this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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In case you haven't noticed, the system in place now in the US became what it is today under both Republican and Democrat Administrations.
One has to be a tribalist useful idiot to deny that "their side" has done as much to create a Surveillance State as the "other" side - amongst those few things which have bipartisan support in the US are strengthening of police powers and erosion of privacy.
The comparison with most of Europe (with notable exceptions such as Britain and Russia) is very telling: it absolutely is possible to have low crime without reckless invasion of privacy, widespread civil society surveillance, draconian police powers and a pay-to-play Judicial System.
This bothsiderism is pretty thoughtless.
It is true that both contribute to a surveillance state but to equate both is to just ignore all policy differences, actions and more to pretend to be nuanced while painting everything as the same shade of grey, which is a downgrade to even black and white thinking.
This is Politics, it's not 1D or 2D, it's N-Dimensional (with a very, very large N): it's not just possible but pretty much a Mathematical certainty than in a country were there are only 2 parties they will match perfectly on some dimensions, even whilst not at all matching in others.
Trying to dismiss away that aspect of Reality (which is incoveninent for tribalists) with sloganeering like "bothsiderism" is just parroting propaganda meant for simpletons who see reality as having just one dimension where there is nothing more than 2 sides.
It's pretty evident by their actual policies that strengthenning of police powers and the surveillance state are things in which both sides of the power duopoly in the US agree in the most, and it the face of both of those parties being shit on that domain your "yeah, but " discourse is really just trying to distract away from the most nasty aspects of both of those taking big fat dumps on the face of every American, by talking about subtle details in the shape and consistency of each one's shit.
Now, if you favorite party did start to diverge in that, you would have reason to celebrate, but it ain't hapenning and discourse such as yours makes it even harder that it will ever happen - why would the tribe's leadership change their ways when there's a veritable army of tribalist peons going "yeah, but, bothsiderism" at any criticism of what they do, even those parts which are undeniably shit.
This is the point I made and that your comment ignored.
This is a strawman. No person is claiming they don't have any aligning opinions.
This is you continuing to argue against the strawman.
The rest is also that.
You own post:
Your post starts with a sloganeering, hyper-reductive take of what I wrote.
As I wrote in response, "This is Politics, it’s not 1D or 2D"!
In case you're unware of it, two forests can be the same kind of forest even when the trees in each are different: demanding for others to focus on the details of the trees in each (otherwise they're "painting everything as the same shade of grey") is just a way to try to avoid that people look at the forest as a whole.
That said, you're right. The details are different and I didn't address that in my original post were I only talked about the main policy direction on these domains.
The broad policy direction on this subject is the same and the outcomes have been very similar and over time progressed in the same direction during the time in power of both parties, but things worsened in different domains at different speeds with different parties in power.
This is not even what many Americans call "the ratchet effect", it's actually worse because in this case it's not one pushing in a certain direction and the other refusing to revert it, it's actually both pushing in the same direction, with just some difference in details here and there which didn't add up to much difference in outcomes.
So yeah, my point stands that in this domain both US parties are shit and my second point also stands that you're trying to move the conversation away from criticizing parties for doing this shit by claiming that subtle differences in each party's shit are more important that the overall shitty nature of their actions in this.
This is such a hopelessly lazy dismissal of that criticism I'm just going to ignore it and hope you have anything better to offer.
Nope. Skimmed through it and you're still making the same strawman argument. I guess there is nothing more to say here if you don't recognize it.
The idea of "both-siderism" is anchored on 2D politics: you can't have "both-siderism" where there are more than 2 sides, hence my point about viewing politics as 2D.
You're living inside a box and only seeing what's in that box, hence hyper-aware of the difference between those because they're all that you know, whilst I'm outside the box and pointing out that compared to the rest of the Universe what's inside that box you live in isn't actually very different.
It's like I'm talking about "the landscapes of the World" with an Eskimo - you keep insisting that "this icy landscape is very different from that icy landscape" (which I'm sure they are in the eyes of a person who has only ever known those landscapes and nothing else) even whilst I point out that they're both icy landscapes and thus very similar to each other when compared to other kinds of landscapes that do exist in the rest of the World, such as sandy beaches or tropical forests.
Worse, your persistence in closing your eyes to the point I've made repeatedly that there are more sides than just two, leaves me with the feeling that I'm talking to a particularly provincial and simple minded Eskimo who thinks that those differences they're so hyper-aware off between different kinds of icy landscapes are far more important differences that the vastly larger differences between those and the rest of the landscapes that actually exist outside the place they live in.
bud this is all tldr.
There are 2 sides that you can vote for in American politics.
That's not being unable to see nuance, that's being able to see facts.
You seem stuck on making a point that is irrelevant and increasingly more incorrect.
I can't care to engage with someone who isn't reading what I'm saying. It would just be talking past each other.