This is a complete misrepresentation of my point. I never tried to 'paint "authoritarianism" as "lefty"'. I specified there's an issue with lefties who are also authoritarians. If you don't think that can exist and if you think it's not that big of a deal, I suggest you take a look at the latter-half of the 20th century. It's pretty uncharitable to paint my argument as being afraid of a student on a campus who's read the Communist Manifesto. That's not even in my argument and requires a lot of bad-faith interpolation to get to from what I said.

> viable threat of authoritarianism is coming from the opposite side

This is nothing more than whataboutism. There's authoritarians on both sides. They're both just as dangerous in the end-game. In Canada, it's the left mainly. In the US, there's highly vocal, and influential to public opinion, left wing authoritarians. In Canada lefty authoritarianism isn't just a fringe, it's mainstream. This is true in a lot of places too. I'm not sure why some folks insist on downplaying the risk of authoritarianism when it comes from the left as opposed to the right. Both kill just as many people, one just uses gas where the other uses starvation.

> Both kill just as many people

Let's be honest here, lefty authoritarianism has historically killed way more people in total.

Fortunately, righty authoritarianism was stopped; unfortunately lefty authoritarianism wasn't.

You're correct. And the reasoning behind having not stopped lefty authoritarianism is actually very interesting and complex. At least one American general got ousted from his position after suggesting the USSR be subjugated after the Second World War.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm not sure subjugation of Communist states by force would have lead to a better outcome, historically.

I just find it fascinating and a bit sad that authoritarianism is often seen as somehow better, if it comes from the left.

If people truly value democracy and freedom, authoritarianism should be opposed regardless of its underlying political color.

> bit sad that authoritarianism is often seen as somehow better, if it comes from the left

This is exactly the train of thought I had thrown at me by another commenter who was insistent on bringing up the fact that the right wing is "worse" somehow. You're right, it is very disappointing to see.

"highly vocal", "influential to public opinion". I am sorry, these are just words. Prove that it's influential.

Is there an effort by these "loud" individuals to drive a focused disinformation campaign targeted at nullifying legitimate votes? One third of the United States is entirely sold on it. That is quite "influential", I would say, and presents clear and present danger.

This is just whataboutism again. There's nothing constructive to say to someone who's entrenched in ideology like you clearly are. I'm not taking about the right, and never have been. The right is irrelevant in this conversation. All you have done is derail this into but the other guys are bad too. Did I say "the right is fine?" No, I explicitly did not. I actually said both are tyrants when they can be.

You've addressed nothing I've said and launched a demand for sources on cherry-picked words from the point I made. I don't want to, and won't, argue with ideology and party lines.

You've made nearly identical points to me just about the right for some reason, despite the fact that I'm not even talking about them. I've used the word 'right' once in any other comment until this one. Not sure why you're trying to turn this into a right-left partisan shit-slinging match. Not every discussion of the left necessitates a discussion about the right's negative traits, and vice-versa. If you truly believe this, I suggest you get your head out of American partisan ideology.