> On the other hand, maybe we're just so socioculturally fucked that it requires massive authoritarian investment to keep a crummy level of peace. I'm undecided

> On the other hand, maybe we're just so socioculturally fucked that it requires massive authoritarian investment to keep a crummy level of peace. I'm undecided. I think people both understate how splintered the US society really is, and overstate the importance of this divide. Imagine a country with a HUGE historical and current influx of immigrants that bring tons of different cultures and ideologies into the mix. The country has traditionally been hard to govern, especially at the federal level, precisely because it encourages freedom of thought and expression through both law and immigration policy. Its economic structure further encourages division by being one of the most meritocratic systems on the planet, where material gains for good decisions are quite the norm, but where the divide between the haves and have nots is always growing, and always on display. In a country I describe, why is it any surprise to anyone that criminal behavior will be more common than in a more cohesive environment, therefore necessitating a more strict policing approach? And in what world does it make sense to reduce police powers in such a country without suffering the obvious increase in crime that will follow that? It's not that US is fundamentally broken or fucked up, it's just a very different place compared to the "liberal utopias" of Northern Europe, so often cited by leftist activists in the states.