Comment by bilbo0s
17 hours ago
Just Devil's Advocate, but this being the US, the opposition doesn't necessarily support pure democratic ideals either.
It's just that the conservatives are so much further along the authoritarianism scale that the liberals appear to be freedom loving democracy activists by comparison. But I guarantee you, if you were to drop the average US Democratic party politician into Germany, Australia, or Canada, they'd be considered to be so far right of center that people would question whether or not that politician even believes in democracy.
It's absolutely not the case that the average Democratic party politician would be considered far right of center in Germany, Australia, or Canada. The Democratic party has an entirely normal center-left platform. Policy outcomes consistently end up in a space that most countries consider right-leaning, but this has nothing to do with what the average Democratic politician wants. It stems from the frequent necessity of compromising with arch-conservatives to form a majority.
The ratchet effect is real. American liberals have comfortably positioned themselves as the counter to authoritarianism but you'll notice that they never actually make things less authoritarian. They're thrilled to keep the direct power seized by the right, and to expand their own soft power where possible.
> you'll notice that they never actually make things less authoritarian
They tried, but it was blocked by Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_People_Act
That doesn't really refute what they said. It didn't "actually" make things less authoritarian. From my perspective, the only thing that's worth giving Dems the benefit of the doubt is that they haven't had House/Senate/Presidency control for the entirety of my adult life. If they had that and they still managed to be entirely ineffective, then it would just be entirely undeniable that they're complicit in the rise of authoritarianism.
As is, there's this veneer of plausible deniability that, shucks, they really want to help but those other guys don't let them. The practical reality of their policy making is to increase authoritarianism under the guise of "some progress is better than no progress", disregarding that what Democratic leaders call progress their voters (and other democratic societies) call regress.
(Don't get me wrong, I hold no illusion that the red party is at all less authoritarian; my point is that the blue party demonstrates through their actual policy that they are also authoritarian.)
Ahh yes only the left has agency
???
that's a wild misreading of the idea that the powerful like to keep and expand their power