I think you are pretending that previous regimes were comically totalitarian, rather than meeting any realistic definition of the word. Even state sponsored Soviet art projects ended up funding pieces that had anti-Stalin and anti-state parodies in them. Even the Nazi party had internal tensions.

Speaking as an America, it's exactly this kind of pithy dismissal from the psuedo-intellectual class that gives our regime a pass. The vast swath of American political discussion is limited to the purview of cable news, and in these few bastions of informed discussion when real political problems of our country are discussed there's always this contingent of people who aggressively don't care and find offense in others caring.

Your post is somewhat amazing in that respect, especially the emphasis on "pretending" as the separation from reality that makes you comfortable with this conversation. There's nothing so uniquely unrighteous about America that it can't fall into the same power struggles that all empires throughout history have. If the citizenry is going to prevent that we need to be able to discuss it without resorting to pretending.