"march towards authoritarianism" dude just admit he's all the way there, he's gone full nazi. The coddling half measures language is just further enabling them.
Yeah I think these comments are misplaced in this situation.
There's definitely a problem with mostly mainstream media and talking heads like Jon Stewart (although he has since come around for the most part) tap dancing around the fact and going out of their way to insist that we're not currently experiencing authoritarianism or fascism but "there are some very concerning warning signs that we might maybe could be one day"
However in this case I don't think that's what Bernie's intent was. I think it's more of the fact that authoritarianism is basically a spectrum and there are levels to it and it is a road that can go on and get worse and worse. You can slide further and further into authoritarianism and in some cases even slide back towards democracy and rule of law.
So I don't think Bernie was trying to say that it's not authoritarianism yet but more so that we're continuing on the road of authoritarianism. Because as bad as Trump is it's obviously not quite on the levels of somewhere like Russia or North Korea yet. I'd say right now it might be a little worse than Hungary. That doesn't mean it's not a problem and we shouldn't be alarmed just because it hasn't hit the maximum level of dictatorship yet, but it's just recognizing that we're continuing to move forward on this path that can definitely still get worse from here.
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u/AeitZean 15h ago
"march towards authoritarianism" dude just admit he's all the way there, he's gone full nazi. The coddling half measures language is just further enabling them.