> That's what real authoritarianism looks like. Not mask mandates. Over the next few months, the tolerance for bullshit, especially in politics, will go way dow

> That's what real authoritarianism looks like. Not mask mandates. Over the next few months, the tolerance for bullshit, especially in politics, will go way down. I disagree. If you look at the Cold War period, there was all sorts of bitter politics over culture wars throughout the world. The US experienced the Free Speech Movement [1], violent leftist extremist group bombings [2] (concomitant with the rise of leftist extreme violence in the rest of the Americas with groups such as the FARC [3] in the backdrop of some pretty frightening authoritarian leaders), the Civil Rights Movement [4] and several other culturally and politically destabilizing events. All of these things happened in the background of a global conflict between capitalism and communism, when one could argue that left-wing authoritarianism was in full display in the Eastern Bloc. The US only got its act back together politically after the end of the Cold War with the rise of some awkward form of Pax Americana that lasted from roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall to September 11, 2001. I doubt the events in Ukraine are going to _decrease_ the amount of political sectarianism in the US. If anything, it'll add an additional pressure as groups will be called out to be sympathizers of authoritarianism much as McCarthyism attacked folks for being suspected Communists. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement