Also "our shadow government with totalitarian tendencies is better than theirs" is kind of flimsy#.
The FBI frequently radicalizes and encourages vulnerable, alienated people to execute terrorist plots. Sure, they don't arrest people for 'pre-crimes', but they do manufacture terrorists so that they can 'catch' them.
The CIA, FBI, NSA, and a few other alphabet soup agencies have a regular history of mass violation of rights and egregious human rights abuses. Who has forgotten the Senate report about CIA torture already? The CIA was forcibly anally raping unjustly detained individuals as part of its interrogation program. People who paper over the atrocities regularly committed in the name of liberal democracy undermine democracy by refusing to distinguish it from a far inferior and quite obviously broken system. It seems like there's a short memory and long list of excuses for the abuses perpetrated by nations like the US.
# This is a strawman of your position.