[spoiler]*A Wild Gringo has appeared*[/spoiler] Hola #offtopic. While I see plenty of politically charged posts on Offtopic fairly often. Offtopic is a generally Conservative place so it is not uncommon to see a post about anything from how awful BLM is to why guns don't kill people. Not to say that there are only Conservative posts, but just a noticeable majority. There are also a few outspoken Libertarians out there (you know who you are) and a few over the top SJW's too (Not naming anyone but a certain 16th president and queen's daughter come to mind) along with the Liberals like myself, admittedly. Now this was not just so we can argue about who is right, the point of this post is to show a strange movement in American mainstream politics that veers towards the Authoritarian. I just wanted to preface as I may be biased, though I will try not to and simply use personal experience to help add to my point. If for whatever reason you do not know what I am talking about, I will explain. If you already know about Authoritarianism and neoliberalism just skip the spoiler below. That being said I will still refer to it so you may want to read it to have it fresh in your head [spoiler]Politics (very simplified) van be split up into a sort of grid. The top, bottom, left, and right are all different political ideologies that just sort of outline a whole viewpoint. For example the horizontal X axis represents economic beliefs. While the vertical Y axis represents social beliefs. The left side is [i]Liberalism[/i]. It is the economic belief that, generally, Government is necessary to regulate a healthy economy. This sort of ideal is represented by FDR's "New Deal". It also hinders on the belief that money should move "up" the economic food chain, so the consumers are given money, which they spend and it makes its way up, being passed on to everyone until it hits the top of CEO's and whatnot who in turn create more products for consumers to buy and so on. The right side is [i]Neoliberalism[/i]. It is the economic belief that, generally, Government regulation hinders a healthy economy. It also hinders on the belief that money should move "down" the economic food chain, so money is given to wealthily CEO's and whatnot who in turn invest in companies and create products from which workers are needed to create and distribute and they get paid from the wealthy and they become consumers who buy goods and so on. This sort of ideal is represented by Reagan's "Reganomics" or "Trickle Down Economics. The top side is [i]Authoritarianism[/i]. It is the social belief that humans are less useful as individuals than they are as a group. Also that humans have a tendency to hurt ourselves and others, and strong government intervention helps to stop this, and it is worth loosing some rights to do so. The bottom side is [i]Libertarianism[/i]. It is the social belief that humans are more useful as individuals than as a group. Also that the most important thing to a human is his freedom so there should be no or very little government intervention in people's social lives that restrict their freedoms. Here in America, the top right corner is occupied by [i]Conservatism[/i] (and the Conservative Republican Party). The left is occupied by [i]Liberalism[/i] (and the Liberal Democratic Party). The bottom right goes to [i]Libertarianism[/i] (and the creatively named Libertarian Party). If you thought that last part was just me sort of rehashing what I already did, but with parties. You would be right, but also notice how I said 3 parties, but there are 4 corners.[/spoiler] Now American politics are a strange and complex beast I will not pretend to fully comprehend. I have glossed it over a fair amount but only because much else isn't necessary to the point I am getting at. With that being said, I have noticed a strange recent trend. You see it has long been established that the Democratic Party was occupied the bottom left area of the political spectrum while the Republican Party occupied the top right. Of course those positions would change with trends and whatnot and people aren't usually glued to their party's stances on 100% of everything. Those placements on the opposite corners of the board were actually pretty close to the middle, with more radical ideals closer to the far edges of the political spectrum, like Communism or Anarchism, never becoming popular. In todays political climate, there has been a strange trend of Liberals (and the Democratic party along with them) becoming more authoritarian. Take that as you will, generally authoritarian movements like Black Lives Matter or Political Correctness, that generally strive for a sort of enforced equality (or their view of it depending upon who you are) are seen as overwhelmingly Liberal. Now that change may not be too strange. Political parties and their popular ideologies tend to shift (which follows which is another question) over time. The weird thing is that there is no alternative. Where a person who believes in both neoliberalism and libertarianism can simply distinguish themselves from a person who believes in neoliberalism and authoritarianism by calling themselves a libertarian instead of a conservative, people who believe in liberalism and libertarianism are just liberals, like those who believe in liberalism and authoritarians. This is reflected by America's political system. Of the 5 major parties (I say major as in the other three have a slight say in close to nothing), there are 3 neoliberal groups and 2 liberal ones. Of the 3 on the right, there is the very authoritarian and neoliberal Constitution Party as well as the prementioned Republican and Libertarian parties. On the left is the prementioned Democratic party and the Green Peace party, whose main focus isn't even an economic or social dilemma but rather with the environment. This means that while the Libertarians can attempt to gain political traction above the Conservatives, there is absolutely no way for a libertarian liberal to separate themselves from the ever growing more authoritarian Democratic Party. [spoiler]So what are your thoughts? Did I waste your time, did you just skip the reading altogether to say something edgy like "libtards" or "-blam!- white people", or do you actually have something interesting/provocative/insightful to say? 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