That can be a very long time. The Soviet system lasted for many decades before it finally collapsed (and what's there now is even worse, though not for the satellite nations that freed themselves from Russian dominance), and the Chinese system is still going strong. I don't see North Korea in danger of imminent collapse either.

I think the idea that totalitarianism isn't "sustainable" is a fallacy. Long-term, nothing is truly sustainable; every governmental system falls apart at some point.

China, by contrast, has a totalitarian system but a much more free-market economic system (a lot of big companies are all or partially state-owned, but the economy as a whole is not centrally planned like in the Soviet system).

That's mostly orthogonal to the regime, even if it's easier to do with a totalitarian system. We could imagine central planning with a democratic system, one could even argue that we have bits and pieces of central planning in most of our governments, especially in agriculture and fields that make no money but are critical to a nation.

Yeah, that's basically my point: that totalitarianism isn't necessarily "unsustainable" at all. The US could become totalitarian and stay that way for centuries.

Consider that for nearly the first 100 years of the USA's existence (just under half of its existence), black people couldn't vote. To black people, the USA had been an extremely authoritarian state that entire time, especially if they were enslaved, obviously.

Consider that half the population (women) didn't get a constitutionally guaranteed right to vote until the 1920s. That's 144 years of the USA's existence!

Consider that even after these constitutional amendments, the USA was still an extremely authoritarian state in many ways. Black people forced by law to use other facilities until within the last 60 years, then still facing pushback due to things like Massive Resistance and simple racism.

Consider that the USA had concentration camps for Americans that happened to have Japanese heritage within the last 100 years.

Consider that the USA today has the sixth highest incarceration rate per capita.

Now that's just laws and whatnot. There's the other side of the coin, which is the massive political and actual power wielded by American companies, particularly in media and news.

George Lucas once argued that Soviet filmmakers had more freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWqvaMEFIdI . He pointed out that Star Wars was supposed to be a straight up blatant reference to the American intervention in the Vietnamese revolution, with the Empire being the Americans and the Rebels being the communists. He points out that he would never have gotten than movie approved if he had made it more obvious. Which reminds me of another blatantly totalitarian phase of American history: McCarthyism. (he doesn't mention vietnam in the above video, he mentioned it later in an interview: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-05-18-050518...)

Then we have stories like we're discussing here, the general day to day interaction Americans have with their police of various agencies. Police are out there straight up murdering innocents, such as Breonna Taylor, with basically no repercussions.

So the USA is no Soviet Union, there may not be gulags and secret police... but there is the NSA, there are local cops simply arresting people that criticize them with no consequence, there is the legislated absolution of constitutional rights within 100 miles of any border (the majority of the populace living in places like this). There may not be one party... but there might as well be, outside of culture war issues both falling in line for corporate, oil, telecom, and war interests.

In short I argue that while the USA is not "blatantly totalitarian" like the DPRK or the USSR, it is totalitarian in another, almost more sinister way. It's more intangible, difficult to argue against. The movements that come up against it, such as Black Lives Matter or Occupy, often fail to outline clear demands, because it's just so damn vague what the problems are all. Or perhaps they're just so widespread.

I think you must look at the way the rest of the world was during the same time to get a honest picture of the "totalitarian state" of USA.

Hand pick some historic situation and then comparing versus a "Perfect World" (and since USA was not as good as this Perfect world.. then it must totalitarian/evil/..) This is not an honest way to frame the argument

You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism

That common theory is too simplistic. Soviet leaders (Gorbachev most notably) have said it themselves, the Union came crashing down economically in big part due to Chernobyl. Without the massive expenses associated with the coverup and cleanup of this disaster (which could have happened everywhere, plenty of capitalist and authoritarian countries have seen terrible corner cutting resulting in massive accidents), the Union could have lingered for who knows how long.

He won at trial. If cops ever do it again he can point to the trial as clear prior evidence.

This is about being arrested in the first place for something the cops think is illegal, but isn't. It's not about criticizing the police.

This is also why he lost at the supreme court - the case was NOT about criticizing/parodying the police, it was about police conduct if they think something is illegal.

I feel like a lot of people aren't realizing this distinction and making this case into something it is not.

This case isn't about free speech and rights suppression much the same way that he lost at the Supreme Court. The reality is he didn't lose at the Supreme Court... the Supreme Court didn't hear the case, they simply declined to hear the case. So he lost in a lower court and that ruling isn't being revisited.

> the case was NOT about criticizing/parodying the police, it was about police conduct if they think something is illegal.

Actually, this isn't correct either. The rejected case wasn't a free speech case nor even about what the police actually believed about something being legal/illegal. It was about whether or not he could sue the police department for their act. So the question you suggest the case is about hasn't been tested, though presumably it would have done so had he been able to sue. The question here was if your rights have been violated can you pursue a civil case where such questions as if the police acted in good faith (and that mattering) could be raised. Here the courts have said the question itself is out of order because there's no prior precedent of such a reasonably similar case having been pursued.

This is why people that care about the individual rights implications are concerned about this case. If the precedent held by the courts says that you can't even raise the challenge because there's no previous precedent of such a challenge having been raised before, you prematurely answer all the questions without so much as a hearing. If that's true, then an agency that might violate your rights either out of malice or ignorance, will never have to do better. They are immune from challenges presumptively regardless of the legitimacy of the challenge relative to what the law says the rights are. To simplify the "right" becomes endangered of carrying any actual weight.

How is that possible? Police have harassed people in every conceivable way since time immemorial, and people must have tried to sue over it.

What made this case so utterly unprecedented that they couldn't even imagine hearing it?

> In practice, this legal standard is a huge hurdle for civil rights plaintiffs because it generally requires them to identify not just a clear legal rule but a prior case with functionally identical facts.

It's just another way that the justice systems infatuation with "precedent", as if that's any way to democratically decide things, fucks each and every one of us constantly.

It was about right to parody, just that police has to use a stupid excuse to punish it.

> There are also examples of people who did just fine in jail.

Most, probably, from what I've seen. At least in my area. However...

> a prisoner’s well being is at the whim of those in charge.

Don't forget the other inmates! My cousin's cellmate, in for murder... beat the everloving bejesus out of some dude in the gym, some days before said cousin arrived (honestly he probably deserved it, but that's beside the point here). Why he was still roaming around freely with the rest of the pod, I never did discover.