At a certain point authoritarian regimes begin to all behave more or less the same regardless of the ideals of the people who put them in power. There are only so many endgames for being in that kind of power, staying in power, and keeping the populace motivated enough. Without that iron will and competence you're left without all the incredients for a successful communist, fascist, imperial etc superstate and the resulting covfefe..
Yup. And in this case the state...the Empire...is the top priority, not the dude or dudette at the top. So even if it is a dictatorship, it’s hallmarks could read as left or right. Like you say in your later post, and as the poster said.
Whenever I think of communism/socialist dictatorships, I think of the old Smirnoff ad with the revolutionaries in a cycle of evicting the inhabitants of the leaders office. There’s a reason 1984 is treated as a warning text by both sides of the political divide...by the time you are at the jackboots and peaked hats stage, it’s pretty hard to worry about the ideals that took you there, and probably best not to, as left or right, ‘glorious leaders’ of either type aren’t averse to making people disappear in the night.
The Terran Empire, as Burnham points out, if you have to fight so hard for position, you tend to always be looking over your shoulder...that’s true for ‘revolutions’ and true for...well..I have never found a hard clear word for the fascist side, because it’s basically the same thing, with many of the same approaches (popular support, scheming to use extant political structures, consolidate power through militarisation and police control and removing the structures used in order to pull the ladder up behind. Last thing you want if you want to keep power you won in fair election, is to have some other buggers going and winning a fair election....only the cap badges differ.)
This motivation of fear applies to either side of the notional divide, at their far ends, and both sides have their cooker cutters for how their good citizens should think or be. We see that in DSC as well as other MU episodes. Even the sometimes troublesome issues around ‘evil is gay’ in the MU are more often about the decadence and corruption of power letting you basically do whatever the heck you like to whoever you like at the top of the tree, and about the characters being hyped up and very...sensation motivated over there. Though it does wander a bit. It goes right back to TOS fandom though, the MU is sadistic, and there are things like the legendary ‘beat me up Scotty’ stuff in fandom, and the popularity of BDSM themes in Trek slashfic. This is something we also see over in the MU novels.
*shrug*
It’s a strange world.
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