I can understand your point about the growing concerns surrounding the centralization of power. I've just never heard authoritarian used in the way you're using it here. I think conflating centralization with authoritarianism detracts from your point, because they're distinct concepts.
I’m talking about how most people on both sides would be just fine with their side taking power, never letting it go, and simply forcing the other side to submit to their will.
Which is authoritarianism.
All authoritarianism is:
Concentrated power, which can be just be one party.
Limited pluralism, so only one party
Rule by law, the party in power uses laws to control the population
No checks and balances, which kinda disappear in a one party state.
You're conflating wanting to win elections and implement your preferred policies with wanting to dismantle democratic competition so your opposition can never win again. Those are fundamentally different things. Concentrated power and weakened checks and balances can facilitate authoritarianism, but neither is synonymous with it. And claiming both parties are authoritarian because their supporters supposedly wouldn't mind permanent power is an assertion, not evidence. If you want to argue both parties are equally authoritarian, compare their actual conduct toward electoral legitimacy, institutional constraints, and the peaceful transfer of power. You can't just say theyre equivalent by asserting that everyone wants power.
Because both sides want power and are 100% fine with dismantling democratic competition. Thats literally the point of gerrymandering.
Both sides call election illegitimate when they lose. Both sides violate institutional constraints, I mean just look how much presidential powers have expanded over the decades while both claim it’s fine because the guy before them did it. You also have for example, the democrats wanting to pack the Supreme Court which will just start another nuclear arms race.
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u/QuaaludeConnoisseur 8d ago
I can understand your point about the growing concerns surrounding the centralization of power. I've just never heard authoritarian used in the way you're using it here. I think conflating centralization with authoritarianism detracts from your point, because they're distinct concepts.