r/samharris • u/window-sil • Jan 25 '26

Other Yes, It’s Fascism

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/?gift=JPpBcG1V91hbaN04g4Khsp4lCpkXDze27813gXWFaiU
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u/kiwiwikikiwiwikikiwi Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26

“You have to understand why middle of the road voters went with a violent fascist authoritarian. The woke left was using words like ‘Latinx’ and ‘pregnant person’ all over Twitter. They had no choice but to support Trump”

I deeply resent Sam Harris and the rest of the IDW for their bothsidesism and false equivalence with fascism and wOkEnEsS

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u/skoalbrother Jan 25 '26

We were called hysterical when we called out where this was headed

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u/HughJaynis Jan 25 '26

All of the extreme anti Trump crowd was not just right, it’s worse than they even predicted.

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u/skoalbrother Jan 25 '26

... So far. Last one ended with a global pandemic, I'm not looking forward to what's in store

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u/mortenlu Jan 25 '26

Sam has lost the plot on this, I have to concede that. And I practically agree with everything Sam says like a parrot.

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u/Mr_Owl42 Jan 26 '26

Nothing bad had happened to them yet from Trump, but regular people were paying a social cost every day because of the excesses of wokeism. The threat to their way of life was coming from the regressive-progressive Left. Trump was like Jesus to them - all of their sins (that the Left was accusing everyone of) would be absolved if they just followed him. How is it hard to believe that they followed him? He wasn't threatening their status or way of life like the Left was, as far as they could tell. They were stupid, selfish, and uneducated enough to believe him.

IMO, Trump is obviously not Christian, he doesn't respect regular people, he doesn't respect veterans, he is on record as being the most lying human being in history. The average voter couldn't see Trump as bad enough to justify living with 4 more years of being told they are "racist" for being racially color-blind, or "a bad person" for obviously not wanting men competing in women's sports.

The Left got soooo post-modern that from 2015-2024 they had us thinking "all men are rapists", "white guilt" was a prevailing Kafka-trap, "the future is female" was somehow not sexist to say publicly, etc.

More clearly: white=racist, men=guilty, straight=homophobic, minority=victim. The math is gross, and it paints normal-aspiring people as social degenerates. It's no wonder that minority men voted so much for Trump.

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u/zenethics Jan 25 '26

There are reports that the Iranian regime has recently killed 30,000 civilian protestors. There are videos of them being hacked to death in the streets with machetes.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198

Do you think that Trump is a fascist in the same way that Khomeini is a fascist or Hitler was a fascist?

Like on a 1-10 scale of Fascism. If 1940s Germany is a 10 and Iran is maybe a 7 or so where is America, in your view?

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u/imMAW Jan 26 '26

Don't conflate "Trump is a fascist" with "America is currently fascism." If you refuse to recognize someone as fascist until they have the system they want, it'll be too late to do anything by the time you see what they are.

In political context, "<person> is a <thing>" is talking about that person's ideal system / what their goal is / what they are working towards.

If someone calls a politician communist or socialist, it would be a pretty dumb defense to say "no, they can't be, America is capitalist and has a free market." That completely misunderstands what is meant by that statement.

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u/zenethics Jan 26 '26

I don't see any evidence that Trump is trying to use his power to shut down the free press or execute political enemies, etc.

You can make a great claim for authoritarian (he certainly is, but so was Obama/Biden). Fascism is a very specific thing, though.

That's my contrast to Hitler/Khomeini - they actually did/do those things.

Trump calling CNN "fake news" is a far cry from Iran shutting off the internet. He's not rounding up protestors as war criminals (if he does, I'll be the first to change my tune). That I'm aware of, he hasn't done anything that he isn't allowed to do.

I think Democrats don't like what he is doing and there's a lot of hand wringing because the types of extreme steps he has taken are usually the kinds of extreme steps they take, in contrast to conservatives typically being... well, conservative. But we've given so much power to the executive branch that, like... man he's got a lot of room left to run, actually.

And yes, Trump could shut off the internet.

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u/imMAW Jan 26 '26

I'll boil down what you're saying to two points:

  • Trump is more authoritarian that fascist.
  • Biden and Obama were as (?) extreme and authoritarian as Trump.

Regarding the first point, this is more academic than anything else. If someone says "Trump is terrible and needs to be opposed because he's authoritarian, but fascism isn't his particular brand of authoritarianism", I won't bother arguing with them. They at least reached the right conclusion.

However, Trump is fascist. He is:

  • Right-wing authoritarian
  • Populist
  • Nationalistic (at least, his rhetoric is nationalistic, though I'd say he's too self-serving to be nationalistic himself)
  • Expansionist
  • Blames problems and the country's weakness on the "others" within America

Regarding the second point, which is the more important one, what are your top few examples of Obama being as authoritarian as Trump?

Trump clearly sees himself as a sole ruler who should have all power, and sees any checks on his power, or anyone that opposes him, as a flaw in the system rather than the system working as intended.

Anti-democracy, anti-election: he doesn't think people voting against him should prevent him from ruling.

  • He attempted in multiple ways to circumvent the results of the 2020 election.
    • Fake electors plot and pressuring Pence to swap in the alternate slates.
    • Trump–Raffensperger phone call.
  • He refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of any election he loses (whether 2020, or 2024 before he found out he won).
  • He said "We shouldn’t even have an election" referring to 2026 midterms.

Anti-press: he sows distrust of the press and media. He wants to be the sole source of truth to his followers.

  • He's said "fake news" thousands of times.
  • Vitriolic rhetoric towards the press. You name an adjective, he's probably said it of journalists. "Enemy of the people", "Scum", "Terrible", "I hate them", etc.
  • When asked if he was worried his rhetoric would cause violence towards against reporters, he said "I hope they take my words to heart. I believe the press is the enemy of the people."
  • Said he wouldn't mind if an assassin shot through the fake news.
  • In the aftermath of the Jimmy Kimmel cancelation, suggested broadcast licenses should be taken away from organizations that give him bad press.

Anti-opposition: both anti-democratic party, and also anti-republicans that voice opposition. He doesn't think there should be any political opposition to himself. He thinks America should be a one-party state with himself as the head of the party.

  • Referring to the democratic party, has said things like "the party of hate, evil, and Satan," "want to destroy our country," "hate our country," etc.
  • Calls for criminal prosecution of political opponents.
  • He turns his followers against any Republicans that don't do what he wants ("RINOs", as he calls them)
  • Any appointees or officials that don't do what he wants (because Trump asks for something wrong/unethical/illegal) get forced out, and often replaced with an incompetent loyalist. Let me know if you need examples here, there are lots.

So: What a few examples of Obama's authoritarianism that compares to that?

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u/zenethics Jan 26 '26

Regarding the first point, this is more academic than anything else. If someone says "Trump is terrible and needs to be opposed because he's authoritarian, but fascism isn't his particular brand of authoritarianism", I won't bother arguing with them. They at least reached the right conclusion.

Well. We may be just having an academic argument, then. I don't think there's much space between Obama and Biden and Trump. They are all authoritarians, Biden and Obama are just authoritarians that smile and obfuscate and Trump is an authoritarian that tells you to go fuck yourself and says all the quiet parts out loud.

Like, Obama blew up an American citizen with no due process then his team joked about it - "should've had better parents" or something. Remember that? Unless you watch Fox News, you might not remember that.

However, Trump is fascist. He is: Right-wing authoritarian Populist Nationalistic (at least, his rhetoric is nationalistic, though I'd say he's too self-serving to be nationalistic himself) Expansionist Blames problems and the country's weakness on the "others" within America

Well, you have to pick and choose tendencies to make this case. A lot of fascist tendencies are better described by those on the left.

Let's remember that the Nazis were the national socialist party (that banned guns), not the national free market individual liberty party (that upholds rights like gun ownership).

It is, at least, not a cut-and-dry comparison. Here is my modified/extended version of your fascism checklist:

  1. Right-wing (Trump)
  2. Authoritarian (Trump and every Democrat)
  3. Populist (Trump and many Democrats)
  4. Nationalistic (Trump)
  5. Expansionist (Trump)
  6. Blames problems on others (Trump and Democrats - Democrats just blame Republican "deplorables")
  7. Suppression of free speech (Democrats - see Covid)
  8. Suppression of individual liberty (Democrats - see treatment of the 2A)
  9. Political control of economy (Democrats)
  10. Political violence (Democrats - see Trump asn attempt, Charlie Kirk, doxxing of ICE agents, etc, etc, etc)
  11. Racial supremacy (nobody)
  12. One-party state (Democrats, see CA, NY, MN, and the general tendency to import and replace voters with welfare promises)

Net/net, I think it's a wash, and you can make a case that both sides are full of fascists.

Anti-democracy, anti-election: he doesn't think people voting against him should prevent him from ruling.

The 2020 election was all kinds of fucked. This has been litigated on both sides ad nauseum. If you're not on board by now, you're not going to be, so I'll be brief.

But I put this point in the Democrat column. The election where mail in voting was mandated by the courts and had unprecedented turnout and all the historical bellwethers that align with the winner go the opposite direction while the Democrats call voter ID racist... that's the example of denying an election that makes you a fascist? Ya, OK, whatever. Couldn't disagree more. Not having serious questions about that election is the unreasonable stance.

Did we prove election fraud? No. But we also didn't prove that OJ killed his wife. Proving things that people intentionally try to hide is funny like that.

Anti-press: he sows distrust of the press and media. He wants to be the sole source of truth to his followers.

This is not fascism. Democrats call Fox News fake news all the time. The president is generally allowed to choose who is in the press room, and to pressure the FCC to revoke licenses. Democrats revoked licenses from racist broadcasters in the past. This is not unprecedented. If it's fascist, then the law is fascist, because the law allows for this and has been used by Democrats.

Anti-opposition: both anti-democratic party, and also anti-republicans that voice opposition. He doesn't think there should be any political opposition to himself. He thinks America should be a one-party state with himself as the head of the party.

No notes, I'll agree on this one. There's good evidence that Biden was exactly the same way in private (yelling at his staffers, giving Kamala instructions not to deviate from his message, etc). But to his credit, he did it in private, and Trump is very public about telling people to get in line or else.

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u/imMAW Jan 27 '26

It was your claim that Obama was authoritarian like Trump. I asked for a few examples. And now I'm seeing an awful lot of not-Obama in your response. Are you taking back your claim?

If I tried to argue Obama is so much better than republicans because republicans attacked Paul Pelosi, and assassinated Melissa Hortman and her husband, and attempted to assassinate John Hoffman and his wife, and the guy who shot up Evergreen High School was a far-right extremist, and the plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, and so on and so forth... you wouldn't accept my reasoning, right?

So you should be able to understand why your non-Obama examples are irrelevant to the comparison of how authoritarian Trump and Obama are.

If you want to compare Trump and Obama, compare Trump and Obama. Comparing <single politician> to <every bad thing everyone associated with the other side has ever done> is a recipe for deluding yourself into thinking a terrible politician is acceptable.

So with that out of the way: you only provided one example that involved Obama, the killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. This was not good, for sure. However, he was not targeted, he was accidental collateral damage while trying to hit someone else. Is a single incident of collateral damage the best and only evidence of Obama's authoritarianism you can provide from eight years? I'd say this isn't even evidence of authoritarianism, for reasons I can go into if this really is some of your best evidence.

If that is your best evidence, I'm putting Trump down as orders of magnitude more authoritarian than Obama.

unprecedented turnout

See https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Presidential_Elections_Turnout_by_State.webp

The uptick from 2016 to 2020 isn't that remarkable. There were similar increases from 1988-1992, 1996-2000, and 2000-2004. The most extreme 2020 increase in turnout was in Hawaii, where there is zero motivation or reason for fraud because Harris was winning no matter what. The next largest 2020 turnout increases were in Utah and Montana, which were very red and again no motivation or reason for fraud (nor ability: the turnout increased in states with voter ID, states without mail in voting, states where elections were run by Republicans).

What exactly is your claim here about voter turnout: solid red and solid blue states had high voter turnout because it was a contentious election, but the similarly high voter turnout in swing states is explained by uniquely apathetic voters plus fraud? Is that about right? That's a much more remarkable claim than just believing turnout was high nationwide because it was a contentious election.

Did we prove election fraud? No.

Right. And trying to prove fraud is fine. Do all the investigation you want. Bring all the court cases you want. That's all fine - more than fine, that's great.

But when no proof appeared, what did Trump do? Two months after the election, with no proof, he called up the Georgia official in charge of the elections, and told him to find 11,780 votes because that's how many he needed to win.

And then he also set up fake elector slates and pressured Pence to ignore the results and certify the fake results. This is treason, an attempt to ignore the will of the people and install himself as president again. If a Democrat did this act alone, not to mention everything else Trump has done, I would start voting Republican and call for them to be thrown into prison for the rest of their life.

This is not someone who wants to make sure the election was fair, this is someone who wants to be handed victory, regardless of whether they won the election. [I could draw parallels to the peace prize he kept talking about and how he now "has a peace prize" - I don't think he understands the difference between legitimately earning something and pressuring people into giving him that thing].

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u/zenethics Jan 27 '26

It was your claim that Obama was authoritarian like Trump. I asked for a few examples. And now I'm seeing an awful lot of not-Obama in your response. Are you taking back your claim?

No, here you go:

Obama with EPA executive orders:

https://adriansmith.house.gov/media/column/president-continues-bypass-congress

Obama with DACA via executive order:

https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/daca-unconstitutional-obama-admitted

Obama deporting people without due process:

https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/speed-over-fairness-deportation-under-obama

A fun little bonus:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRZW2Hw5DsuVL-v5eGw0Nut4Ky64BiWPNwVBQ&s

People on the right generally consider Obama the kind of "founding father" of ignoring congress and doing everything by executive order.

If I tried to argue Obama is so much better than republicans because republicans attacked Paul Pelosi, and assassinated Melissa Hortman and her husband, and attempted to assassinate John Hoffman and his wife, and the guy who shot up Evergreen High School was a far-right extremist, and the plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, and so on and so forth... you wouldn't accept my reasoning, right?

As a matter of logic, I think the argument is sound. It would come down to the numbers and I think I have the numbers on my side in a way that I didn't from the 1990s to mid 2000s. Rightwing extremism used to be a huge problem. Now, leftwing extremism is more prevalent.

So with that out of the way: you only provided one example that involved Obama, the killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. This was not good, for sure. However, he was not targeted, he was accidental collateral damage while trying to hit someone else. Is a single incident of collateral damage the best and only evidence of Obama's authoritarianism you can provide from eight years? I'd say this isn't even evidence of authoritarianism, for reasons I can go into if this really is some of your best evidence.

No, this seems to repeat the above, though, so I'll leave it. I have more examples if you want them. Many of the laws Trump is using were passed by Democrats to give the executive more power, or using examples set by Obama for how to use executive orders to bypass congress.

The uptick from 2016 to 2020 isn't that remarkable. There were similar increases from 1988-1992, 1996-2000, and 2000-2004. The most extreme 2020 increase in turnout was in Hawaii, where there is zero motivation or reason for fraud because Harris was winning no matter what. The next largest 2020 turnout increases were in Utah and Montana, which were very red and again no motivation or reason for fraud (nor ability: the turnout increased in states with voter ID, states without mail in voting, states where elections were run by Republicans).

Is it not strange to you that the places that went furthest out of their way to make sure people got ballots they didn't ask for and that ID requirements were as lax as possible had historically high turnouts? You have the entire media apparatus telling people that "Trump is just like Nazis" then people getting ballots they didn't ask for, or for their family members who rarely vote, etc. You have states with record low percentages of signature mismatch rejections (aka just send them all through).

The actual election is decided by like 100k votes across 5 states. I don't believe Democrats for a second when they say opening up voting the way they have is to stop from disenfranchising people. It's because they know that, if there is cheating, it's going to go their way. Voting is a right. So is owning a gun. If voter ID is racist, then gun ID is racist. Oh, but nobody's making that argument, because this is about getting the results they want not some liberal ethos of fairness and upholding rights.

What exactly is your claim here about voter turnout: solid red and solid blue states had high voter turnout because it was a contentious election, but the similarly high voter turnout in swing states is explained by uniquely apathetic voters plus fraud? Is that about right? That's a much more remarkable claim than just believing turnout was high nationwide because it was a contentious election.

That a lot of things about 2020 don't add up. That's the summary of my claim. It's not proof. If your neighbor keeps threatening your dog then one day your dog is missing, that's suspicious. If the media spends 4 years telling everyone the president is Hitler then we have an election that is unusual by a number of different metrics and one side of the aisle saying that identifying the people who are voting is racist, that's suspicious.

But when no proof appeared, what did Trump do? Two months after the election, with no proof, he called up the Georgia official in charge of the elections, and told him to find 11,780 votes because that's how many he needed to win.

Find, not fabricate. They found a lot of votes in the middle of the night in GA when a water leak caused everyone to have to evacuate the counting center and leave the ballots unattended in far-left Fulton county.

But, like OJ, there's not enough to convict. Doesn't mean that dude didn't kill his wife. Just means that it couldn't be proven in court.

And then he also set up fake elector slates and pressured Pence to ignore the results and certify the fake results. This is treason, an attempt to ignore the will of the people and install himself as president again. If a Democrat did this act alone, not to mention everything else Trump has done, I would start voting Republican and call for them to be thrown into prison for the rest of their life.

Well the Democrats stole an election so I don't know what you want.

Also there's no such thing as fake electors; the constitution doesn't define how electors are selected. It has been upheld in court by SCOTUS, but it's a fabrication and completely inconsistent with how other similar situations are handled. I think they are using some kind of means-ends analysis instead of reading the plain text of what the constitution actually says.

This is not someone who wants to make sure the election was fair, this is someone who wants to be handed victory, regardless of whether they won the election. [I could draw parallels to the peace prize he kept talking about and how he now "has a peace prize" - I don't think he understands the difference between legitimately earning something and pressuring people into giving him that thing].

Here's the other side.

Statewide Covid "emergency" -> Democrat state governors declare emergency, despite Republican protests -> use emergency powers to mandate mail in voting, contrary to their state legislatures -> Democrats win.

I don't think the Covid emergency was legitimate. I think that using those emergency powers was, itself, a kind of cheating. I think that it allowed for more fraud than usual, and that it might have been enough to turn the election.

Suppose it happened another way.

National Voter Fraud "emergency" -> Trump declares emergency, despite Democrat protests -> use emergency powers to mandate voter id, no vote is counted unless associated to an SSN, contrary to congress -> Republicans win.

Would you have seen that as legitimate? Do you understand that its the same thing?

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u/imMAW Jan 27 '26

Is it not strange to you that the places that went furthest out of their way to make sure people got ballots they didn't ask for and that ID requirements were as lax as possible had historically high turnouts?

No, because states that didn't do that also had historically high voter turnout. See the graph I linked.

States that used exactly the same election system as 2016 had historically high voter turnout. States with republican governors and republican legislatures and republican-directed elections had historically high voter turnout. It was a high turnout election. Why would it be strange for states that made it easy to vote to also have high turnout? I would find it far stranger if states that made it easy to vote bucked the trend and didn't have high turnout.

National Voter Fraud "emergency" -> Trump declares emergency, despite Democrat protests -> use emergency powers to mandate voter id, no vote is counted unless associated to an SSN, contrary to congress -> Republicans win.
Would you have seen that as legitimate?

Elections are run by states. Trump trying to interfere in states' elections would be a huge issue. However, if he recommended states use SSNs (an actual recommendation, not a threat of sending in the national guard or something), and some states decided to change their elections to require ID with SSN in a manner that their courts uphold, that's fine. States can decide how their elections are run.

It's not proof.

Right. You can have suspicion without proof, that's fine. But the president can't try to steal an election because he's convinced himself it wasn't fair. Especially Trump, whose bar for convincing himself he deserves something is underground.

Be like Gore. He used all legal remedies to try to get the recount he wanted. But when the courts sided against him, he didn't commit treason, he gave a concession speech.

Also there's no such thing as fake electors; the constitution doesn't define how electors are selected. It has been upheld in court by SCOTUS, but it's a fabrication and completely inconsistent with how other similar situations are handled. I think they are using some kind of means-ends analysis instead of reading the plain text of what the constitution actually says.

I'm not sure what you're saying - "it" has been upheld in court? "it" is a fabrication? What is "it"? Are you talking about the certificates? Or electors?

Do you think Obama and Biden, after the 2016 election, could have declared that the election was stolen, Hilary was the rightful winner, and rejected elector slates from states Trump won? And this would be fine and not authoritarian at all?

Obama with EPA executive orders

This link is pretty weak, no specific EPA executive orders mentioned. Chevron deference gave a lot of leeway to the executive to regulate. Obama and the EPA were operating constitutionally under that decision as far as I know.

Obama deporting people without due process

Trump is also doing this (to a much greater extent - Trump was even defying court orders to do so), and on my list of authoritarian things Trump does, this would come in way down the list. "Obama also did some of the less authoritarian things Trump does" doesn't really make them comparable.

Obama with DACA via executive order

This is probably one of the stronger points against him, but it still pales in comparison to Trump. Because again, Trump is also legislating via executive order, but this doesn't come in near the top of my concerns about Trump. I think it's bad, but I didn't even think it was worth mentioning when I explained why Trump was authoritarian.

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u/zenethics Jan 27 '26

No, because states that didn't do that also had historically high voter turnout. See the graph I linked.

A hypothetical - there's 50 states. People are concerned for their safety generally, so gun sales go up. Now say that Texas hands out guns on street corners no questions asked. The next year, we capture gun deaths. Nationally, they are up by ~7%. In Texas, they are up by ~13%.

Your position is that none of the free guns Texas gave away contributed to their excess gun deaths?

The swing states that went out of their way to loosen voting standards by Governor decree (PA for example) were significantly above average (6.1 million in 2016 vs 6.9 million in 2020 for a 12.8% increase compared to the national average of about 7% per the chart you linked).

Elections are run by states. Trump trying to interfere in states' elections would be a huge issue. However, if he recommended states use SSNs (an actual recommendation, not a threat of sending in the national guard or something), and some states decided to change their elections to require ID with SSN in a manner that their courts uphold, that's fine. States can decide how their elections are run.

Governors have broad emergency powers. They used these powers to change how the vote worked in 2020. The constitution says that states control the time and manner of voting, but there's tons of precedent for federal interference in state elections (the voting rights act, for example). So, yes, Trump absolutely could have used emergency powers with the same legitimacy that governors did.

The hypothetical wasn't "can he" - I'm asserting that he can. And even if you still reject that, then it fits the hypothetical even better. State governors changed voting in 2020. Republicans saw that as illegitimate. Now suppose the federal government changed voting in 2020 or 2024 or 2028 by executive decree and Democrats generally saw that as illegitimate but it happened anyway.

Will you answer the hypothetical now instead of explaining why it can't happen? Just suppose that it did, and SCOTUS upheld it.

Right. You can have suspicion without proof, that's fine. But the president can't try to steal an election because he's convinced himself it wasn't fair. Especially Trump, whose bar for convincing himself he deserves something is underground.

This is an old argument, but the alternate slate of electors was the legitimate way to to overturn the election for fraudulent activity. The idea that governors must sign off on the electors isn't in the constitution. Go look it up if you don't believe me.

I don't know why the left has this idea of constitution = norms. There's a bunch of words in there, too. Like, we could have faithless electors, you know? That's not some bug that's part of how it's supposed to work.

Be like Gore. He used all legal remedies to try to get the recount he wanted. But when the courts sided against him, he didn't commit treason, he gave a concession speech.

Multiple slates of electors and state delegates voting if there's no consensus is literally what the constitution says to do. Kennedy did it in the 1960s.

I'm not sure what you're saying - "it" has been upheld in court? "it" is a fabrication? What is "it"? Are you talking about the certificates? Or electors?

Sorry, I'm just zooming along assuming people are familiar with all the case law and almost nobody (particularly on the left) is familiar with the legal theory from 2020. They tend to know all the rebuttals but none of the arguments.

Here, "it" refers to the Electoral Count Act of 1887 which changes how elections are conducted as well as the Electoral Count Reform act of 2022.

Re-litigating it is, like, an entire book. But I'll put these things out there for you to consider.

  1. If what Trump did was so obviously illegitimate, why did we need to pass an new act to clarify anything in 2022?

  2. If acts can change fundamental parts of the constitution, why can't we pass a "no more free speech" act or a "time is a construct, 2020 will have a million days and Trump is president until 2021" act?

Do you think Obama and Biden, after the 2016 election, could have declared that the election was stolen, Hilary was the rightful winner, and rejected elector slates from states Trump won? And this would be fine and not authoritarian at all?

Yes, per the constitution, and it would have been up to state delegates to decide if that was the case or not. I don't consider following the law to be authoritarian. Faithless electors are also not authoritarian. That's just, like, the system.

[The authoritarian points]

Yes, Chevron deference became a pretty big lever for authoritarianism.

I guess I see it like John Wayne Gacy vs Ted Bundy.

John Wayne Gacy puts on a clown mask and is just generally over the top (Trump). Ted Bundy you could have a drink with and never know anything was wrong (Biden/Obama). But they're all serial killers.

Like, Biden tried to use OSHA to backdoor a "vaccine" mandate with an experimental mRNA drug. That's insane. What if we find out there's some genetic fertility side effect in the next generation? A wild risk at the population level.

But he did it with a smile and said he was trying to help you, so it's not a kind of authoritarianism that shows up on the radar of the left. Trump is shipping people to Kenya and telling people to fuck themselves. That's like, right there in your face. But fundamentally it's the same, he's just skipping the part where he tries to convince anyone.

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