re: Serious long-term gaslighting re "authoritarians"

Am I remembering incorrectly or did you (Big Scrub) used to fall more on the left side of the political spectrum?

I may be thinking of a different poster, or you may have stayed the same and the spectrum shifted on you. Just wondering.

You could argue the neocons were pretty goddamn authoritarian in other countries, bombing them constantly and what not.

If a person couldn’t see that communist countries are authoritarian, they’re too stupid to convince.

It's gaslighting because we all know that BOTH sides gaslight to some extent.

If youre a conservative, you believe many left wing policies are authoritarian. You believe it, because you SEE it. Like a poster above said, you could live in CA or NY and be basically not affected by Trumps presidency at all. However, if you live in FL or TX, you either are being affected by Biden in a big way, or you can easily see how some proposal WILL affect you in a big and noticeable way.

The left is being gaslit by this article as well. They believe the right is authoritarian. They cant really articulate how very well, but they damned sure believe it, while maintaining that their own position is not authoritarian. And now some shmuck is trying to tell them that they themselves might be authoritarian. It's directly counter to what they believe.

If you're made to question your own reality, or told that you don't really see things that are right in front of you, then youre being gaslit. Both sides are being told that the other is doing exactly what they themselves are doing.

There was an article in Salon last month that asserted that there’s no such thing as leftist authoritarianism.

I see the post above mine describing the same.

It's no surprise that our state media and universities brainwash people into believing that authoritarians can only be right wing. Our establishment has been left wing in ideology for a while now. To broadcast that left wing can be authoritarian, would indirectly make people wary of our establishment.

The left-right spectrum is reductionist and simplistic, especially when discussing authoritarianism, totalitarianism, government oppression, and tyranny.

The disease of Stalin, Pot and Mao is the same disease of Hitler, Mussolini and Pinoche. The variations in rhetorical fodder these people employed are mostly irrelevant.