Unfortunately you could level the same type of name calling towards Democrats. It's now public record they colluded with all the major media outlets, coerced big tech to censor and debank opponents, imprisoned whistleblowers, violated bodily autonomy with unconstitutional mandates, weaponized the courts to conduct lawfare, and now issued an unprecedented number of pre-emptive pardons for unspecified crimes committed by Fauci, Hunter Biden, et al.
I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but Biden was escalating the Ukraine war in the final days of his presidency, and celebrated Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Crazy how things have changed so much. The left unanimously viewed Bush and Cheney as obviously psychopathic war criminals, and now almost all the Neocons have jumped over to the Democrats. The left used to be extremely skeptical of globalization as evident by the Seattle WTO Protests, mass immigration as evident by Bernie Sanders' comments on its effect on workers' wages, and Big Pharma's perverse incentives to keep people sick and regularly consuming drugs. Yet the media has utterly psyop'd the progressives... it's kinda disturbing.
Authoritarianism is also popular with the democrats right now, but I don’t see how anything I said is name calling: I used terms with a specific meaning appropriate for the context- the only reason they have a negative connotation is because of what they actually mean. Do you know of other terms with the same meaning and more neutral connotations?
If you go by Trump's actions in his first term he was a pretty standard Republican, and mostly just cut taxes, with a lot of wild rhetoric which is part of his deal making shtick. In real terms I don't see Trump as uniquely authoritarian, probably less so than Biden, Obama and Bush. He seems to support free speech far more, which is the foundation for all other freedoms. He makes his money from the leisure industry, so his interests are aligned with Americans doing well and having disposable income. And he supports decentralization, so liberal states can adopt liberal policies, and so forth.
It seems people forget about the insane infringements of civil rights through the Patriot Act, NDAA, mass surveillance, lockdowns, firing people over vaccine mandates, etc. A poll showed about half of Democrats supported putting Americans into camps if they didn't take the vaccine, and a third supported seizing custody of their children. Democrats supported mass censorship and state control over media, which is far more authoritarian and fascist than anything the Republicans were doing.
I'll leave the authoritarianism aspect to someone else but I'll point out that the part of your comment where "he makes his money from the leisure industry, so his interests are aligned with Americans doing well and having disposable income" is not representative of his ability let alone judgement in planning/making decisions that reflect those interests. You can be in favor of something and completely botch the execution.
The PATRIOT Act was introduced by a Republican and signed into law by a Republican and had wide support from both parties. 62 Democrats and 3 Republicans voted against it in the House (there was only a single senate vote against it), and you can't have a discussion about the Patriot Act's introduction without bringing up the fact that it was enacted at the height of the post-9/11 fear. It has always been a controversial and flawed bill.
Most of today's social issues aren't about left versus right, they are about class.
The democrats are broken. They keep running women, and not getting messages out that appeal to the average voter. They lost their core reliable voters (old people, Catholics, unions) and are alienating more traditional voting blocs like African Americans and some Hispanic populations with the constant drama over trans issues. Nobody heard about anything this election cycle other than abortion and transgender issues. It’s a big tent party, but when progressives steal all the oxygen, the wheels fall off the train.
They need to run a tall white dude with good hair who talks about economic opportunity, fair play and protecting the future.
My parents live in the country. A farmer (whose father was the county Democratic Party chair) has a massive sign “Trump. I don’t like him, but we need him”. That’s the 2024 election unfortunately.
Ask the swing voters. The republicans seized the narrative.
I bet you 100% of democratic voters could accurately describe the maga platform. The number who could describe the democratic platform would be far less.
That's because the Democrats are corrupt and have no platform beyond managed decline. We just had sickly king Theoden in office with a coven of Grima Wormtongues controlling the executive. Kamala Harris is an empty suit devoid of original thought, and quite obviously only selected for her identity. When asked how she would be any different, she said Biden was an old white man and she was not. She couldn't speak even in the most favorable venues like Oprah, and refused to go on Joe Rogan's podcast because she would have obviously imploded and humiliated herself.
It's stunning how far the Democrats have fallen. They've been completely co-opted by the PMC class and simply use identity politics to distract from their utter inability to deliver on anything. One need only look at the sad state of California, its massively delayed and over-budget high speed rail to nowhere, homelessness and decay, over-regulation inhibiting everything including the beloved green energy projects, etc. Texas literally has more green energy and cheaper electricity than California because they let people build, which can even be seen in their falling rents. Progressives can't allow that because it might 'change the character of a neighborhood', which is ironically one of the most conservative and anti-progress positions you could take.
True, much of that is because old people are the only ones still watching legacy media like cable news, which have repeatedly torched their credibility. Young people tend to get their news from podcasts and social media, which tends to not be as blatantly controlled.
I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but Biden was escalating the Ukraine war in the final days of his presidency, and celebrated Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Crazy how things have changed so much. The left unanimously viewed Bush and Cheney as obviously psychopathic war criminals, and now almost all the Neocons have jumped over to the Democrats. The left used to be extremely skeptical of globalization as evident by the Seattle WTO Protests, mass immigration as evident by Bernie Sanders' comments on its effect on workers' wages, and Big Pharma's perverse incentives to keep people sick and regularly consuming drugs. Yet the media has utterly psyop'd the progressives... it's kinda disturbing.