism is at a local community level. Many people prefer communities with strong zoning regulations, regulations on the appearance of buildings, and (often indirect) mechanisms for excluding 'undesirable' residents. Without those things you get sprawling, ugly, and sometimes crime-ridden places that just don't feel safe and are not aesthetically appealing.
Yet another is the clear preference many people have for authoritarian computing platforms like iOS. It's the most restricted platform in the history of computing, yet it offers superior user experience and a lack of malware precisely for that reason. The fact is that there's classes of problems that can be easily and simply solved by authoritarianism that are not easily addressed in a freer society.
People are unwilling to oppose government control, and when they are they get crushed by outside forces. People in American continue to work for the government, it's even considered prestigious.
We can't even prosecute torture. People who believe in the government are dangerous idiots.
That might be true, but that's still my point-- it is to some extent democratic. If more people were genuinely and strongly opposed to torture, we'd be getting somewhere prosecuting it. I'd say a majority are weakly opposed and a minority are strongly opposed. If a majority or super-majority were strongly opposed something would be happening.
(Being weakly opposed is basically meaningless.)
In some ways all societies are democracies. A totalitarian society is where the majority either supports the totalitarian regime or at least doesn't dislike it enough to invest the energy and risk required to rebel against it. There's a minimum threshold of support that any regime must have in order to maintain control. At the very least you must have sufficient support among a society's wealthy and powerful (money), those who wield weapons (military and police), and those who control key infrastructure (operations). If those sectors of support fail, kings get deposed.
It's almost like you need a strong constitution with heavy restrictions on what the government can do in order for democracy to not devolve into autocracy.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around this as pro-authoritarian thinking is so foreign to me.