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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

America is really now two Americas. The divide between traditional freedoms and neo-authoritarianism is getting wider. But America is so large that even the minority (just) that believes in freedom is still 167 million people. Even if only a small percentage of that number, from either side of the divide, believes in violent activism, things are going to get worse before they get better.

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They talk about a K shaped recovery in economics.

It just depends on if you're on the up portion of the K or the down stick. The larger picture might show an increase but if you split the data apart one leg is actually declining while the other is growing.

while an important consideration, I'm sure there are many on the up side of the k-economy that don't believe that persistent surveillance is warranted or ethical.

They will fall in line as property crime increases.

This is the most important comment here. There is a future reckoning to be had between the radical authoritarian fringe and normal Americans who do not want to live in an open air prison. The conflict is completley preventable, and makes a less safe place to live for us all.

America is converting into a radical authoritarian state, yes, but they're not a "fringe". They are, by a small margin, the dominant faction in the US. Popular vote counts prove it.

Unfortunately this country has literacy and education problems, and many voters were plainly ignorant of what they were voting for.

They were literally taking tourist photos in front of the "Alligator Alcatraz" sign. [1][2][3]

They knew what they were voting for. The cruelty (and the authoritarianism) is the point.

1. https://theday.com/photo-single/1006536/?mode=team

2. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-take-pi...

3. https://www.wusf.org/courts-law/2025-12-22/attorneys-urge-ju...

The best way defeat MAGA is to fracture their coalition, which requires understanding its various constituencies. The “MAGA Hardliners” at the forefront of this fascist movement are only 29% of his support:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/trump-roles-sup...

Currently, his approval rating is hovering in the mid to high 30s, which tracks.

We should spend our energy on the people who can be convinced; don’t get discouraged by thinking they’re all the same.

> We should spend our energy on the people who can be convinced

They've had a decade and a half to be convinced! They weren't convinced by Trump's easily-disprovable birther nonsense in 2011, his "Mexico is sending their rapists" speech, his "grab 'em by the pussy" recording, etc etc. And that's just in his first term. But they're convinced now?

I don't buy it. And I don't want fascists as my comrades-in-arms. Or even fascist-adjacent people, which IMO is a distinction without a difference. If they truly understood the full consequences of their vote for Trump and actually regretted it, right now they'd be seeking forgiveness from the people they, frankly, victimized. But they're not. That's not an ally I can rely on. That's not a coalition which will last. Even if Trump goes, Trumpism will be around for the foreseeable future. The people who voted for him will vote for the next fascist the first chance they get.

I choose moral clarity, even if it's at the expense of political effectiveness. Maybe that makes me an extremist- so be it. None of the literally thousands of horrible things Trump has done over the years were deal-breakers for Republicans. It was only when gas prices went up 5 cents per-gallon that they started to have misgivings. So forgive me if I ask myself whether they consider Trump's fascism to be a bug, or a feature.

A vote for Trump should never wash off. It should be an embarrassing family secret for generations to come.

The back and forth between "the Left" and "the Right" seems to actually be about who gets to run the prison instead of whether we should run a nation like one.

The right has become so untenable that the only viable defense of it is a bad faith distraction tactic to pretend that it's comparable to the left.

You're in a bubble. It's not wholly a bad faith distraction tactic, and denying wrongdoing by anyone flying the "left" banner is a scary thought.

So one one hand we have Nazi ideas[1] being platformed by the ruling political party which has barely disguised its support for ethnically cleansing the country of all non-white people[2]. And on the other hand we have radical democratic socialist candidates proposing stabilized rent[3]. What am I missing here?

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/republican-part...

2. https://www.esiweb.org/newsletter/100-million-expulsions-pro...

3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/06/europe-zohra...

The main cases I've seen against people on the left (non-exclusive) are:

- Lots of them in Epstein files

- Mass importations of unchecked non-citizens

- Trying harder to look cool to Europe vs helping Americans

- Overregulation (things like California Coastal Commission)

- Massive fraud (LA -> SF bullet train, tens of billions for "homelessness" that don't go towards homeless at all, building permits, etc)

- Antifa burning down 3rd party businesses for reasons unknown

- Attempts to squash 1st amendment, particularly on gender

Since you linked sites like the Guardian and Atlantic, I figured the bar was low enough that you can just google any of these points and find an opinionated piece of similar quality.

The bubble I refer to is the fact that seemingly all you see is the bad on one side and good on the other. As easy as you claim one side are Nazis trying to kill off non-whites, the people on the other side claim the left is trying to force movie/music propaganda to eradicate all white people. Both sides have millions of posts from terminally online people wildly claiming outrageous things. Both "sides" have bad people. If you can't agree to that, you are in a bubble or just lying.

> - Attempts to squash 1st amendment, particularly on gender

explain yourself

Forcing other people to use desired pronouns, requiring new signs on all single-stall bathrooms. You'll have to Google it, you're not going to get a great argument/stance from me personally. I don't dive much deeper than the headlines/parts of my feeds where these are thrust upon me.

Especially when it comes to ethnic cleansing, peoples' terminally online claims don't factor in from any side; this isn't about partisans or discourse. We are talking about official government policy and statements. This is substantiated, without any constitutional precedent, and extremely dangerous.

The equivalent actions on the left that you posed, increasing non-white representation in media, a) is not government policy and b) is fair assuming proportional representation for the existing 1 out of 3 non-white Americans. And the actual Biden policy allowing what you call "non-citizens" to enter the US is simply the international treaty for asylum seekers; these are all people going through the immigration system.

Regarding my sources, ESIWeb is a European think-tank that rigorously and objectively evaluates claims. The Atlantic and The Guardian are respected for their journalism world-wide. These aren't op-eds; I have been following this story for a while and choose my sources carefully.

There are a few other dubious items on your list--e.g., "Antifa" which doesn't represent mainstream Democrats, isn't an organization, and hasn't been linked to "burning down businesses". Epstein? At least a dozen people in this administration are implicated, with Trump being one of the principal pedophiles. "Massive corruption"? The list would be too long for this message if we got into the Trump administration.

It's the knee-jerk reactions to "look at the other side!" that makes me think you're in a bubble. Also your references to certain small groups on the right-side spectrum as the whole while claiming (rightly) that other small groups on the left-side don't represent the mainstream. I was just trying to give you a few examples as a starting point for research since you seem to be completely oblivious to them, I am not here to argue with you or back them up.

Guy, you're talking about groups that comprise social discourse whereas I'm talking only and specifically about the concrete policies and practices enacted by the Trump regime. The counter-examples you provided are not parallel mappings.

That's cool, keep talking about it I guess. Why you're expecting me to provide "parallel mappings" is totally beyond me. You're in a bubble because although you seem great at researching one side, you seemingly cannot apply those same skills for the other. You just want a dopamine win from discarding whatever I say based upon whatever moral framework you've set up in your head that's gotten you to this point.

As your net worth increases, the concern about what you have to lose from a personal safety perspective skyrockets. You start becoming far more paranoid and seeing crime everywhere. Tech CEOs and billionaires will build the dystopian panopticon society 100 times out of 100 because they don't care about other people, they just want to feel safe. If that means mass surveillance for the rest of the world, so be it.

If you don't believe me, just look at the CCP. It already happened there.

Being anti-crime doesn't mean lacking compassion. Crimes have victims, and reducing crime results in fewer of them. Poor people don't want to be victims any more than rich people do.

Building the panopticon does not reduce crime.

There isn't a radical authoritarian fringe in the US. There are multiple, competing radical authoritarian perspectives in the US, and I wouldn't be surprised if the sum of them constituted a majority.

They disagree on the authority, not the methods, and help the two institutional parties cooperate to destroy civil liberties by accusing their counterparts of abusing ("weaponizing") civil rights to commit crimes, spy for foreign governments, and/or abuse children.

Hidden aristocracy.

Trump won the election with less than 50% of the popular vote. He has never enjoyed an approval rating equal to or higher than 50%.

Verify your claims before spreading them. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024

Site says he won the election with less than 50% of the popular vote.

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