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Notes -
You make a number of conflict theory mistakes.
First, you assume I have never noticed this before just because I only occasionally comment on it. This is not correct. I've been around and politically aware longer than you. I am more informed and have more historical perspective than you. This isn't new, it's not limited to one faction, but it is also usually exaggerated. ("Orwellian" is like "Fascist" or "Nazi" - most people who use it Literally Literally don't understand what Literally Fascist, Nazi, or Orwellian is.)
Second, you think this is a "Dem" system. Again, not having been around as long and seeing things only through your partisan lens, you notice when your enemies do it (and it's the Worst Thing Ever) and not when your side does it (which is, alternately, not the same thing at all or it is but only fighting fire with fire).
Third, you assume that I "have to feel like a Sensible Moderate" - i.e., it's a guise I adopt to be a Right Thinking Person, and not what I actually believe, and not sincere beliefs arrived at through analysis of history and the political landscape. I realize this is a comforting and satisfying thing to believe. It's always more pleasant to imagine your enemies are bots, NPCs, "low information," etc.
But it's incorrect. I am a sensible moderate person (this doesn't mean I am right about everything or that I deliberately triangulate to find a "moderate" position - it means I am not generally given to catastrophizing, villifying, or presentist despair or accelerationism), and to the degree I "sneer" at witches, it's because their malice-driven conflict theories are wrong more often than not. That they are occasionally right about some things does not change this.
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