This is as old as time, too, so we should know better. Heck, Sideshow Bob had a whole speech in The Simpsons about how conservatives crave someone to come along and rule them like a king. This was in the ‘90s when US Republicans were still pretending to only care about balancing budgets and responsible governance.
There’s plenty of scary stuff in the press from the lead up to Nazi Germany along these lines as well. People get caught up in the ideas of “bad” people being punished and themselves being vindicated for being “good”. The thrill of harsh judgement is real, and of course always assumes we won’t be the ones judged (for certain values of “we”).
