I’m not skeptical per se. I’ve just been propagandized so fucking much—I grew up watching those propagandocumentaries on the National Geographic Channel about the DPRK, etc., fr that was what I watched instead of cartoons lol.
Pretend I’m a lib who you’re trying to convince, or something. In addition to calming this feeling in my gut like something isn’t making sense, I want to be able to make this argument, myself.
I'd welcome it too tbh, that was just a probably-muddled explanation of my own realization that "of course the empire is going to paint all attempts to keep them out as authoritarianism, why wouldn't it?"