That's a rather specious argument when you have the current example of a democracy (India) simply shutting down large parts of the internet for political reasons, not to mention the widespread deployment of surveillance tech in numerous developed countries.
This isn't to say that you don't have a point, but if you're saying it's a more pressing issue than those you might be suffering from a loss of perspective. After all, 'hate speech' is widely unpopular (as opposed to being a highly popular thing suppressed by authoritarian states, and much 'hate speech' treats of the desire to operate an authoritarian state that will restrict or outright terminate the freedoms/lives of the hated subjects.
I think you have had the good fortune not to be targeted by people in a position of power. The loss of perspective is the other way around: Until this has happened to you, you can't fully appreciate what it feels like.
"Hate speech" is a deceptive label. Even pg points out that it sounds like a phrase straight out of 1984.
Society at large seems to have become turbulent. Everywhere you look, you find people who are practically leaping for any small excuse to tear into someone, tear them down, label them various names, get them fired, and so on.
We are fortunate not to have to worry about authoritarian nations. But we still have to worry about authoritarians. They will often use excuses like "It's in the community's interest" to exact punishment that very few are inclined to disagree with.
One could argue that if few people disagree with a punishment, then by definition it's fair. I would argue that restriction of thought is a more serious matter. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21550422 was an insightful comment illustrating some of the modern decisions that one has to make.
>Everywhere you look, you find people who are practically leaping for any small excuse to tear into someone, tear them down, label them various names, get them fired, and so on.
I think it's you that lack perspective. There is more world beyond twitter outrage culture, and the vast majority of people do not engage in such behaviours.
There very well may be more to the world, than twitter outrage culture but once this comes for the average joe you are totally fucked and I actively fear that someone at work finds out I listen to Ben Shapiro's podcast because this could easily result in me loosing my job and being deported as a result.
This is a very real issue. I shared my screen during a conference call with a browser tab open to a conservative news site. I had to cover with showing how i was opening a link someone sent me in an email to see what they were talking about vs. going there voluntarily. Even then, there was still grumbling on the call and later in Slack I was "casually" asked about what left-leaning causes i support outside of work.
Give me one example, one, where somebody in the US was persecuted for listening to a podcast, and didn't subsequently win a court case for wrongful dismissal. You'll struggle to find even one example of that happening at all, let alone one where that did happen and the courts didn't find it illegal.
There is clearly a world outside of "Twitter outrage culture", but depending on your industry, it is no less sharp and toxic, and not isolated from the Twittersphere.
Several otherwise decent people I've known over the years have had an awakening of vindictive bloodlust coinciding with an ascent into the HR establishment. Their words and actions in everyday life echo the sickness on Twitter.
Just wanted to say thanks for voicing this better than I could have. I constantly see people downplaying the censorship happening in places like the USA because "This is different!" Meanwhile they cheer for society at large slowly adopting the same authoritarian tendancies they villify when present in other nations purely because in their view it's acceptable as long as it's not the government itself acting in an authoritarian fashion.
> We are fortunate not to have to worry about authoritarian nations. But we still have to worry about authoritarians.
It is a sad fact that, at the moment, we see someone with political power exhibiting authoritarian behavior (undermining a free press, undermining or disregarding rule of law, judges, etc, deliberately spreading false information, using the system to attack political enemies) — we see someone in office with authoritarian behavior _embracing_ hate speech, both explicitly and implicitly.
This is not to say your point is not also a concern or that we should ignore it.
Rather, that right now if you look around the world what you will see is the current crop of leaders with authoritarian tendencies (India, Hungary perhaps, Brazil, The Philippines, US) embrace hate speech as a tool to incite their base and sometimes to incite political violence (Brazil in particular).
As this is a sensitive subject because it touches on contemporary politics I want to emphasize that I am doing my best to be thoughtful, specific, factual, and nonjudgmental.
Factual support for all the statements I made here can be easily found. There have been many articles written about, for example, Bolsanaro in Brazil and Duarte in the Philippines.
Lastly I’d like to point out that the topic of the thread is inherently political and I’ve tried to stay on-topic.
The thread is very political. All the listed authoritarian behavior is also behavior that get associated with political behavior. Deliberately presenting ones own political views in the best light and presenting the opposite view in the worst light get sadly defined as just being politics, regardless of how false it is in an objective light. Undermining and disregarding rule of law is common everywhere, particular with laws that were put in place to restrict those in a position of power. A standard practice in politics is to also have a media policy that in ways favor the press that favors their side and limits the availability of everyone else.
It all comes down to what degree one finds the other sides behavior worse. In an objective perspective there is surely people that are worse than others, but we should not talk about it as if one side is above such behavior.
I’m not sure I understand — is there a different way you can say this?
I do think I get the gist of what you are saying; in short, I agree that unethical behavior knows no political party. My comment was more about authoritarian behavior exhibited by various world leaders currently in power, since, well, since those are the people currently in power.
I certainly do have my own views, and think it’s appropriate in a conversation about authoritarian behavior by governments (which is a political discussion by its very nature) to share my views, as long as I do so in a respectful manner and point to reasonably valid sources for my claims.
In this case there’s been so much written about the two leaders I mentioned (and the one I didn’t) that simply encouraging people to google is, I think, sufficient.
Any article by any major paper of repute about political violence in the Philippines or Brazil will function as a source, as will any fact-checking site (politifact) or fact-checked article about US politics in the past few years.
I can take examples but I fear the more specific we get the higher the risks becomes that people dig down at the preferred side.
As an example of undermining and disregarding rule of law, in the US no party has respected surveillance laws as far as 2001 and likely further back. As an example from here in Sweden, government officials regularly undermine and disregard the law in regard to how open contracts between government and companies. As a global example, we saw on Wikileaks how almost all countries classified information in order to hide political embarrassing facts from going public. All this is authoritarian behavior with varied degree of harm, and the laws they undermine or breaks are laws that got written in order to restrict authoritarian rule.
In terms of the free press, political alignment is the tool of authoritarian rule. If the political party in power own the press, get campaign money from the press, and have a captured audience through the press, then the press is not free. The political party will grant interviews, space, time and opportunity to those they favor, and denying the same to the opposing side. Studies from both the US show this pattern to be very real during elections, and popular media often demonstrate this pattern in movies and TV shows.
In regard to facts, sources help but its not a panacea. A relative new media trick by authoritarians when faced with investigative journalism is to do double recording of the interview, and then rush to be first to publish a editorialized version that favors ones own side with link to the full version. This way you get to capture the narrative, and the small minority that have time and energy to follow the several hours long interview are at minimum primed to your message.
> As an example of undermining and disregarding rule of law, in the US no party has respected surveillance laws as far as 2001 and likely further back. As an example from here in Sweden, government officials regularly undermine and disregard the law in regard to how open contracts between government and companies. As a global example, we saw on Wikileaks how almost all countries classified information in order to hide political embarrassing facts from going public. All this is authoritarian behavior with varied degree of harm, and the laws they undermine or breaks are laws that got written in order to restrict authoritarian rule.
This so succinctly sums up my frustrations with what I view as the erosion of democracy as we know it the world over. The controls established to limit the awesome power of the state are being subordinated by the state itself, and in secret. The asymmetry makes it hard for the citizenry to do anything about it, even when it happens in the open.
Thinking more about it, the power of the people is only able to be exercised collectively, that is we require coordination in order to effect change. On the other hand, actors in government have figured out how to wield their powers unilaterally (in the US at least). This makes it much harder for the collective to effect change that restricts the actions of the individual actors, as the change is hard to make (collective action is hard) and easily undone later on.
>we see someone in office with authoritarian behavior _embracing_ hate speech, both explicitly and implicitly.
Perhaps this should clue you in about how people feel about political correctness. Many of the leaders you mentioned likely got a whole bunch of votes because they didn't toe the political correctness line. This happened in many other countries too, because people generally don't like walking on eggshells.
>There have been many articles written about, for example, Bolsanaro in Brazil and Duarte in the Philippines.
Imagine this sentence, but instead of you misspelling their names, you misspelled their pronouns. Some people would label that as hate speech. Obviously not when used against the people you mentioned, because they are the enemy and we can't give ammunition to the enemy.
1. “Hate speech” in most countries is a legally defined term, and courts of law are able to determine if something qualifies as hate speech or not. This is what I’m referring to. That is different from “political correctness”, which has no legally defined meaning I’m aware of.
[EDIT] Hate speech is not legally defined in the United States. Not sure why I thought it was. My apologies. I would though argue that it’s still a more clearly defined term than “politically correct”, especially since it is legally defined in other countries.
The wikipedia article about Bolsonaro contains plenty of citations describing behavior of his which fits the definition of authoritarian. When you consider his previous association with and expressed nostalgia for the military dictatorship in Brazil (notorious for torturing its opponents, among other things), this makes his behavior especially disturbing.
Call it whatever you want — authoritarian, fascist, populist, etc, but these guys certainly don’t exhibit the behavior of a of a leader who values small-d democratic government, the rule of law, or equality under the law regardless of religion, sex, skin color, political belief or sexual orientation.
Trump is not as extreme and most of all of what he says does not meet the legal definition of hate speech.
Discussion of whether he qualifies as a wannabe-authoritarian leader or not is more complex.
There are many verifiable instances where, as President, he has undermined the laws of the country he leads. One example is when he talked about wanting to end birthright citizenship (that you are automatically a citizen if born in the U.S.), which is guaranteed by the 14th amendment of the constitution.
Please note that regardless of how distressing you may find the information I’m sharing to be, I’m not doing much more than presenting facts. Of course I have a point of view. But my goal here is to illustrate as dispassionately as I can, well-known and verifiable behavior of current world leaders which is along the lines of “demanding total obedience to those in positions of authority”,
There have been of course other leaders in the past from all sorts of political parties who have exhibited authoritarian behavior; but I’m talking about who is in power now.
There are of course plenty of other countries we could talk about as well. India, China, Russia, and Israel come to mind, in addition to the Philippines, Brazil, and the United States. And I don’t claim that list to be comprehensive.
I'm not arguing that those leaders are nor authoritarian. I'm saying that I think some people support them despite them being authoritarians because they speak out without political correctness.
My quip about the spelling of their name was to indicate the absurdity of some hate speech laws. Misgendering somebody can be considered hate speech and the difference between misgendering someone or not can simply be a typo.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I missed part of your main point.
I guess I would say with regards to someone choosing to support an authoritarian candidate for office because they liked their rhetoric ... buy the ticket, take the ride. As in, they are making a choice.
There are people who have a fondness for some ex-communist societies and or their icons like Marx, the Che, and others knowing the ideology resulted in millions of deaths and other horrors, are they oblivious to the implications?
Talking about making changes to internal laws is not in and of itself subversive. It’s done all the time. Does talking about abolishing the electoral college imply those people are undermining the constitution?
I think the president of the united states has the responsibility to be particularly sensitive and thoughtful about how they themselves discuss modifying the constitution.
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.
I don’t disagree with a lot of what you said, and certainly not with your excellent point about past administrations expanding executive power.
I do think you underestimate the power of the presidential office as a “bully pulpit” and the concrete legislative and other steps the current administration has taken.
I think what frustrates me the most about all the anti-Trump rhetoric is that what Bush did is vastly more heinous than anything Trump is accused of, yet I've seen so many people call out Trump as being vastly worse than Bush.
I also find it interesting that the people who hate Trump now continue bashing Trump, but very often they do it in a roundabout way in an attempt to appear more balanced than they actually are. Trump has quite literally become he-who-shall-not-be-named on HN, and I find it hilarious. If there were ever an indication that the people on this site are as silly and melodramatic as the rest of the population, that's it right there.
There's an entire population of people on HN who can't talk about this stuff without getting hysterical.
Not saying "Trump" is learned behaviour on a site that promotes intellectual debate.
I personally much prefer saying executive branch or administration than saying Trump for that very reason. It helps avoid the emotions and political ideological stuff.
This article which I've posted here a million times here since 2007, and which used to be popular on HN, but somewhat forgotten with the hyper radicalization of Reddit/Twitter former moderates and the 10000x increase in the many people thinking that "resisting" by parroting the same talking head hyper partisan stuff on the Internet will save the world.... Instead of causing every person who is politically/intellectually mature enough to roll their eyes with "this again?".
> Everywhere you look, you find people who are practically leaping for any small excuse to tear into someone, tear them down, label them various names, get them fired, and so on.
They get their power from people like you paying far too much attention to what they say. Seriously - their opinions are about as significant as Bill O'Reilly's, and more importantly their influence lasts about as long. Stop looking, play the long game, trust that most others find them obnoxious as you do and they just fade away with no effort on your part.
Well, mostly. If you are unlucky enough to have a friend caught up in their net of hysteria, defend them. But even in that case, try to be the reverse of what your antagonists are - a calming, rational influence. Don't make the mistake Richard Stallman did. I admire the man hugely, and am very saddened by recent events, but his grasp of mob politics is ... poor.
The overall metapoint that both you and the parent comment agree on is this: the internet isn't being "weaponized by authoritarian states" in some unique fashion specific to authoritarianism.
I'd just round it all up to say that: like most headlines about global trends in America, this headline reenforces the meme of "American Exceptionalism" and casts the situation in a "good versus evil" narrative format that's not really helpful for understanding what's happening or what to do about it. But that itself isn't anything particularly new in itself either (queue last three decades of American headlines).
Every Republican nominee and political organization has been compared to fascists and Hitler since the early 1950s.
It long ago lost its punch yet it's still the go-to for every leftwing political ideologue like it will be taken seriously.
I agree that this same stuff has been going on forever but I've noticed a significant decline in tolerance by the left of even engaging and debating those on the right. The positions of ivory tower righteous we-know-best reputation which the left has always been known for has gone into overdrive - mostly on social media but it's leaking into reputable papers like NYT and less reputable ones in terms of neutrality like WaPo. Plus the crazy radical stuff coming out of places like Teen Vogue are also quite new.
Crossing lines has always been a critical political necessity as so much of politics is built on compromise. But at least culturally the hysteria and FUD being stirred up online has completely destroyed any sense of understanding or breaching the other side. Which is turning modern politics into a form of trench warfare.
The right have certainly contributed to it by tolerating their crazies a little too frequently (even though they rarely win or have any power outside of useful headlines in the political media coverage) when in the past they'd stay the fringe and get zero news coverage or attention, which would otherwise increase their standing and help with recruitment to turn otherwise fringe crazies into groups the media presents with seriousness and legitimacy - because they find it useful to attach it to more mainstream and moderate voters. Which I think is a dangerous game to play and one we've already seen the consequences of.
It's far easier for the baddies to recruit and be real threads when the media and other influential people connect them to the real power players in Washington who've never heard of them and would want nothing to do with them.
"The right have certainly contributed to it by tolerating their crazies a little too frequently (even though they rarely win or have any power outside of useful headlines in the political media coverage) when in the past they'd stay the fringe and get zero news coverage or attention..."
I find that pretty funny considering who the current president is. I would go further to argue that was in part the reason he was elected. This is after all the man who started getting more and more attention for claiming that the former president was born in Kenya.
The difference is the right has never gain power in the media, academia, and based on a resent report showing a 75% left or far left leaning on Twitter, social media.
My concern is when the more hysterical stuff you’d find at protests (ie, Bush’s face overlaid on Hitler) starts leaking into more reputable sources and every person on the right is treated like a complete pariah... the right had always famously been the “silent majority”. The silent part is becoming a hard requirement these days which really concerns me.
All things should happen in the daylight and a complete intolerance, misrepresentation, and overreaction is what pushes them underground only worsens these radicalism and extremism which we should expunge from both sides by challenging it openly. Instead of one side having an unfiltered field day and monopoly on the media which treats them like villains non stop. Especially when the only option left is Fox News which is full of crazy bullshit (but compared to most traffic rates of major websites not really that popular among the average voter in the big picture).
>>"the right has never gain power in the media, academia"
Excluding, the Murdoch empire including Fox News, the entire RW media ecosystem,'access journalism' as practiced by such as the NYT, and the general false equivalence presumption of most large media outlets. Denying that there is any RW power in the media is a strawman argument at best.
In Academia? Seems to overlook the fact that when given sufficient thought, many RW concepts are justifications for policies that do not hold up to data-backed studies (e.g., benefits of treating drug use as a public health issue), are simply outright denial of science (climate change / AGW denialism), or are straight-up anti-intellectualism used to support popular movements. Combine these trends, and there is sound reason to consider that academia being more liberal is not some crass bias, but based on well-founded reasons.
> Excluding, the Murdoch empire including Fox News, the entire RW media ecosystem,'access journalism' as practiced by such as the NYT, and the general false equivalence presumption of most large media outlets. Denying that there is any RW power in the media is a strawman argument at best.
Those are the exceptions to the rule, and they're also blatant extremist outlets. The right has a handful of outlets that almost read as parodies of new outlets, and the left entails nearly everything else, including nearly all media outside of the news. The lack of news outlets is not something I would "blame" the left for though, it's more a failure of the right, but it is reality. Casual media, which drives culture in a huge way, is entirely dominated by the left.
> In Academia? Seems to overlook the fact that when given sufficient thought, many RW concepts are justifications for policies that do not hold up to data-backed studies..., are simply outright denial of science..., or are straight-up anti-intellectualism used to support popular movements. Combine these trends, and there is sound reason to consider that academia being more liberal is not some crass bias, but based on well-founded reasons.
The meme that "reality has a liberal bias" is one of the things the left should be laughed at for pushing. The left is just as anti-science and anti-intellectual when it comes to pushing their agenda as the right (which is hugely anti-science, not contesting that). You need to go no further than biology to find well founded facts the left just outright ignores. These narratives are equally used to push (often violent and anti-democratic) popular movements.
Neither side of the aisle holds the high ground when it comes to holding true to science and research when they come up against narratives and agendas. If you believe your side does it's probably because you are in an echo chamber.
> The meme that "reality has a liberal bias" is one of the things the left should be laughed at for pushing
This stuff hurts the democrat part which should be the party of the left behind middle class and poor.
Except the left keep pushing their party with a smug holier-than-attitude and wonder why the party that caught for labour and civil rights is not seem as the party of the elite and out of touch.
People glibly buy into the identity politics part as proof of dedication to the critical "unrepresented" working poor middle. They wanted someone to talk to them honestly about their problems, not get talked down to and pushing 1970s style labour "we're with you" campaigns to help fix the dying rust belt.
That was a lot cause but Hillary and her out of touch campaign completely failed to get these people.
Half the stuff on Brietbart is talking about what the left media is saying about themselves, it's their biggest selling points, the victimhood is the strategy (just to make a point, not support the site in any way). There's an endless supply of assaults, some justified, which creates feelings of an endless onslaught against the average right wing moderate voter. There really is no middle ground for them in the media, it's crazy extreme stuff on Fox news or constant assaults on every other channel, being treated like it's crazy to have even considered Trump.
Yet they still did and they might do it again. But no one seems to give a shit, they just obsess about identity politics and white nationalism, which only further pushes the sane ones away (rather than closer).
WSJ is the only place I've found that is still at least trying to be neutral, or at least take a centered take on the reporting instead of presented shamelessly with an obvious left-wing agenda like most NYT and WaPo articles turned into a few years back.
The fact is there was a significant enough amount of people who simply didn't like Hillary Clinton, which scared off a bunch of otherwise moderates, middle of the ground, people which are the critical bread-and-butter of battle ground states - which the democrats badly needed. Yet they remain ignored.
They were called despicable for even considering non-Hillary support. The DNC has completely missed the ball and is only further alienating these same important people.
Beyond that, the fact alone that Trump is polling anywhere near equal should be shocking and concerning to every democrat. This dude gets negative press 24/7 - globally, not just in the US. Even on comedy shows like SNL they have a non-stop field day with it. Yet he still polls.
There's obviously something serious missing that the democrats aren't getting here. This should be an easy landslide. I'm convinced the big mistake is the left's obsession with identity politics, and constant legitimacy that's being given to it, while simultaneously being disconnected from the average voters in rural and small town areas in battleground states. Maybe the damage has already been done and they don't need convincing (the scenario where minimal thought and rationality is assumed, lowest common denominator).
I can tell you as a moderate I didn't care which one of them got elected, they were both bad in their own way.
Personally, I think what people missed is that tech is doing really really well, and people in tech tend to be on the left. This means a lot of people on the left are doing well financially. To the point that they can afford to be offended by Trumps "punch em in the pussy" comment.
Do you know who can't afford to be offended by it? Those who are losing their jobs and have no way to support their family. And the left, in general, STILL doesn't understand this. Because I'm a moderate who didn't care which one got elected, I've had the opportunity to speak with many Trump supports (they were willing to open up about it). And do you know what every single one of them starts with? Every fucking single one of them?
"I don't agree with everything Trump says, but ...".
Trump straight up told some of these companies that if they move their manufacturing out of the US there will be consequences.
Think about it from their point of view. He said what they desperately wanted to hear. Of course they voted for him, the lefties would have too if the situation was reversed. It's not hard to understand why taking care of your family Trumps some jackass making sexist comments.
As far as I'm concerned, Trump getting elected was our system working as intended. You had huge swathes of the country that were being left behind and ignored. When Trump got elected, one of the first things Bernie Sanders did was start proposing laws to help that segment of the population. I bet you they're not ignored in the upcoming election.
And besides which, all signs point to the economy doing well, so all the FUD from the left about the sky falling with some of Trump's policies just help strengthen Trump's chances in the next election.
> The meme that "reality has a liberal bias" is one of the things the left should be laughed at for pushing. The left is just as anti-science and anti-intellectual when it comes to pushing their agenda as the right
This is a large part of why I pointed out what I did. That the right are just as bad when they're in power. It's just about agenda's.
You are totally right and your calm nature in talking about it is impressive. It drives me nuts so I put my head in the sand and try to pretend it doesn't exist
> The difference is the right has never gain power in the media
I think the koch brothers might disagree with that...
What's different is that tech has allowed a level of control never seen before, and the mob reigns supreme as a result.
It's a lot more difficult for a single entity like the koch brothers to affect the message because people now get their information from channels they can't possibly control.
But you know who can?
the tech giants. And those tech giants were founded by liberals because that's the nature of what liberals do (explore, vs conservatives who simply run things).
so what you have is tech now allows for unprecedented control and that tech was created by liberals, so you're seeing these astounding levels.
But when it sways back to the side of the conservatives, and it will, you'll watch them have the same level of control.
I'd like to add to what you're saying: the religious right of the 2000s and earlier is what some of the left wing looks like today. Instead of religion they have some form of social justice.
Very effective strategy you got there. It's been tried in every one of the last 6 decades of elections, I'm sure it will penetrate the minds of the voters so effectively and not highlight how out-of-touch and extreme certain quarters have become or remain.
Not even just republicans, plenty on the left would laugh off such banal and uninteresting of takes.
I agree that fascist / Nazi comparisons aren’t very useful.
I do think that the current administration exhibits behavior (verifiable, fact-checkable behavior) which legitimately meets the definition of “authoritarian” — “demanding total obedience to those in positions of authority” - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authorit... — in ways that are different from past administrations,
That's a rather specious argument when you have the current example of a democracy (India) simply shutting down large parts of the internet for political reasons, not to mention the widespread deployment of surveillance tech in numerous developed countries.
This isn't to say that you don't have a point, but if you're saying it's a more pressing issue than those you might be suffering from a loss of perspective. After all, 'hate speech' is widely unpopular (as opposed to being a highly popular thing suppressed by authoritarian states, and much 'hate speech' treats of the desire to operate an authoritarian state that will restrict or outright terminate the freedoms/lives of the hated subjects.