There have been so many checks and balances on the executive branch both in congress but even more so the judicial branch of the US system that most of these claims of authoritarianism, besides a few minor examples that look a whole lot like the behaviour of previous administrations when compared on paper, that this whole shift to authoritarianism that has been so thoroughly FUDly spread in the media is simply not true.

It’s most taking a single persons words on Twitter as policy which is not how things work in the real world. Despite efforts by Bush to massively expand the Executive branch’s power - mostly under the guise of counter terrorism, we really haven’t seen anything near comparable. And it practice that power is still significantly capped from any sort of extremism - by design.

Yet those in the past who actually made significant strides in allowing the president and his cabinet to bypass these safe guards is now being paraded around among the Democrats as one of the “good guys” and appearing in the media with the former First Lady.

The obvious disconnect here between what is said and insessently warned about and Sabre rattled over politically and what exists (in terms of what’s actually different) fuels a lot of the discontent which drives regular, entirely not “far right” or “alt right” people to the right.

Meanwhile the worst of the worst redneck supporters on the right, a tiny minority, get paraded around [1] like they are the new base representing the average person on the right... instead of the fringe rural racist nobodies who have always existed but the media largely ignored instead of promoting them line they are powerful. Which is simply not true fod for the average 48% who votes right and only further fuels discontent about mass misrepresentation and villanization (similar to the “despicables” bit that complete backfired) in the media and elsewhere.

It’s really not that bad and I’ve never seen a party so self destructive and consistently out of touch as the American democrat party. Most people paying attention on the left are well aware of that.

This sort of thing is what results in losing to a person who was probably the least qualified person ever to be president. And nearly every poll shows the average Republican dislikes what Trump writes on Twitter and wished he stopped.

Yet this same person who has 24/7 negative media coverage has a very good shot at winning again which will be the greatest embarrassment to the Democrats in modern history.

It’s not past due for the left to look themselves in the mirror and ask themselves who they are really fighting against [2]. I can assure you doubling down on identity politics, radical policies, and calling them all Nazis and white supremacist might work on Twitter but it is a terribly flawed strategy for winning this election. The people on the right have long ago seen through that nonsense and the media cherry picking of the baddest guys (aka political nobodies) they can find and presenting them as the typical republican is not working, it's having the opposite effect.

And I say this as someone who would be just as happy with Bernie as a sane but honest republican candidate. But both parties have proven they can only offer total mediocrity and blatant attempts for predetermined anointed winners, who are boring, old, and can barely form a coherent sentence.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/us/politics/trump-2020-tr...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/opinion/trump-rhetoric-pr...