It certainly wouldn't be equivalence, but it would be another 4 years of expanding presidential powers only for a republican to come to power after that, or after 8 years. It really doesn't matter. The system keeps changing to put us more a risk of a bad president being effectively bad.
Two of the most authoritarian decisions by the supreme court have been progressive in nature: Kelo v. City of New London - where the government can redistribute wealth if it benefits the government, and the whole fiasco around the ACA, which defaults every American to being a criminal until they bought health insurance, using the commerce act as justification for the power grab.
About the ACA, whether I agree with national healthcare is irrelevant, this was not the way to do it -- by expanding the government's reach. There has to be consideration for what the administration does.
You essentially seem to be making an argument for the status quo because you're terrified that anyone who promises to improve things will become authoritarian.
No, it's not. When people try to "drain the swamp", several things push them to become authoritarians, even if they weren't before.
1. The definition of "the swamp" drifts from "open, blatant corruption" towards "everyone who opposes me". That's a much larger set, so you need bigger guns.
2. Some people agree that "the swamp needs drained", but disagree on what "the swamp" is, and/or disagree on how to drain it.
3. People don't agree with everything you're doing. (Maybe this is the same as #1 and/or #2.) Some people oppose you because they're corrupt, some people oppose you because they dislike change, and some people oppose you because they dislike your methods. The more force you use, the more people oppose your methods. But as opposition grows, you need more force to get anywhere.
The result is that anybody who sets out to do something like "drain the swamp", if they stick with it as an objective, gets pushed toward more and more authoritarianism to try to make it happen.
Look, Bernie isn't Trump. He's been consistently pushing in the same direction for decades. He actually cares about his issues; he's not just using them as a cover for seeking power. But I think that, if he got actual power (president, not just senator), the dynamics of the situation would also push him to become more and more authoritarian.
(Would he become equivalent to Trump? Hopefully not.)
> Look, Bernie isn't Trump. He's been consistently pushing in the same direction for decades. He actually cares about his issues; he's not just using them as a cover for seeking power.
Exactly.
> But I think that, if he got actual power (president, not just senator), the dynamics of the situation would also push him to become more and more authoritarian.
This is just sheer unsupported speculation. It's silly.
