There’s a narrative taking shape in certain corners of the political discourse right now that goes something like this: Democrats are the real authoritarians. While Republicans may have started this century leading the charge on shredding civil liberties and expanding the national security state, liberals and the Democratic Party have now taken up that torch, while the Right — with its opposition to pandemic mitigation and tech censorship, and its invocations of free speech — are the defenders of core civil rights.

This is, at best, half right. It’s true that the Democratic Party has, along with the rest of the US political center, embraced a range of authoritarian moves, from embracing and expanding George W. Bush’s “war on terror” and pushing for tech companies to censor political speech and ban users, to valorizing entities like the CIA and increasing the role of the national security state at home.

But are these alarming trends on the liberal side matched by a commitment to protecting civil liberties on the Right?