> and people flout the laws in front of the cops all the time. They don't give a fuck any more either.
Laws that have negligible compliance rates but can be enforced on a whim to cause problems for people who dare cause problems for the government (or those whom the government serves) are a hallmark of totalitarian states.
You can say almost anything you want no matter how offensive or political in the USA (e.g. Elon Musk winning at trial after calling a random innocent a pedophile, constant political campaigning from every side accusing the others of horrible things). We regularly vote out and replace our leaders every 2-4 years in a free democratic election. It just doesn’t make sense to call this totalitarian, or if so it cheapens the word totalitarian to mean nothing.
These degrees of freedom exist, yes. They also don’t entirely repudiate the basic claim that the US is substantially a totalitarian state. The genesis of it didn’t come from a revolution devolved into a cult of personality as in past times. I think it mostly stems from relatively benign reasons, growth in entitlements, “there aught to be a law” attitudes, zero tolerance, unending internal wars/crusades against poverty, crime and drugs.
Totalitarianism is a proposed concept used in academia and in politics to describe a form of government and political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life.
Pretty much everyone on the highway in the USA is going at least 5mph over the speed limit unless traffic is congested. Police notoriously have an excuse to pull almost anyone over at any time. It’s still not a totalitarian state though.
Laws that have negligible compliance rates but can be enforced on a whim to cause problems for people who dare cause problems for the government (or those whom the government serves) are a hallmark of totalitarian states.