> Oh, wait that's been the entirety of this treasonous administration.

That's been the case for at least 25 years. Still bad, but not new or unique to Trump. I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like, but the historical stuff that comes to light from time to time doesn't lend much confidence that they were all that much better - they just did it illegally and ashamedly whereas now it's quasi-legal and fully acceptable.

"The authoritarianism is getting worse and more accepted" is not a great response here.

It's the truth. Would you prefer I lie and tell you everything will be okay after Trump?

I'd prefer you join us in condemning it rather than tacitly helping to normalize it. Describing it as some inevitable trend diminishes the focus on those responsible for the latest escalations.

Where did you get the impression I don't condemn it? Acknowledging that it exists and getting worse isn't admitting defeat, unless you're unable to hold ideals with less-than-optimistic prospects. The inevitability of trends is a trick of the mind, not the person pointing out that trends exists. Pretending as if this is something Trump started and that will end with him is much more dangerous, IMO. That ignores the bipartisan consensus among political elites that the common people are to be herded and managed and that liberty and human rights are out-of-date. The problem didn't start with Trump, and it won't end with him if you approach it as a Trump problem.

Well you didn't condemn it in your comment. I do understand that you were making a normative rather than a positive statement, yes. But I see the same exact kind of normative description from people who then go on to normalize or support Trumpism.

> Pretending as if this is something Trump started and that will end with him is much more dangerous ... The problem didn't start with Trump, and it won't end with him if you approach it as a Trump problem.

I completely agree with this.

> That ignores the bipartisan consensus among political elites that the common people are to be herded and managed and that liberty and human rights are out-of-date

While I agree with this as well, I often see similar things from Trump supporters who then use it as license to support accelerationism / nihilism / oppression of others they enjoy / etc. That's what I have a problem with - this shameless tyrant has been channeling widespread frustration with many longstanding problems unacknowledged by the political establishment ("a breath of fresh air!"), but it's only a marketing trick and those exact problematic dynamics are being cranked up to 11. He's certainly honed in on many varied things that are rotting in our society, but rather than doing constructive things to address any of them he's just accelerating the rot while setting himself up as a speedbump to line his own pockets.

For reference here I'm a libertarian who was both-sidesing up until 2020 or so. But a critical assumption of both-sidesism is that both parties are similarly bad in magnitude, just with different focuses. And Trumpism is a marked escalation in the blatantly shameless anti-liberty stance of the government.

No, he's right; there's a continuous line of accepting worse and worse that runs through Guantanamo Bay. After all, if you can detain one person extra-legally in a special prison constructed to be immune from human rights, why not a million?

[I'm too young to have a good idea of what the pre-Patriot Act American military/intelligence/secret police was like,]

pre patriot bad things happened people were not even allowed to know the charges against them, not allowed discovery of evidence, compelled to allocute under duress, and court proceedings in total darkness, as in knowledge of the place, procedures, and persons involved could not be allowed.

..and then there was the really bad stuff, when the patriot act became a thing. when the text of law could not even be divulged, when people where interrogated by dog, locked in a cage and fed "leaks" of total defeat, and humiliation and death.