If Ralph Waldo Emerson were alive today, he might say "Democrats do not seem to realize that their opinion of republicans is also a confession of character."
The more I think about this, the more I think this is another case of leftists revealing something about themselves, perhaps without realizing it.
They need to 'tie republicans to autocracy', because 1) republicans in fact are not autocrats, and 2) democrats do lean towards centrality and authority if not outright autocracy.