Wow this is a powerful way to word it.

"Authoritarians never believe they're authoritarians, no matter how much censorship, surveillance, jingoism, & imprisonment they demand.

They tell themselves their enemies are so uniquely evil and dangerous - terrorists - that anything done in the name of fighting them is noble."

Indeed. Greenwald helped Snowden; he has the chops to see what's going on. To wit, his subsequent tweet:

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald Jan 11

Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler?

Zero.

The planning was largely done on Facebook. This is all a bullshit pretext for silencing competitors on ideological grounds: just the start.

That tweet seems to be incorrect.

https://twitter.com/nickmartin/status/1349277932531847174

> Hi Glenn, I'm wondering if you would be willing to delete this tweet and issue a correction both on Twitter and your newsletter since a number of the people arrested last week, including Jacob Chansley and Nicholas Ochs, were active users of Parler. Thanks!

Afaik, Greenwald was told the above by Parler CEO. Greenwald then proceeded to uncritically believe that.