Why would this authoritarian agree to this when they could clearly just force it through? Because they want the locals to collaborate with them willingly. If you get the locals to feel like it’s a good thing, or at least better than the alternative, that they’re doing the illegal homeless crackdown, then suddenly it’s not as morally bad. “at least we’re preventing trump’s goons from cracking down. we can be terrorists more gently than they can.”
“Collaborative” is the watchword here.
Why would this authoritarian agree to this when they could clearly just force it through? Because they want the locals to collaborate with them willingly. If you get the locals to feel like it’s a good thing, or at least better than the alternative, that they’re doing the illegal homeless crackdown, then suddenly it’s not as morally bad. “at least we’re preventing trump’s goons from cracking down. we can be terrorists more gently than they can.”