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[-] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago

I wish I had a great firewall to filter what gets out about my country... Oh wait, no I dont. At least the remnants of our free press will document the genocide against my people. Leftists who believe the USA is as authoritarian as China are propaganda-fucked on par with conservatives.

[-] Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

US is not by any means as authoritarian as China.

To achieve that, the US would need a government that controls mass media, kills people just for protesting, disappearing enemies of the government in remote prison camps with no oversight or accountability, have mass surveillance everywhere, make books illegal, demonstrably suppress all ethnic minorities, threaten religious leaders for speaking ill of the government...

All run by a hardline government that has a strongman leader that people respect and a cabinet full of loyalists with competence in the task they're assigned.

Once the US achieves that last bit, THEN they'll be as authoritarian as China.

[-] TotallynotJessica 4 points 1 day ago

It wasn't before, but the USA is currently a fascist dictatorship and it's kinda hard to argue it gets more authoritarian than that. The few freedoms we still have are fading remnants that have yet to be snuffed out. Just because they have yet to build the firewall doesn't mean they won't.

The major difference between the two going forward is whenever or not the state steers the country, or the self interested oligarchs. It's very clear that China's industrial capitalism was more wise for the interests of their empire, while America can't compete so long as oligarchs steer the ship towards short term profits. This isn't to say that China is eternally better than the US, as imperial prosperity ebs and flows.

However, China is the safer bet going forward, especially if we see another red scare as Americans begin to realize that their empire lost. If people get distracted fear mongering about communism, they'll never fix the problems that actually made America fall behind. If I'm right about that, then the US is in for decades of decline.

this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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