Just within your own framework of “west good, authoritarianism bad” how do you reconcile the fact that the US has the world’s largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration of any major country (by a completely absurd margin too)? Is that not authoritarian? Or is that word essentially meaningless and more of a vibes based accusation for thought terminating purposes? You don’t actually need to answer this as you are not the first lib we’ve ever spoken to, but if you want to try by all means go ahead and make a funny comment for us.

it’s literally a war of “do I continue living in a growing, modernizing democracy with western ties or a backsliding authoritarian dictatorship that’s constantly trying to relive the Soviet glory days”

lol