Comment by glenstein

Actually think this is a fascinating question, although perhaps for different reasons within whatever reasons might have led you to ask it.

I think you raise a legitimate point that it's not that hard to create ugly numbers.

I also think that authoritarian social dynamics come to these questions with a kind of brutal simplicity, lack of intellectual curiosity or creativity, and a lot of the traits that would entail a value for democracy are mutually exclusive with the brute simplicity of authoritarian mindset. And so the story they choose to tell of how they won is going to have similar hallmarks of brute simplicity and absence of nuance.