I've thought often of the possibilities of civil wars and dictatorships.
I don't have any plans specifically, but I think people can be very resilient. When you look back to history and see the conditions that people lived in, that people survived, you know it's possible.
You know, it used to be that I saw a fundamental difference between ourselves and the people of the past. Essentially, we were more evolved. I haven't seen it that way in a while. There is continuity. I think the biggest difference is in out devices, and how they effect our processing.
I digress. My main point is that people have it in them to survive nearly anything. I draw comfort from that.
I am not sure if people get used to war immediately around them, but (as Virtual Ghost said) most people in stable dictatorships lead normal lives.
According to the V Dem institute about 13% of the world's population lives in a fully fledged liberal democracy. The rest of mankind does not suffer and wriggle in pain 24/7 in some sort of hellhole. And if they suffer the main cause is usually poverty, not lack of freedom.
Quite a few people in the East of Germany miss the GDR. Now you and I might associate that state with heavy censorship, the Stasi wiretapping phones, opening letters, neighbors spying and reporting on each other and people getting shot for trying to leave the country. But I know someone who grew up there, her dad was a highranking civil servant, and she called it a "paradise for children". Many people miss the sense of community and the safety of being taken care of. You could live there just fine as long has you went along with things, kept your mouth shut and didn't try anything funny. If you were Arian the same thing can probably be said about nazi Germany. People went about their businesses, stood up, went to work, had lunch, kissed their kids goodnight. Rinse and repeat. Same thing in the Soviet Union. Many Russians seem nostalgic for that and quite happy under Putin. In Brazil, Bolsonaro supporters seem to romanticize their former military dictatorship that disappeared, tortured and murdered the opposition.
I went to Beijing for a brief visit this spring. Now, the internet is heavily censored, you need a VPN client to access the most basic Western websites. There is armed police everywhere. CCTV cameras everywhere. Digitalization is very advanced so that you can use your phone for everything and leave a thick data trail behind everything you do. State surveillance is near absolute. Censorship is obviously strong and people are known to be disappeared or arrested if they cause problems. Political freedom is extremely limited. But people there seemed not only just as happy and friendly as elsewhere, they sounded genuinely proud of their country and its accomplishments and took pride in how safe everything was and how there was hardly any crime because of the total surveillance (they also thought it's Taiwan and the West that are aggressive towards China and constantly provoking trouble, not the other way around).
Also, the degree of perceived freedom you grew up with is not normal, neither historically speaking nor crossculturally (the US is by far the most individualistic nation on earth anyway by most psychological surveys).
I am not saying liberal democracy isn't worth protecting and fighting for - on the contrary, I think it is a fragile, precious good that can easily slip from our fingers. When dementia sets in it is usually the outer brain regions that go first, the ones we develop the latest both as individuals and as a species, as far as I know. Similarly, we are risking slipping back into a cruder form of sociopolitical organization.
However, while human brains also seem hardwired to be sensitive to loss (and value a dollar lost more than a dollar won) and those used to a freer, more open society will definitely miss it, not only the supporters of the new more rigide regime but likely also many growing up under it will take the new normal for granted. And who knows, the pendulum can always swing back again.
That being said (as a small consolation in case of emergency), don't give up, fight the political dementia, fight like hell!!!
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