The US being imperfect, or currently on an authoritarian swing, in no way makes it equivalent to countries that are all-in on authoritarianism. The US is still among the very best places in the world to be a minority, politically active, or in legal trouble.

Despite the noted slide, it feels accurate. I, for one, would not want to move back to EU despite some QoL notables. At this time, it is still hard to find a better spot for a random nobody ( when you have money and/or power, 'where you can live well' calculus changes ).

How is US being a good place to be at if you are in legal trouble? It is super expensive, trial penalty is huge so you are severely motivated to sign plea deal and not push it. The punishments are huge and incarceration rates among highest in the world. Protections seems to be largely theoretical - technically you have them, practically they do not do much but make you pay more money.

"It's super expensive" is still different from "you disappear". Yes, the US system is flawed, but the difference really matters.

But it is not "The US is still among the very best places in the world"

And the incidence of 'being in legal trouble in USA' vs 'being disappeared in BAD COUNTRY XXX' is quite different, for almost all bad countries.

People have started being disappeared by ICE. They've been kidnapped off the streets with no access to a lawyer until after. The difference does matter, but it seems we're uncomfortably close to there now.

Yes and this makes the US just not an example of liberal democracy anymore, so you can't use it as an example for "the West" when using very recent examples.

I think you are greatly underestimating how hard it has been, historically, in the US, to be a minority, politically active, or in legal trouble. Note that in the Cold War, many people, especially minorities, were indefinitely imprisoned with show trials (e.g. Mumia Abu-Jamal, Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier) or extrajudicially killed (Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Marsha P. Johnson, the victims of the MOVE bombing) because of being politically active.

Let's not perfect be the enemy of good. OP is making a relative judgement, not an absolute one. And in authoritarian countries, figures like Jack Ma are dissappeared for far less, while radicals like you mention are just shot and silenced. You are not going to be allowed to build a alternative power structure that can challenge authority regardless if your views are valid or not.

Might be a hard metric for some people to confront, but the USA is one the least racist countries in the world. The gridlock in many ways is strongest signal of excessive plurality and minoritarianism (of marginalized groups) than of single power groups unilaterally controlling things.

Jack Ma was not, in fact, disappeared, though? He lay low for several months while being investigated for financial crimes. He is still the largest stakeholder in Alibaba, and still has a net worth around $27B. It's not even like his assets were frozen.

Disappearing for 6 months immediately after making a controversial speech about the financial system dosen't look good to investors. And we all know it's because of his speech, not because of "financial" crimes when the Ant Group is heavily works with the CCP given the scale of its activities.