Find the villains

One of the standard techniques of authoritarians is to invert the reality of who is doing the most harm in a given conflict. Police who abuse their power are portrayed as restoring law and order in the face of chaotic mobs. Scale is distorted; actual cases of destructive protesters (or bad actors trying to make protesters look bad) are given constant attention, ignoring the overwhelming majority of peaceful activists. Fox and Tucker Carlson and many other American right-wing figures are literally operating at the level of Belarusian authoritarianism, using the same arguments and distortions and defenses of indefensible police and vigilante violence.

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