Further to my earlier post, I find it interesting that there are many countries whose population will happily hear criticism of their leader, and a handful where any criticism from outside is immediately decried as ignorance at best and racism or aggression at worst.
Anyone can criticise the leaders of the UK, the US, western Europe, Australia. Nobody complains that being anti-Trump automatically meant hating Americans. Nobody thinks that thinking Boris Johnson is a buffoon proves you hate the British.
But there is a group of countries whose population generally not tolerate criticism from the outside. North Koreans, Chinese, Russians - the majority of people will shut down criticism of their leader and will accuse the person making it of being wrong and/or racist. They will deflect criticism by saying other countries are worse than them (the Salisbury poisonings were obviously done by accident by the British rather than two Russian agents). Usually this behaviour has been groomed over a long period, the propaganda machine has done its job so well that the citizens cannot think any other way.
It's weird that Scotland falls into the latter group. Criticism of Sturgeon, criticism of the SNP, is always perceived as being unfair. Usually it's fended off with negative comments about the UK government. There is a strange bubble where anything good is put down to Sturgeon, anything bad is put down to the UK. Criticism of the Scottish government is automatically seen as anti-Scottish sentiment.
I'm fairly sure the SNP don't have a secret police going round intimidating people who disagree with them, so I put this down to them having an excellent propaganda system. But like I said, it's strange how the Scottish government can be lumped in with those of totalitarian regimes so easily. When a government cannot be scrutinised and criticised, democracy is weakened.