we can't agree that there are fundamental differences between what is commonly intended as authoritarian government (let's say Russia, Turkey, Iran, China, ...) and the average western country.

Yeah there's differences. In Western countries, a lot of wealthy white people can just chill while their governments enact tremendous violence against minorities to sustain their quality of life. In Russia, Turkey, Iran, China, and other peripheral or semiperipheral countries, the state has to deal with the contradictions head-on instead of exporting them elsewhere, so they have to be more repressive. That's a real difference, but it makes me think that the Western countries are worse than the "authoritarian governments" you list.

In fact, the way you choose Trump's US as the turning point that supposedly shows that authoritarianism just now appeared out of nowhere, shows how one-sided your view of history and politics is. Now the US turned authoritarian. Not when they were literally dousing Mexican immigrants in kerosene in 1916 or doing Jim Crow segregation that inspired the Nazis.

[–] JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 hours ago

Don't put words that are not mine in my mouth.

Society is constantly evolving with huge differences even noticeable in a lifespan. It means that obviously 100+ years ago, something unacceptable for modern standards was the norm. It also means that it's ridiculous to bring up events of 100+ years ago to criticize the modern world.

To make an example: 80 years ago Europe was literally bombing Germany and Italy and their nazi-fascist regimes, but just a couple of decades later they were forming an alliance that eventually led to the EU. Even if today there are still nazi-fascist movements in the EU, and neo-fascist parties are even leading countries, one must be blinded by ideology to deny that there was an improvement. Improvement does not imply perfection.

Trump is a step back and I find his term horrifying. However, even in Trump's America, even with all the regressions in terms of civil rights, even with the changes to shift even more money towards billionaires, even with what ICE is doing, even with all of that, it remains a country where the vast majority lives a better life than in the large part of the present and past world. Failing to acknowledge that in the name of pure ideology is simply nonsensical. "US = authoritarian regime" or "they exploit the south" may have some truth in it, but it's such an extreme position to be unreasonable and, frankly, childish. It works only here, in a bubble in a corner of internet where everyone reinforce each other's ideas and violently reject any different opinion.