Am I wrong? Maybe so. It is time to check it out.
1. After receiving the criticisms, I started to look specifically for evidence of Dem Party authoritarianism and corruption being reported in the MSM. I don't find much, but that has been criticized as the MSM being mollycoddling and complicit with the Dems. I have not turned to MAGA media because it is so fracking vulgar, offensive and packed with lies and slanders. So me on my own has not come up with much, but I'll keep looking because I am a realist. I may have a major blind spot for rising centrist-liberal kleptocratic authoritarianism.
2. Is there another way to try to get at the issue of who is worse and by how much are the two different, if any at all? Sure, Perplexity. For context, I think that, given its power and express intent, I believe that the threat of kleptocratic authoritarianism from MAGA is about 20-fold worse and far more urgent.
Q1: I am getting some criticism of my focus on the rise of radical right authoritarianism and MAGA, while ignoring rising authoritarianism in the Democratic Party, e.g., related to infringing civil liberties related to pro-Palestine protests. Can you assess the lines of evidence that support concern for Dem Party authoritarianism and does that approximately equal the breadth and depth of MAGA authoritarianism?
A1: The concern over authoritarian tendencies within the Democratic Party, particularly in relation to pro-Palestine protests, has been highlighted by several recent events and policies: .... (long answer) .... While there are valid concerns about authoritarian tendencies within the Democratic Party, particularly in how it handles dissent and free speech related to pro-Palestine protests, these actions do not appear to match the breadth and depth of MAGA's authoritarian strategies. MAGA's approach is more comprehensive, aiming at a fundamental restructuring of government to favor a particular ideology, whereas the Democratic Party's actions, while concerning, seem more ad hoc and less about systemic change.Q2: If one tried to quantify and qualify MAGA authoritarian threat as a hypothetical value called X, would the quality and quality of Dem Party threat be about 0.1 X, or more or less than that?A2: .... (long answer) ....
Breadth and Depth: MAGA's authoritarianism is characterized by a comprehensive, proactive strategy aimed at long-term power consolidation across all branches of government. The Democratic Party's actions, while concerning, appear more ad hoc and less systematic, focusing on specific issues like speech control and support for Israel.
Quantification: Given the systematic nature of MAGA's strategy and the breadth of their actions, if we assign MAGA's authoritarian threat a value of X, the Democratic Party's authoritarian tendencies might be quantified as approximately 0.1X to 0.2X. This estimation accounts for the reactive nature of Democratic actions, their focus on specific issues rather than a broad systemic overhaul, and the lack of a comprehensive, long-term strategy akin to MAGA's.
So, my personal estimate that MAGA is ~20X more a kleptocratic authoritarian threat that the Dem Party is. That's in the ballpark of what passes for "judgment" by Perplexity. Perplexity sees MAGA as ~5X to ~10X a bigger threat.
Of course, AI does not have human judgment as we know it. AI is limited to data. By contrast humans have data, ignorance, biases, judgment, context assessment, tribe loyalty, self-esteem, variable cognitive ability, and all the other cognitive, social and moral baggage that makes humans human.
Humans and their big piles of baggage
3. Is there another way to assess the threat? Maybe. A contender that comes to mind is to look at some crude, objective measure or another. What crude objective measure? Body count? Sure, why not. Let's do body count on a few prominent events. What prominent events? How about war? Wars can reflect some or a lot of nationalist kleptocratic authoritarianism.
A. Vietnam was an unprovoked, unnecessary war. Americans were lied to about a false need to attack Vietnam to prevent the Commie dominoes from falling or other related dark free speech bullshit from our government. It was entered into conducted with majority bipartisan support. According to Google AI, American deaths were about 58,000 US military and ~2 million Vietnamese military and civilian. However, estimates seem to be all over the place.
We can say the body count was high. Can we attribute it at least partly to kleptocratic authoritarianism? Maybe. Perplexity indicates it is a possible factor. Since that war was mostly bipartisan, it seems to be a wash on whether The Dem or Repub Party was more kleptocratic authoritarian.
B. Iraq, was an unprovoked, unnecessary war. Americans were lied to about a false need to attack Iraq to punish Al Qaeda, to keep WMD from being used and other related dark free speech bullshit. That war was entered into conducted with majority bipartisan support. Since that war was mostly bipartisan, it seems to be a wash on whether The Dem or Repub Party was more kleptocratic authoritarian. Again, there is an argument to be made for American authoritarianism driving the war. There were lots of deaths.
C. Israel's war in Gaza has been bloody. That bloodfest is cited by my critics as an example of horrific authoritarianism by the Dem Party and Joe Biden in particular. At the start of that war, support for American military aid to Israel was overwhelmingly bipartisan. Now, the bipartisanship has eroded some, with some Dems opposing more military aid without a ceasefire. Since there is no realistic prospect of a ceasefire, that opposition is meaningless in terms of political impact. The war there fits the legal definition of Genocide, but most Americans seem to reject that, arguing Israel is just acting in justifiable self defense. Perplexity comments on the body count:
As of December 3, 2024, over 44,502 Palestinians have been reported killed in the Gaza Strip, with an additional 737 Palestinian deaths in the West Bank 1 4. The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) has confirmed the identities of 34,344 individual Palestinians, with 60% of these not being men of fighting age 1. The majority of casualties in Gaza are civilians, with 70% of the verified fatalities being women and children 1. The total number of Palestinian deaths, including those from indirect causes like starvation and lack of medical care, is estimated to be much higher, with a conservative estimate suggesting at least 62,413 deaths in Gaza from starvation alone. .... Combining the figures, the total number of deaths in the conflict stands at over 46,000, with 44,502 Palestinian and 1,706 Israeli fatalities.
If DJT was president when Hamas attacked Israel, it is very likely his policy would have been at least as bad as Biden and Dem policy has been. In my opinion, it would have been significantly worse.
In the US, Biden and local law enforcement, with bipartisan support from congress and the GOP generally has violated the civil liberties of pro-Palestine protesters. This is the basis my critics argue use to attack Dem elites and Biden as authoritarian more or less on a par with The Repubs.
I do not see it that way. I see MAGA, which is now the face of the Republican Party, as a far greater and more urgent authoritarian threat than the Dems. In all the Dem acts of authoritarianism, the Repubs have been fully complicit. Worse for Palestine, DJT indicates that he wants Israel to do what it needs to do to deal with the Palestinian threat. If Biden is X bad for innocent Palestinians, including letting them starve to death, DJT will be at least as bad, probably worse. So once again, it looks like a wash when it comes to this particular body count analysis.
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So, is it unreasonable to attack mostly MAGA authoritarianism while letting Dems off the hook for their transgressions? Some posts here have extensively criticized Biden and the Dems for their blind, brutal pro-Israel policy and trampling of American protesters' civil liberties. What is being left out of content posted here that is authoritarian and/or kleptocratic that (i) the Dems are responsible for, and (ii) amounts to a threat more or less on a par with the MAGA threat, e.g., maybe about half or one-fourth as bad?
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