Besides, the Democratic coalition as of 2020 is no place for anyone who scores low on trust in authority. They've always laughed at us anyway and will be happier cavorting with people who thought that Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign was a height of decency in politics.
This isn't wholly true. Authoritarians are overrepresented in the leadership roles of all parties and the Democratic electorate is probably less skeptical of government in the abstract than it was 20 years ago, although the same is true for the Republicans, for better and for worse. The coronavirus-themed elephant in the room has seen major global policy shifts, most of which don't see very durable to me, but besides that, Democratic policymakers have generally pushed in a more civil libertarian direction in recent years. Whether that translates into a less authoritarian federal government remains to be seen, but the party seems more willing than before to push for expanded voting rights/access, more ambitious policing reforms and drug decriminalisation. There are areas of regression like freedom of speech but I'd wager that activists are pushing for more socially liberal policies, although that isn't necessarily coming from a socially liberal philosophy.
Civil libertarians are probably better off in the Democratic Party than the (federal) Republican one given its leadership's current agitations towards dictatorship, although they don't fit well into either and may be better off remaining independent where that doesn't void their influence in primary elections.
