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America is converting into a radical authoritarian state, yes, but they're not a "fringe". They are, by a small margin, the dominant faction in the US. Popular vote counts prove it.
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Unfortunately this country has literacy and education problems, and many voters were plainly ignorant of what they were voting for.
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There isn't a radical authoritarian fringe in the US. There are multiple, competing radical authoritarian perspectives in the US, and I wouldn't be surprised if the sum of them constituted a majority.

They disagree on the authority, not the methods, and help the two institutional parties cooperate to destroy civil liberties by accusing their counterparts of abusing ("weaponizing") civil rights to commit crimes, spy for foreign governments, and/or abuse children.

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The back and forth between "the Left" and "the Right" seems to actually be about who gets to run the prison instead of whether we should run a nation like one.
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The right has become so untenable that the only viable defense of it is a bad faith distraction tactic to pretend that it's comparable to the left.
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You're in a bubble. It's not wholly a bad faith distraction tactic, and denying wrongdoing by anyone flying the "left" banner is a scary thought.
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So one one hand we have Nazi ideas[1] being platformed by the ruling political party which has barely disguised its support for ethnically cleansing the country of all non-white people[2]. And on the other hand we have radical democratic socialist candidates proposing stabilized rent[3]. What am I missing here?

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/republican-part...

2. https://www.esiweb.org/newsletter/100-million-expulsions-pro...

3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/06/europe-zohra...

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The main cases I've seen against people on the left (non-exclusive) are:

- Lots of them in Epstein files

- Mass importations of unchecked non-citizens

- Trying harder to look cool to Europe vs helping Americans

- Overregulation (things like California Coastal Commission)

- Massive fraud (LA -> SF bullet train, tens of billions for "homelessness" that don't go towards homeless at all, building permits, etc)

- Antifa burning down 3rd party businesses for reasons unknown

- Attempts to squash 1st amendment, particularly on gender

Since you linked sites like the Guardian and Atlantic, I figured the bar was low enough that you can just google any of these points and find an opinionated piece of similar quality.

The bubble I refer to is the fact that seemingly all you see is the bad on one side and good on the other. As easy as you claim one side are Nazis trying to kill off non-whites, the people on the other side claim the left is trying to force movie/music propaganda to eradicate all white people. Both sides have millions of posts from terminally online people wildly claiming outrageous things. Both "sides" have bad people. If you can't agree to that, you are in a bubble or just lying.

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As your net worth increases, the concern about what you have to lose from a personal safety perspective skyrockets. You start becoming far more paranoid and seeing crime everywhere. Tech CEOs and billionaires will build the dystopian panopticon society 100 times out of 100 because they don't care about other people, they just want to feel safe. If that means mass surveillance for the rest of the world, so be it.

If you don't believe me, just look at the CCP. It already happened there.

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Being anti-crime doesn't mean lacking compassion. Crimes have victims, and reducing crime results in fewer of them. Poor people don't want to be victims any more than rich people do.
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Building the panopticon does not reduce crime.
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