Comment by toyg

It's a combination of unprecedented wealth (let's be honest, modern poverty in industrialized countries is nothing like it was back in the '50s) and the continuous rise of asymmetric warfare randomly deployed by psychopaths. In Sydney, the "cafe kidnap" attack is still fresh in everyone's mind. We've had bombs in London and Madrid, plus a number of other scares, and when a population feels threatened, they'll typically hand power to the first dictator with a minimum of skill. As long as we're free to buy porn and videogames, most people just don't care.