im rewatching videos by sheldon wolin. theres not too many, but thank god chris hedges did a 3 hour interview with him before he died. he used to be one of americas greatest living political philosophers.
this one is 15 years old right when the iraq invasion started. he defines whats totalitarianism and how america is totalitarian but he calls it inverted totalitarianism. he says america is essentially a one party system because theres so little difference between dems and republicans. he says dems are not an opposition force. says in this system of totalitarianism, voters are demobilized whereas in the nazis they were mobilized which turned into war (although trump still does rallies which is i think is a new development). he says with the nazis the state had power over the capitalists, but with this system its the other way around.
he defines democracy and what it is not. defines government and bureaucracy.
i saw an interview he did with bill moyers looks like it was in the 1990s, and said america was totalitarian back then. he said basically all the institutions are undemocratic.
i guess thats the deal with our system is they use rhetoric to make things appear a certain way but upon deeper inspection its not true.