Such is the sorry state of the “woke” West that the “thinking class” moronically obsesses over trivialities, while ignoring everything that is disastrous.

This somewhat regurgitated “white rural rage” thesis comes from a “journalist” and an “academic” who have written a book explaining why white, patriotic Americans who just want to live their lives free from government interference are actually responsible for everything wrong in the country.  Just when I think my white-hot contempt for closed-minded toffs couldn’t burn more brightly, a couple nitwits ratchet up my “rage” to eleventy.  Dang, they got me.  Turns out that if you scapegoat rural Americans long enough, some will get angry.  Uff da.

Of course, anyone who lives in or near rural America knows that the brain-dead professor and reporter tag-team responsible for this drivel never spent any time meeting the people whom they disparage.  If they had, it would have been impossible for them to write so dishonestly (even for people paid to lie for a living).  Rural America is where authentic democracy flourishes.

People still gather in churches and town squares to discuss their communities’ hardships and successes.  Law enforcement and firefighting depend on the efforts of volunteers.  Local papers tell stories of next-door neighbors and follow the adventures of townspeople far from home — many risking their lives in combat overseas.  When someone isn’t seen in the grocery store or at the bank for any length of time, people notice.  Before a sheriff’s deputy has time to investigate, local residents are on the case.  When snowed-in roads need clearing, family trucks turn into plows.  When farmers need extra hands to harvest crops, familiar faces arrive in droves.  At the deli, town market, or local watering hole residents debate the issues on their minds.  There are no timeouts because some topic has been declared “politically incorrect” or because some intervening listener declares the conversation riddled with “hate.”  Rural America is where free speech thrives.

If saving American “democracy” were really the goal, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., would be sending delegations out to “flyover country” as part of fact-finding missions to see how it’s done.  Umm, interesting, these residents can disagree with each other without burning down each other’s businesses?  I did not know that was possible!  Yet it is possible.  It is normal!

Rural Americans can scream at each other one night and make up before church service the next day.  You mean nobody is around to police their speech?  Nope, rural Americans recognize the same basic truth that our political forefathers understood — that no king or parliament has the power to tell an adult what he may think or say.  But how does anything get done without a strong central government providing for their every need?  It might sound amazing, but ordinary people are quite capable of protecting their neighbors and providing for their towns’ survival.  During an emergency, they don’t wait for the “authorities” to arrive.  Outside of Almighty God, they are the authorities.  As rational adults with responsibility for their own lives, they know what needs to be done.  And they do it.  If you want to see “democracy in action,” visit one of the tens of thousands of small communities that dot the country from coast to coast.  They are where strong, caring, and resilient people work and live.

The real fear of the “white rural rage” Chicken Littles is not that rural Americans are a threat to “democracy” but rather that they provide an immovable bulwark against the Deep State’s “master plan” for a totalitarian super-State.  All over the West, politicians and pundits continue to extol authoritarianism as “democratic” and denigrate self-government as “populist.”  It’s absurdly Orwellian, of course, but since we live in the age of censorship, propaganda, and linguistic chicanery, these word games will continue.  Somewhere in the pits of Hell, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao are eager to remind Klaus Schwab and all the other Western globalists how “democratic” their “rules-based international orders” are, too.

The globalist authoritarians have instructed the commoners to stop eating meat.  Rural Americans have said, “Nah, we’re good.  We like steak.”  The “new world order” folks have insisted that a great deal of speech must be censored in order to protect fragile adults from experiencing outbreaks of unapproved “hate.”  Rural Americans have responded, “Suck it up, Buttercup.  Maybe try listening to an opposing point of view sometime.  It might just vaccinate you from the plague of groupthink.”

The globo-Marxists have demanded that consumers hand over their keys to any car with an internal combustion engine.  Rural Americans have laughingly replied, “Not only are we keeping every truck and tractor from the last century in a barn out back but also we can’t wait to buy some new all-terrain vehicles to ride through the backcountry.”

Officials who betray their oaths to the Constitution have told law-abiding Americans that they have no right to own a gun.  Rural Americans have calmly loaded their weapons in preparation for self-defense and whispered back, “Come and take it.”  In disposition and beliefs, rural Americans are the natural “Minutemen” guarding American liberty.

It is no wonder, then, why the World Economic Forum’s tawdry tyrants wish to incarcerate Americans in “fifteen-minute cities.”  Cities are hotbeds of censorship, economic coercion, and social control.  They are where freedom goes to die.  In rural America — where everyone knows how to hunt, fish, farm, and defend their properties — a strong and self-sufficient culture exists that teaches people how to live.  The last thing the WEF’s depopulation fanatics want is an American society capable of taking care of itself…and thriving.  How could intelligence agencies, central banks, and unaccountable regulators maintain power if they had nobody to control?

Ultimately, attacks against rural Americans — like the left’s attacks against Christians — are a wretched form of bigotry designed to spread the insidious idea that people who live outside city limits are subhuman.  Because rural America is filled with resilient people who adamantly defend the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, it represents an antidote to the cancerous form of Marxist globalism killing cities across the country.  Because rural America is filled with faithful people who are obedient to God’s will — and not D.C.’s — it remains a natural refuge for those immune from institutional brainwashing.  Because rural America is blessed with an abundance of self-sufficient families, hard workers, and freethinkers, it provides a welcoming home for human liberty.  For these reasons, aspiring totalitarians must destroy rural America if they are to have any chance at erecting a new system founded on censorship, surveillance, oppression, and tyranny.  The problem for the Deep State is that rural Americans know what to do when the SHTF and, in fact, have been preparing all their lives.

Mass psychological programs that dehumanize groups of people always precede State-engineered genocides.  It is how cognitive warfare specialists pepper society with a preemptive rationale for why some people must be loaded onto boxcars and sent away for “re-education.”  Newt Gingrich is certainly right: any nuclear war would be catastrophic.  If we’re being honest, though, Americans must also worry about how the totalitarian left is following in the footsteps of Hitler’s Germany.  Prepare your mind accordingly.

The most interventionist politicians are really attacking the 2030 Agenda because, despite their pretenses to the contrary, their policies invariably have the opposite effect of what they seem to support. The socialists in all parties have taken over the 2030 Agenda, which does not advance industry, growth, equality, or the fight against poverty or hunger.

This exploitation of the 2030 Agenda’s objectives is exactly like the Trojan Horse that conceals people who will destroy the city beneath the guise of an impressive and lovely gift.

The number of farms in the European Union has drastically decreased in recent years. According to Eurostat, there were 9.1 million farms in 2020, a projected 37 percent decrease, or roughly 5.3 million fewer than in 2005. This trend has only worsened since 2020.

According to the European Commission itself, the EU’s agricultural land is predicted to shrink by 1.1 percent between 2015 and 2030, primarily due to the declines of the two main groupings (agricultural land and farming), which are forecast to decline by 4.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively. This implies ruining our future and increasing Europe’s dependence and poverty.

It is not acceptable for the industrial fabric to be destroyed. According to the International Energy Agency, businesses are now paying twice as much for electricity and natural gas as they would in China or the United States due to an energy strategy that is incorrect and enforced by activists who lack industry knowledge. And how is it justified by the bureaucracy? “The breakdown analysis reveals that the lower economic growth in the EU in relation to the world had the greatest negative impact on the contribution of its manufacturing sector,” according to a study published by the European Commission. It’s not that they are destroying industry, so don’t worry. It is just that the EU is growing far less than before. Fascinating (note the irony). As if the decline in competitiveness isn’t already a contributing factor in stagnation.

A report from the European Round Table for Industry (Vision Paper 2024–2029) states that the market share of European Union industry in the globe has plummeted from 21 percent in 2001 to a pitiful 14.5 percent. The paper also offers positive remedies. The U.S. proportion, which had a 21 percent share during the same period, decreased less significantly, to 16.5 percent. They reaffirm that “business is the lifeblood of a robust economy.” “The EU’s industrial sector contributes 16 percent of its GDP. It creates millions of jobs indirectly and 25 percent of direct employment. It is essential for advancing innovation and enhancing the capabilities of the labor force in addition to creating income and jobs. Its potential to promote growth and prosperity is enormous, given the correct conditions. These factors make it clear that Europe needs to increase its appeal to foreign investors.” Furthermore, what has been accomplished? Taxes, restrictions, and bureaucracy are increased, destroying the very thing they claim to safeguard.

Why do people accept the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda which are redundant as free-market capitalism would achieve all of them without the need for propaganda? Interventionism has denigrated capitalism and free markets while positioning itself as the answer to the mistakes brought about by extensive intervention. The only ways that any of those goals will actually be met are through increased capitalism and economic freedom. Socialism not only falls short of all these goals, but it also adds a secret number 18: the cancelation and persecution of complainants.

It is not anti-European to criticize this agenda’s incorrect imposition. It is in favor of Europe.

Many of us were labeled anti-Europeans years ago for supporting nuclear energy. The EU made agreements recently to create new reactors in large quantities. When we criticized the fiscal plunder and bureaucracy placed on farming, agriculture, and industry years ago, we were labeled anti-Europeans. Many governments are realizing now how grave a mistake they made. Similarly, criticizing the digital euro does not mean attacking the euro; rather, it means arguing that it should continue to be a store of value and maintain its purchasing power.

Being pro-European does not mean accepting every interventionist policy put out by a committee of bureaucrats. We must reject socialism and central planning if we are to protect Europe. Despite decades of financial support, East Germany is still struggling to recover from the devastation caused by central planning.

Centralized planning does not work. It was never successful. However, there are always those who believe that if they put it into practice, it will work because they do not have to pay for the repercussions.

What is the ruse behind this latest attack on liberty? The usual “good intentions” to target and penalize those who produce and create jobs, using goals that appear innocent and that we all defend. Thus, if you disagree, some may claim that you are opposed to ending poverty, hunger, and inequality if you publish a piece like this one or warn against the risks of central planning. Can you spot the ruse? In actuality, it employs the same tactic as Leninism, which is to create an oppressive government while hiding behind a cause that everyone supports.

The people who have stocked this Trojan Horse with warriors ready to mercilessly slaughter the city’s populace once they are behind the wall are well aware that their scheme will fail so they must enforce objective number 18, which establishes the only connection between reality and the fallacy of central planning. What does objective number 18 mean? Suppression and annihilation of personal autonomy, impoverishment, and elimination of demand. It’s not even a hidden target. This set of self-proclaimed European saviors is aware that imposing a contraction in demand is the only way to make the equation of corporate destruction and declining supply square, rendering us less free and poorer.

The first thing we should do is give up on socialism and stand up for the promotion of individual freedom if we want to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals without the covert eighteenth of poverty and elimination of individuals’ rights.

The only way to accomplish the goals that the 2030 Agenda purports to support is to take these policies out of the hands of socialist and extortionate interventionism and give Europe greater economic freedom, more robust businesses, and regulations that are straightforward, predictable, and conducive to investment. There should be less poverty redistributors and more manufacturing, farming, and agriculture.

Understanding what we’re facing is necessary if we’re going to face it properly. It’s counterproductive to sugarcoat it with platitudes like, “We can win if we all work together, y’all!” The reality is this: We may fight and still lose. The enemy is willing to risk our lives to achieve their goals as they’ve proven time and again for the last five or six years. This is why C.J.’s article is so important. We cannot treat the globalist threat of totalitarianism the same way we’d protest a tax increase. This really is an existential threat we face and we must treat it as the highest possible level of severity. With that said, here’s C.J.’s article with inconsequential edits for clarity…

It feels like it’s finally over, doesn’t it, the whole “apocalyptic pandemic” thing? I mean, really, really over this time. Not like all those other times when you thought it was over, but it wasn’t over, and was like the end of those Alien movies, where it seems like Ripley has finally escaped, but the alien is hiding out in the shuttle, or the escape pod, or Ripley’s intestinal tract.

But this time doesn’t feel like that. This time it feels like it’s really, really over. Go out and take a look around. Hardly anyone is wearing masks anymore (except where masks are mandatory) or being coerced into submitting to “vaccinations” (except where “vaccination” is mandatory), and the hordes of hate-drunk New Normal fanatics who demanded that “the Unvaccinated” be segregated, censored, fired from their jobs, and otherwise demonized and persecuted, have all fallen silent (except for those who haven’t).

Everything is back to normal, right?

Wrong. Everything is not back to normal. Everything is absolutely New Normal. What is over is the “shock-and-awe” phase, which was never meant to go on forever. It was always only meant to get us here.

Where, you’re probably asking, is “here”? “Here” is a place where the new official ideology has been firmly established as our new “reality,” woven into the fabric of normal everyday life. No, not everywhere, just everywhere that matters. (Do you really think the global-capitalist ruling classes care what people in Lakeland, Florida, Elk River, Idaho, or some village in Sicily believe about “reality”?) Yes, most government restrictions have been lifted, mainly because they are no longer necessary, but in centers of power throughout the West, in political, corporate, and cultural spheres, in academia, the mainstream media, and so on, the New Normal has become “reality,” or, in other words, “just the way it is,” which is the ultimate goal of every ideology.

For example, I just happened upon this “important COVID-19 information,” which you need to be aware of (and strictly adhere to) if you want to attend a performance at this Off-Broadway theater in New York City, where “everything is back to normal.”

I could pull up countless further examples, but I don’t want to waste your time. At this point, it isn’t the mask and “vaccination” mandates themselves that are important. They are simply the symbols and rituals of the new official ideology, an ideology that has divided societies into two irreconcilable categories of people: (1) those who are prepared to conform their beliefs to the official narrative of the day, no matter how blatantly ridiculous it is, and otherwise click heels and follow the orders of the global-capitalist ruling establishment, no matter how destructive and fascistic they may be; and (2) those who are not prepared to do that.

Let’s go ahead and call them “Normals” and “Deviants.” I think you know which one you are.

This division of society into two opposing and irreconcilable classes of people cuts across and supersedes old political lines. There are Normals and Deviants on both the Left and the Right. The global-capitalist ruling establishment couldn’t care less whether you are a “progressive,” or a “conservative,” or a “libertarian,” or an “anarchist,” or whatever you call yourself. What they care about is whether you’re a Normal or a Deviant. What they care about is whether you will follow orders. What they care about is whether you are conforming your perceptions and behavior and thinking to their new “reality” … the hegemonic global-capitalist “reality” that has been gradually evolving for the last 30 years and is now entering its totalitarian stage.

I’ve been writing about the evolution of global capitalism in my essays since 2016 — and since the early 1990s in my stage plays — so I’m not going to reiterate the whole story here. Readers who have just tuned into my political satire and commentary during the last two years can go back and read the essays in Trumpocalypse (2016-2017) and The War on Populism (2018-2019).

The short version is, back in 2016, GloboCap was rolling along, destabilizing, restructuring, and privatizing the planet that it came into sole unchallenged possession of when the Soviet Union finally collapsed, and everything was hunky-dory, and then along came Brexit, Donald Trump, and the whole “populist” and neo-nationalist rebellion against globalism throughout the West. So, GloboCap needed to deal with that, which is what is has been doing for last six years … yes, the last six — not just two and a half — years.

The War on Dissent didn’t start with Covid and it isn’t going to end with Covid. GloboCap (or “the Corporatocracy” if you prefer) has been delegitimizing, demonizing, and disappearing dissent and increasingly imposing ideological uniformity on Western society since 2016. The New Normal is just the latest stage of it. Once it gets done quashing this “populist” rebellion and imposing ideological uniformity on urban society throughout the West, it will go back to destabilizing, restructuring, and privatizing the rest of the world, which is what it was doing with the “War on Terror” (and other “democracy”-promoting projects) from 2001 to 2016.

The goal of this global Gleichschaltung campaign is the goal of every totalitarian system, i.e., to render any and all deviance from its official ideology pathological. The nature of the deviance does not matter. The official ideology does not matter. (GloboCap has no fixed ideology. It can abruptly change its official “reality” from day to day, as we have experienced recently). What matters is one’s willingness or unwillingness to conform to whatever the official “reality” is, regardless of how ridiculous it is, and how many times it has been disproved, and sometimes even acknowledged as fiction by the very authorities who nonetheless continue to assert its “reality.”

I’ll give you one more concrete example.

After I happened upon the “Covid restrictions” (i.e., the social-segregation system) still being enforced by that Off-Broadway theater, I stumbled upon this article in Current Affairs about the oracle Yuval Noah Harari, the writer of which article mentions in passing that somewhere between 6 million and 12 million people have “died of Covid,” as if this were a fact, a fact that no one in their right mind would question. Which it is, officially, in our new “reality,” despite the fact (i.e., the actual fact) that — as even the “health authorities” have admitted — anyone who died of anything in a hospital after testing positive was recorded as a “Covid-19 death.”

This is how “reality” (i.e., official “reality,” consensus “reality”) is manufactured and policed. It is manufactured and policed, not only by the media, corporations, governments, and non-governmental governing entities, but also (and, ultimately, more effectively) by the constant repetition of official narratives as unquestionable axiomatic facts.

In our brave new totalitarian global-capitalist “reality,” anyone who questions or challenges such “facts” immediately renders oneself a “Deviant” and is excommunicated from “Normal” society. Seriously, just for fun, try to get a job at a corporation, or a university, or a part in a movie or a Broadway play, or a book deal, or a research grant, etc., while being honest about your beliefs about Covid. Or, if you’re a “respectable” journalist, you know, with literary and public-speaking agents, and book deals, and personal managers, and so on, go ahead, report the facts (i.e., the actual facts, which you know are there, but which you have been avoiding like the plague for the last two years), and watch your career get violently sucked down the drain like a turd in an airplane toilet.

That last bit was meant for “urban professionals,” who still have careers, or are aspiring to careers, or are otherwise still invested in remaining members in good standing of “Normal” society, i.e., not you folks in Florida and Idaho, or my fellow literary and artistic “Deviants.”

We have pretty much burned our bridges at this point. Unless you’re prepared to mindf— yourself, and gaslight yourself, and confess, and convert, there’s no going back to “normal” society (which we couldn’t go back to anyway, on account of how it doesn’t exist anymore).

I realize that a lot of folks have probably been looking forward to that … to the day when the Normals finally “wake up” and face the facts, and truth prevails, and we return to something resembling normality. It’s not going to happen. We’re not going back. The Normals are never going to “wake up.” Because they’re not asleep. They’re not hypnotized. They’re not going to “come to their senses” one day and take responsibility for the damage they have done. Sure, they will apologize for their “mistakes,” and admit that possibly they “overreacted,” but the official narrative of the Covid pandemic and the new “reality” it has ushered into being will remain in force, and they will defend both with their lives.

Or, rather, they will defend both with our lives.

If you think I’m being hyperbolic, well, consider the epithets GloboCap has conditioned the Normals to use to demonize us … “conspiracy theorist,” “science denier,” “insurrectionist,” “extremist,” “violent domestic terrorist.” None of which signify a political ideology or any political or critical position whatsoever. They signify deviation from the norm. Any type of deviation from the norm. They are tactical terms, devoid of meaning, designed to erase the political character of the diverse opposition to global-capitalism (or “globalism,” if you are touchy about the word “capitalism”), to lump us all into one big bucket of “deviance.”

It is usually not a very good omen when nations — or totally unaccountable, supranational global-power systems — suddenly break out the “deviance bucket.” It is usually a sign that things are going to get ugly, ugly in a totalitarian fashion, which is precisely what has been happening for the past six years.

Back in July of 2021, at the height of the fascistic New Normal hate frenzy, with the military enforcing “Covid restrictions,” a global segregation system being implemented, and people threatening to decapitate me for refusing to get “vaccinated,” I published a piece called The Road to Totalitarianism. We are still on that road. Both the Normals and we Deviants. We’ve been on that road for quite some time, longer than most of us probably realize. The weather has improved, slightly. The scenery out the window has changed. The destination has not. I haven’t seen any exits. Let me know if you do, will you?

Article cross-posted from C.J.’s blog.

All five of these definitions could describe the totalitarianism this article addresses, but I was thinking definitions 4 and 5 were the most accurate…and maybe a bit of 3 considering one of the hallmarks of the massive world effort toward central government is secret due to the fact no one heading this effort will ever admit it is a totalitarian movement, but the effort itself is anything but secret.

It’s true intention is indeed hidden, and maybe, for most, difficult to see. But one of the strangest things about all this is that if you had even a modicum of a thinking brain, it would be very clear what is happening, and what their intention is.

I have to admit before the 9-11 fiasco, I was one of those with a very sleepy brain. So I do have some empathy for people who have spent the majority of their life asleep.

Things are different now; there is nothing more obvious than the efforts of these people to take over the world, and there is no excuse to remain asleep. No kidding.

In the past a totalitarian takeover was anything but hidden. Typically it entailed a big mouth tyrant like Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler to start spouting off how he and his ideological vision were going to make the country he had targeted and everyone in it much, much better off. “Follow me, listen to me, do what I say, hate who I say to hate, believe what I say to believe…”—on and on—very loudly, very pushy.

So how is it now different?

Not much difference really, except maybe in what they call it. They don’t call it a dictatorship, or a fascist state (well, they didn’t use those words exactly back then either). Now they usually call it a democracy, but that is in name only. The “occult” part is demonstrated by never telling people the restrictions they endure and the loss of their freedoms are for the benefit of the state or the ideology, but rather for the benefit of the people—for the community, for each other.

Compliance is created through lies and subterfuge.

Sure, Hitler, Lenin, et al said similar sorts of things at first, and maybe after a while our “leaders” will begin to adopt the same tactics these world renown criminals throughout history did, but I do believe the current path to totalitarian rule is not as obvious and overt as it has been in the past. It is subtler now, more disguised to most—like the boiling frog I have endlessly babbled about.

This is what CJ Hopkins has to say about this modern day version of totalitarian rule; he calls it GlobalCap, check out his amazing book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich:

There wasn’t any doubt about it at that point. GloboCap was done playing grab-ass. They weren’t just putting down a “populist” rebellion. They were going totalitarian on us … or as totalitarian as global capitalism can go. It can’t go full-20th-Century totalitarian and start goose-stepping around in silly military uniforms hailing victory and singing globalist anthems, because (a) it has no ideology, or, rather, its ideology is “reality,” and (b) it has to maintain the simulation of democracy, or at least a semblance thereof. So it is going pathologized-totalitarian on us.”

As Hopkins cites in this quote, this takeover is global and is not nation-centric; it is global-centric. This fact is quite unique in history and is the closest thing to a central power source of a bunch of unelected officials in various global organizations such as the WEF, the WHO, and even the United Nations.

The closest thing to the big mouthed tyrant of days of old is Klaus Schwab of the WEF and he is hardly a Hitler or Stalin type, although he certainly fits the personal, and visual image, of a James Bond villain with his odd sci-fi clothes, strange minions surrounding him, and possessing a rather unnerving accent and speech pattern.

Is he the true leader of the cult that is trying to take over the world?

Or, as some have suggested, is this Grand Poobah Satan himself? (This is where the descriptive word “occult” and its first dictionary definition, “supernatural” may be the most appropriate description of our current totalitarianism.)

The tyrants of lore had competition—that is another distinguishing factor between now and then, and is probably the most compelling reason the current world takeover attempt may be successful—now there is no opposing force other than a handful of ragtag shrews, us. In the past the shrew forces were much more convincing, generally having millions of people engaged with a rather formidable military might.

Who knows what would have happened if the allies did not defeat Hitler in 1945 (check out the fascinating book Fatherland for some entertaining, yet chilling, speculation along those lines). This current “Great Reset” can run its course unhindered until individual people, en masse, wake up and stop it.

The Soviet Union, since the revolution in 1917, was hell bent on converting the rest of the world to Marxism. Focusing on unions worldwide where they believed they had the greatest chance to bring forth a worker’s unification globally.

They had a few successes along the way, but ultimately the world’s love affair with personal wealth and consumerism defeated the Communist’s “worker” ideology, which was equality and fair wages in the workplace—you know: “from each according to his abilities, for each according to his needs.”

Obviously still prominent the world over, violence and military aggression has been the mainstream of imperialism. Although the Soviets were engaged in their fair share of forceful takeover, they relied more on toppling governments and creating regime shifts, which has also been a favourite method of the United States’ CIA.

We all know Hitler’s and the National Socialist’s strategies were primarily militaristic—goose-stepping boots on the ground worked best for them. We are not going to see much of that tactic in this particular takeover (famous last words).

As said before, the takeover will be relatively subtle, although there will be a time, toward the “end game” (or maybe a few contemporary incidents scattered here and there) where dissidents may be killed Stalin-style—covertly and discreetly (the famous “disappearing act,”) or hauled off to concentration camps for “indoctrination” (does the mysterious death of Kary Mullis ring a bell?).

You have to give it them, they have been very clever with this whole virus nonsense—and all the things happening around it. People have no idea who the real enemy is. Their tactics are much more psychological than even political or ideological.

Although we do see the ideological creeping in with these major shifts in morals, family values, “what it means to be a good person,” the Cancel Culture, Critical Race Theory, BLM, transphobia, etc. Don’t fool yourself, that is all part of the agenda to render all of us whacked, dazed, and confused, and it is working.

Obviously I am only scratching the surface here. Sit back and enjoy the ride if you are too old and tired to pick up the pitchfork and take to the streets.

Dr Frankenstein is definitely making a new monster up there on the hill, right under all of our noses, and “we the people” are the only ones who can stop him before the monster stops us, permanently.

About the Author:

Todd Hayen is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here

Article cross-posted from Off-Guardian.

• Mass formation is a form of mass hypnosis that emerges when specific conditions are met, and almost always precede the rise of totalitarian systems
• Four central conditions that need to exist in order for mass formation to arise are widespread loneliness and lack of social bonding, which leads to experiencing life as meaningless, which leads to widespread free-floating anxiety and discontent, which leads to widespread free-floating frustration and aggression, which results in feeling out of control
• Under mass formation, a population enters a hypnotic-type trance that makes them willing to sacrifice anything, including their lives and their freedom
• Key strategies to disrupt the mass formation process are to speak out against it and to practice nonviolent resistance. Dissenting voices keep totalitarian systems from deteriorating into abject inhumanity where people are willing to commit heinous atrocities
• Ultimately, “totalitarianism” refers to the ambition of the system. It wants to eliminate the ability of individual choice, and in so doing, it destroys the core of what it is to be human. The quicker a system destroys the individual, the sooner the system collapses

Professor Mattias Desmet, a Belgian psychologist with a master’s degree in statistics, gained worldwide recognition toward the end of 2021, when he presented the concept of “mass formation” as an explanation for the absurd and irrational behavior we were seeing with regard to the COVID pandemic and its countermeasures.

He also warned that mass formation gives rise to totalitarianism, which is the topic of his new book, “The Psychology of Totalitarianism.” Desmet’s work was further popularized by Dr. Robert Malone, whose appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast was viewed by about 50 million people.

But as the search term “mass formation” exploded in popularity, Google responded by manipulating the search engine results in an attempt to discredit Desmet and show people in their search results information that would cause them to discount the importance of this work. Why? Because Google is at the core of the global cabal and movement toward totalitarianism.

Understanding the Psychology of the Times Is Crucial

Those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat it, they say, and this appears particularly pertinent in the present day because, as explained by Desmet, if we don’t understand how mass formation occurs and what it leads to, we cannot prevent it. How did Desmet reach the conclusion that we were in the process of mass formation? He explains:

“In the beginning of the Corona crisis, back in February 2020, I started to study the statistics on the mortality rates of the virus, the infection fatality rates, the case fatality rate and so on, and immediately, I got the impression — and with me, several world-famous statisticians, such as John Ioannidis of Stanford, for instance — that the statistics and mathematical models used dramatically overrated the danger of the virus.

Immediately, I wrote an opinion paper trying to bring some of the mistakes to people’s attention. But, I noticed immediately that people just didn’t want to know. It was as if they didn’t see even the most blatant mistakes at the level of the statistics that were used. People just were not capable of seeing it.”

This early experience made him decide to focus on the psychological mechanisms at play in society, and he became convinced that what we were seeing were in fact the effects of a large-scale process of mass formation, because the most salient characteristic of this psychological trend is that it makes people radically blind to everything that goes against the narrative they believe in.

They basically become incapable of distancing themselves from their beliefs, and therefore cannot take in or evaluate new data. Desmet continues:

“Another very specific characteristic is that this process of mass formation makes people willing to radically sacrifice everything that is important to them — even their health, their wealth, the health of their children, the future of their children.

When someone is in the grip of a process of mass formation, he becomes radically willing to sacrifice all his individual interest. A third characteristic, to name only a few, is that once people are in the grip of a process of mass formation, they typically show a tendency of cruelty towards people who do not buy into the narrative, or do not go along with the narrative. They typically do so as if it is an ethical duty.

In the end, they are typically inclined, first, to stigmatize, and then, to eliminate, to destroy, the people who do not go along with the masses.

And that’s why it is so extremely important to understand the psychological mechanisms at work, because if you understand the mechanisms at work, you can avoid the mass formation to become so deep that people reach this critical point in which they really are fanatically convinced that they should destroy everyone that does not go along with them.

So, it’s extremely important to understand the mechanism. If you understand it, you can make sure that the crowd, the mass, will first destroy itself, or will exhaust itself, before it starts to destroy the people that do not go along with the mass.

So, it’s of crucial importance, and that’s what my book describes. It describes how a mass, a crowd, emerges in a society, under which conditions it emerges, what the mechanisms of the process of mass formation are, and what you can do about it. That’s extremely important. I will mention this from the beginning.

Usually, it is impossible to wake up the masses. Once a process of mass formation emerges in a society, it’s extremely difficult to wake the masses up. But, [waking them up is] important, [because] you can avoid the masses and their leaders becoming so fanatically convinced of their narrative that they start to destroy the people who do not go along with them.”

Indeed, to those of us who did not fall under the spell of the irrational COVID narrative, the cruelty with which political leadership, media and people at large tried to force compliance was shockingly abhorrent. Many were physically attacked, and some even killed, simply for not wearing a face mask, which we knew was a useless prevention strategy.

Historical Context for Mass Hypnosis

It is easier to understand what mass formation is if you consider it as mass hypnosis, because they’re not merely similar, they’re identical, Desmet says. Mass formation is a kind of hypnosis that emerges when specific conditions are met. And, disturbingly, these conditions, and the hypnotic trance that emerges, almost always precede the rise of totalitarian systems.

While totalitarianism and a classical dictatorship share certain features, there are distinct differences at the psychological level. According to Desmet, a classical dictatorship, at the psychological level, is very primitive. It’s a society that is frightened of a small group, a dictatorial regime, because of its aggressive potential.

Totalitarianism, on the other hand, arises from a very different psychological mechanism. Interestingly, the totalitarian state didn’t actually exist before the 20th century. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, and it’s based on mass formation or mass hypnosis.

The conditions for this mass hypnotic state (listed below) were first met just before the emergence of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, so that’s our historical context. These conditions were again met just before the COVID crisis. What we’re seeing now is a different kind of totalitarianism, largely due to technological advancements that have created extremely effective tools to subconsciously influence the public.

We now have very sophisticated tools with which to hypnotize far larger masses of people than they could in earlier times. But while our current-day totalitarianism is global rather than regional, and the information war more sophisticated than anything the Soviets or Nazi’s could muster, the basic psychological dynamics are still identical.

Understanding Hypnosis

So, what are those psychological dynamics? “Mass formation” is a clinical term that in layman’s jargon could simply be translated as a kind of mass hypnosis, which can occur once certain conditions are fulfilled.

When you are being hypnotized, the first thing the hypnotist will do is to detach or withdraw your attention from the reality or environment around you. Then, through his hypnotic suggestion — usually a very simple narrative or sentence stated out loud — the hypnotist will focus your full attention on a single point, for instance, a moving pendulum or just his voice.

From the perspective of the hypnotized person, it will seem as though reality has vanished. An extreme example of this is the use of hypnosis to make people insensitive to pain during surgery. In that situation, the patient’s mental focus is so narrow and intense, that they don’t notice that their body is being cut into.

In the same way, it doesn’t matter how many people are injured by the COVID measures, because the focus is on COVID and everything else has vanished, in psychological terms.

People can be killed for not wearing a mask and the hypnotized won’t raise an eyebrow. Children can die from starvation and friends can commit suicide from financial desperation — none of it will have a psychological impact on the hypnotized because to them, the plight of others doesn’t register. A perfect example of this psychological blinding to reality is how COVID jab deaths and injuries are simply unrecognized and not even considered to be causal.

People will get the shot, suffer massive injuries, and say, “Thank goodness I got the shot or it would have been so much worse.” They cannot conceive the possibility that they were injured by the shot. I’ve even seen people express gratitude for the shot when someone they supposedly loved died within hours or days of getting it! It’s just mindboggling. The psychological dynamics of hypnosis does explain this irrational and otherwise incomprehensible behavior, but it’s still quite surreal.

“Even while I know the mechanisms at work, I’m still baffled every time it happens,” Desmet says. “I almost can’t believe what I see. I know someone whose husband died a few days after the vaccine, during his sleep, from a heart attack.

And I thought, ‘Now she will open her eyes and wake up.’ Not at all. She just continued in the same fanatic way — even more fanatic — talking about how happy we should be because we have this vaccine. Unbelievable, yes.”

The Psychological Roots of Mass Formation

As mentioned, mass formation, or mass hypnosis, can occur when certain psychological conditions are present in a large-enough portion of society. The four central conditions that need to exist in order for mass formation to arise are:

1. Widespread loneliness and lack of social bonding, which leads to:
2. Experiencing life as meaningless, purposeless and senseless, and/or being faced with persistent circumstances that don’t make rational sense, which leads to:
3. Widespread free-floating anxiety and discontent (anxiety/discontent that has no apparent or distinct cause), which leads to:
4. Widespread free-floating frustration and aggression (frustration and aggression have no discernible cause), which results in feeling out of control

How Mass Formation Emerges in a Society

Once a large-enough portion of society feels anxious and out of control, that society becomes highly vulnerable to mass hypnosis. Desmet explains:

“Social isolation, lack of meaning, free floating anxiety, frustration and aggression are highly aversive because if people feel anxious, without knowing what they feel anxious for, they typically feel out of control. They feel they cannot protect themselves from their anxiety.

And, if under these conditions a narrative is distributed through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety, and at the same time, providing a strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, then all this free-floating anxiety might connect to the object of anxiety.

And, there might be a huge willingness to participate in a strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, no matter how absurd the strategy is. So, even if it is clear from the beginning — for everyone who wants to see it — that the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety might claim many more victims than the object of anxiety itself … even then, there might be this huge willingness to participate in a strategy to deal with the object of anxiety.

That is the first step of every major mechanism of mass formation. Whether it concerned the Crusades, or the witch hunts, or the French Revolution, or the beginning of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, we see the same mechanism, time and time again.

There is a lot of free-floating anxiety. Someone provides a narrative that indicates an object of anxiety and a strategy to deal with it. And then all the anxiety connects to the [proposed] object of anxiety.

People participate in a strategy to deal with the object of anxiety that yields a first important psychological advantage, and from then on people have the impression that they can control their anxiety. It’s connected to an object and they have a strategy to deal with it.”

The Problematic Social Bonding of Mass Formation

Once people who used to feel lonely, anxious and out of control start to participate in the strategy presented to them as the solution to their anxiety, a brand-new social bond emerges. This, then, reinforces the mass hypnosis, as they now no longer feel isolated and lonely.

This reinforcement is a kind of mental intoxication, and is the real reason why people buy into the narrative, no matter how absurd. “They’ll continue to buy into the narrative, because it creates this new social bond,” Desmet says.

While social bonding is a good thing, in this instance it becomes extremely destructive, because the free-floating frustration and aggression are still there, and need an outlet. These emotions need to be directed at someone. What’s worse, under the spell of mass formation, people lose their inhibitions and sense of proportion.

So, as we’ve seen during the COVID pandemic, people will attack and lash out in the most irrational ways against anyone who doesn’t buy into the narrative. The underlying aggression will always be directed at the part of the population that isn’t hypnotized.

Speaking in generalized terms, typically, once mass formation is taking place, about 30% of the population will be hypnotized — and this typically includes the leaders who pronounce the hypnotizing narrative to the public — 10% remain unhypnotized and do not buy into the narrative, and the majority, 60%, feel there’s something wrong with the narrative, but go along with it simply because they don’t want to stick out or cause trouble.

Another problem with the social bonding that emerges is that the bond is not between individuals, but rather a bond between the individual and the collective. This gives rise to a feeling of fanatic solidarity with the collective, but there’s no solidarity toward any given individual. So, individuals are remorselessly sacrificed for the “greater good” of the faceless collective.

“This explains, for instance, why during the Corona crisis, everybody was talking about solidarity, but people accepted that if someone got into an accident on the street, you were no longer allowed to help that person unless you had a surgical mask and gloves at your disposal.

That also explains why, while everybody was talking about solidarity, people accepted that if their father or mother was dying, they were not allowed to visit them,” Desmet says.

In the end, you end up with a radical, paranoid atmosphere in which people do not trust each other anymore, and in which people are willing to report their loved ones to the government.

“So, that’s the problem with mass formation,” Desmet says. “It’s solidarity of the individual with the collective, and never with other individuals. That explains what happened during the revolution in Iran, for instance. I talked with a woman who lived in Iran during the revolution, which was actually the beginning of a totalitarian regime in Iran.

She witnessed, with her own eyes, how a mother reported her son to the government, and how she hung the rope around his neck just before he died, and how she claimed to be a heroine for doing so. That’s the dramatic effects of mass formation.”

With No External Enemy, What Happens?

We’re now facing a situation that is more complicated than at any previous time, because the totalitarianism that is now arising has no external enemies, with the exception of citizens that aren’t hypnotized and don’t buy into the false narratives. Nazi Germany, for example, was destroyed by external enemies that rose against it.

On the other hand, there’s advantage to this, because totalitarian states always need an enemy. That’s something that was very well described by George Orwell in his book “1984.” In order for the process of mass formation to continue to exist, there must be an external enemy onto which the state can focus the aggression of the hypnotized masses.

Nonviolent Resistance and Outspokenness Are Crucial

This brings us to a key point, and that is the need for nonviolent resistance and speaking out against the narrative. Violent resistance automatically make you a target for aggression, so “resistance from within a totalitarian system always has to stick to the principles of nonviolent resistance,” Desmet says. But you must also continue to speak out in a clear, rational and nonabusive way. Desmet explains:

“The first and foremost principle the resistance has to stick to during a process of mass formation and emerging totalitarianism, is that people who do not go along with the masses have to continue to speak out. That’s the most crucial thing.

As totalitarianism is based on mass formation, and mass formation is a kind of hypnosis, the mass formation is always provoked by the voice of the leader, which keeps the population in a process of hypnosis. And when dissonant voices continue to speak out, they will not be able to wake the masses up, but they will constantly disturb the process of mass formation.

They will constantly interfere with the hypnosis. If there are people who continue to speak out, the mass formation will usually not become so deep that there is a willingness in the population to destroy the people who do not go along with the masses. That’s crucial.

Historically speaking, if you look at what happened in the Soviet Union and in Nazi Germany, it’s clear that it was exactly at the moment when the opposition stopped to speak out in public that the totalitarian system started to become cruel.

In 1930, in the Soviet Union, the opposition stopped to speak out, and within six to eight months, Stalin started his large purges, which claimed tens of millions of victims. And then, in 1935, exactly the same happened in Nazi Germany.

The opposition was silenced, or stopped to speak out. They preferred to go underground. They were thinking that they were dealing with a classical dictatorship, but they were not. They were dealing with something completely different. They were dealing with a totalitarian state.

And by deciding to go underground, it was a fatal decision for themselves. So, also in Nazi Germany, within a period of one year after the opposition stopped to speak out in public, the cruelty started and the system started to destroy first its opponents. That’s always the same.

In the first stage, totalitarian systems or the masses start to attack those who do not go along with them. But, after a while, they just start to attack and to destroy everyone, group after group.

And, in the Soviet Union, where the process of mass formation went very far, much further than in Nazi Germany, Stalin started to eliminate the aristocracy, the small farmers, the large farmers, the goldsmiths, the Jews, all people who according to him would never become good communists.

But after a while, he just started to eliminate group after group without any logic. Just everyone. So, that’s why Hannah Arendt said that a totalitarian state is always a monster that devours its own children. And that destructive process starts when people stop to speak out.

That’s probably the reason why, in the beginning of the 20th century, there were several countries where there was mass formation, but where there was never a full-fledged totalitarian state.

Probably, there were enough people who didn’t shut up, who continued to speak out. That’s something that is so crucial to understand. When mass formation emerges, people typically feel that it doesn’t make sense to speak out because people don’t wake up. People don’t seem sensitive to their rational counter arguments.

But, we should never forget that speaking out has an immediate effect. Maybe not that it wakes the masses up, but that it disturbs the process of mass formation and the hypnosis. And in that way, prevents the masses from becoming highly destructive towards the people who do not go along with them.

Something else also happens. The masses start to exhaust themselves. They start to destroy themselves before they start to destroy the people who do not go along with them. So, that’s the strategy to be used for internal resistance towards totalitarian regimes.”

Push Back Against Transhumanism and Technocracy

As mentioned earlier, the leaders who declare the narratives are also always hypnotized. They are fanatics in that sense. However, while today’s world leaders are fanatics about transhumanism and technocracy, they may not necessarily believe what they’re saying about COVID.

Many know that they’re telling lies, but they justify those lies as necessary in order to bring the ideologies of transhumanism and technocracy to fruition. The ridiculous COVID agenda is a means to an end. This is another reason why we must continue to push back and speak out, because once the counter arguments disappear, these leaders will become even more fanatic in their ideological quest.

“In the end, the ultimate challenge is not so much to show people that the coronavirus was not as dangerous as we expected, or that the COVID narrative is wrong, but rather that this ideology is problematic — this transhumanist and this technocratic ideology is a disaster for humanity; this mechanistic thinking, this belief that the universe and man is a kind of material mechanistic system, which should be steered and manipulated in a mechanistic technocratic transhumanist way.

That’s the ultimate challenge: to show people that in the end, a transhumanist view on man and the world will entail radical dehumanization of our society. So, I think that’s the real challenge we are facing. Showing people, ‘Look, forget for a moment about the Corona narrative.

What we are heading for if we continue in the same way, is a radically, technologically controlled transhumanist society, which will leave no space whatsoever for life for a human being.”

It’ll Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Like me, Desmet is convinced that we’re rapidly headed toward global totalitarianism and that things will get far worse before they get better. Why? Because we’re only in the initial stages of the process of totalitarianism. On the horizon, digital identity still looms large, and with that comes an unfathomably powerful control grid capable of breaking just about anyone.

The glimmer of hope is this: Everyone who has studied mass formation and totalitarianism has concluded that both are intrinsically self-destructive. They cannot survive. And, the more means it has at its disposal to control the population, the sooner it might destroy itself, because totalitarianism destroys the core of the human being.

Ultimately, “totalitarianism” refers to the ambition of the system. It wants to eliminate the ability of individual choice, and in so doing, it destroys the core of what it is to be human, “because psychological energy in a human being emerges at every moment a human being can make a choice that is really its own choice,” Desmet says. The quicker a system destroys the individual, the sooner the system collapses.

Again, the only weapon against the brutal destruction of humanity is to push back, to speak out, to nonviolently resist. It may not stop totalitarianism in its tracks, but it can keep the most heinous atrocities at bay. It will also provide a small space where the resistant can try to survive together and thrive in the midst of the totalitarian landscape.

“Then, if we want to succeed, we will have to think about parallel structures which can allow us to be a little bit self sufficient. We can try to make sure that we don’t need the system too much anymore. But, even these parallel structures would be destroyed in a moment if the people do not continue to speak out. So, that’s the crucial.

I try to bring this to the attention of everyone. We can build parallel structures as much as we want, but if the system becomes too destructive and decides to use it’s full aggressive potential, then the parallel structures will be destroyed. But, the system will never reach this level of depth of the hypnosis if there are dissonant voices that continue to speak out. So, I’m very dedicated myself to continue to speak out.”

While it’s impossible to make accurate predictions, Desmet’s gut feeling is that it’ll probably be at least seven or eight years before the totalitarian system currently emerging with burn itself out and self-destruct. Could be more, could be less. Society is a complex dynamic system, and even simple complex dynamic systems cannot be predicted even one second in advance. This is known as the deterministic unpredictability of complex dynamic ecosystems.

More Information

Regardless of how long it takes, the key will be to survive it all and do what we can to minimize the carnage. A key challenge on an individual level will be to maintain elementary principles of humanity. In the interview, Desmet discusses Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book, “The Gulag Archipelago,” which highlights the importance of holding on to your humanity in the midst of an inhumane situation.

“That, maybe, is the one and only thing that can guarantee us of a good outcome of the entire process — which is a necessary process, I think. This crisis is not meaningless. It’s not meaningless. It’s a process in which society can give birth to something new, something much better than exists up until now,” he says.

To learn more about this truly crucial topic, be sure to pick up a copy of Desmet’s book, “The Psychology of Totalitarianism.”

Stage 1: Discontent and Rumblings

Every new order rises on the ruins of the old.

Those who would establish a new regime must tap into or generate dissatisfaction with the status quo. However much those desiring a reset may despise the old order, they can’t accomplish much without harnessing or fabricating a similar attitude in the public. Then the revolutionary totalitarian appears as the solution to these problems.

The Reign of Terror in Revolutionary France, for example, didn’t begin with blood but with bread. Between 1715 and 1800, the population of Europe doubled, creating food shortages among the French people. Many of the French people resented the King’s growing centralized authority. In addition, the ideas of the “Enlightenment” thinkers were stirring up revolutionary feeling. Finally, the French government was massively in debt due to the many wars of the eighteenth century, and it increased taxation even on nobles.

It was these sufferings and fears, combined with the machinations of the secret societies (admitted by the Marquis de Rosanbo at the Chamber of Deputies session of July 1, 1904) that led the to the revolution and the totalitarian Jacobin government. The Reign of Terror came after the fall of the king and the ancien régime, which the revolutionaries accomplished in part because of the problems and suffering in French society prerevolution.

The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917—which established a totalitarian regime so bloody that it would make the Reign of Terror look like a mere red drop in the guillotine bucket—followed a similar blueprint. The Bolshevik communists exploited the sufferings of the Russian people for revolutionary purposes. What were these sufferings? The Russian people had lost faith in Tsar Nicholas II and his government, Russia contained restless ethnic minorities, and the poorly equipped and led Russian armies were losing against the Germans in World War I. Russia’s failures in the war led to demoralization and disrupted the economy. In January 1917, transportation to cities like Petrograd broke down, and this caused food and fuel shortages, and, eventually, riots.

Not long after the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, Adolf Hitler became involved with the Nazi Party during the Weimar Republic. Struggling postwar Germany bubbled with discontent. The Treaty of Versailles had been harsh: Germany was expected to accept full responsibility for the war, pay massive indemnities to the Allies, surrender large amounts of territory, possess no military worth speaking of, and be monitored by Allied troops. In the years following the war and the treaty, the German economy suffered mightily, including through hyperinflation. When Germany defaulted on some of its payments, French and Belgian troops occupied Germany’s richest industrial region, the Ruhr district, which only made Germany poorer and the people angrier.

Stage 2: The False Savior and the First Revolution

After identifying and appealing to the people’s discontent, the totalitarian presents himself as a savior. In stage 2, the revolutionary totalitarian enacts a dramatic change to “solve” the problems and discontent of stage 1.

To find a solution for its debt crisis, the French government called the Estates General assembly to advise the king on what to do. The Third Estate quickly claimed full governmental authority as the “National Assembly.” The National Assembly wanted to draw up a new constitution that would change the nature of the government to deal with injustices. After the storming of the Bastille, peasants in rural areas revolted against their lords. The National Assembly declared feudalism abolished and introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. With the execution of Louis XVI on January 21, 1793, the first stage of the revolution was over. The regicide left a massive power vacuum. Various groups struggled to fill this hole, but in the end, the Jacobins—the radicals—dominated the new revolutionary government.

In the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks took advantage of the food riots that began early in 1917. When the military began siding with the rioting workers, rather than restoring law and order, Tsar Nicholas knew all was lost. He abdicated on March 2, 1917 (and was later shot). The Bolshevik-run Petrograd Soviet quickly took control of post-tsarist Russia. Their slogan—Peace, Land, and Bread—attracted many frightened and angry people to them as to a savior. On November 6–7, they staged a coup that finally overturned the provisional government.

The initial rise of Nazism in Germany was less bloody but similarly based on messianic promises. Capitalizing on the resentment in Germany due to the Versailles Treaty and global economic downturn in 1929, the Nazi Party grew in size and influence. The Nazis had attempted a violent coup in November 1923 but had failed, and they turned to legal means of gaining control of the government. Due to Hitler’s skill with propaganda, the Nazi Party won more and more of the vote by the early 1930s. Eventually, it was the second-biggest political party in the country. At this point, Hitler was demanded that President Paul von Hindenburg appoint him chancellor, which Hindenburg agreed to in 1933. This was not a violent revolution, but the failed 1923 attempt shows the party’s violent tendencies.

Stage 3: Censorship, Persecution, Propaganda, and the Ending of Opposition

In stage 3, the initial upheaval of stage 2 has passed. The old order has been fundamentally changed, and now various forces begin to react. The rising totalitarian government faces many enemies, often dubbed “counterrevolutionaries” or “extremists.” Here in its infancy, the new order must struggle to gain more power and maintain that which has been acquired. For this reason, it sets about combatting its enemies through censorship and persecution.

As soon as they had gained sway over their countries, the first move of totalitarians like Hitler and Vladimir Lenin was to censor opposition and put out propaganda. Each of these totalitarian leaders also gained control of education and had secret police forces to monitor and even kill anyone designated as an enemy. Another strategy was to establish youth organizations to indoctrinate citizens in the state’s propaganda from an early age and tear their loyalties away from family or religion. Religion was almost universally persecuted once these regimes came to power.

Finally, Hitler and Lenin outlawed (either de jure or de facto) all political parties and views besides their own after coming to power.1 Totalitarians create a one-party system that often maintains a façade of democracy.

Stage 4: The Crisis

Stage 4 prepares the way for the totalitarian government to grasp total control over those under its rule. It consists of a crisis moment, which may be either a real threat or a false flag that seems to threaten the nation.

By 1793, the French Revolution was at a crisis point. Defenders of the old order rose up on all sides to crush the new order. Austrian and Prussian armies encircled France, while the Vendéean peasants revolted against the revolutionary government and army. And so, in the name of “public safety,” the government decided to take harsh measures against all enemies of the revolution. And so, of course, they needed more control. This was the task of the Committee of Public Safety, and it suffered from no scruple in its methods.

On August 3, 1918, Lenin was shot after giving a speech at a factory. While recovering in the hospital, he wrote to a subordinate, “It is necessary secretly—and urgently—to prepare the terror.” This initiated a campaign of mass killings and detentions by the government, known to history as the Red Terror. As always, the justification for these acts was the “emergency” indicated by the attempted assassination. The “radicals” and “counterrevolutionaries” were allegedly “at the gate,” and it was necessary to use extreme measures to deal with this imminent “threat.” So the rhetoric went. And so it always goes.

Hitler also used a “state of emergency” to justify his clampdown. On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag went up in flames. In response, Herman Gorrin, minister of the interior, ordered a raid on Communist headquarters, allegedly for evidence of sedition and a Communist plot to attack public buildings. This, in Hitler’s mind, was the signal for seizing complete control. On February 28, the cabinet abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy, and the press. Around four thousand people were arrested that night. This “crisis,” with the usual language about safety and countering threats, ushered in totalitarianism in Germany.

Stage 5: Purges, Genocide, and Total Control

Using the crisis of stage 4 as an excuse, the totalitarian government now seizes absolute control over the lives of its citizens. The regime overcomes the enemies of stages 3 and 4. It begins brutally enforcing its “utopia” and ideology on the populace. This stage also sees the greatest atrocities committed against the populace because resistance to the totalitarian regime has been crushed. The people are defenseless and demoralized. Nothing stands between the regime and its victims. This stage involves mass killings as the regime liquidates any remaining enemies while seeking to control every detail of citizens’ lives.

During the latter stages of the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety received dictatorial powers to defeat anyone who opposed the revolutionary government. During 1793–94, the CPS eliminated rival revolutionary groups before passing a law that suspended citizens’ rights to a public trial or legal assistance and gave the jury only two options, acquittal or death. The result was horrifying: throughout France, three hundred thousand suspects were arrested, seventeen thousand were executed, and about ten thousand died in prison or without trial.

But it was nothing compared to the Red Terror and Joseph Stalin’s purges. The party used the attempted assassination of Lenin as justification for intense persecution of its enemies. Tens of thousands of people became victims, as discussed in Richard Pipes’s The Russian Revolution. But Lenin’s handiwork was only a precursor to Stalin’s “purges” of political enemies. Historians are divided on just how many people Stalin killed, but estimates reach as high as sixty million.

Estimates of the people killed by Hitler and his Nazi Party vary as well. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the figure stands at seventeen million, but only God knows for certain.

In addition to carrying out mass killings, established totalitarian regimes seek to control everyday life through measures like censorship, propaganda, gun control, and internal passports.

The United States in 2022

So is the United States headed for totalitarianism? Here we move from facts to speculation—a risky business. The answer is not straightforward. But if we are careful to avoid exaggeration, some useful comparisons can be made.

• Have any forces in the US taken advantage of real or imagined problems in the country to stir up discontent and even violence? The death of George Floyd and the associated claims of systemic racism in 2020 gave rise to violent and destructive riots. Fortunately, this has calmed down, but, like in pre-Soviet Russia, ongoing tensions surrounding racial minorities continue to threaten more social unrest. This unrest could intensify if predictions of food shortages and increasing inflation come true in the coming months and years.
• Has any figure or group presented themselves as a savior with the solution to our problems, a solution that will require the curtailing of individual rights? Are freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, due process, or religious rights under attack? The covid pandemic was used by governments around the world to justify vast restrictions on personal freedom, including limitations on freedom of assembly, the closing of religious centers, and censorship of information or viewpoints that opposed the official covid narrative and dictates. Many of these public officials presented themselves as “experts” whose forceful policies were “necessary” for “public safety.” Entities such as the World Economic Forum and many global leaders continue to discuss the need for a “Great Reset,” in part as a response to the “threat” of covid. This reset includes everything from redesigning health systems and education to the implementation of vaccine passports. This is presented to us as our “salvation” from covid and other dangers, including racism.
• Are we experiencing any censorship in the US? Are our media sources independent and objective or coerced and controlled? As the recent Musk/Twitter debacle has highlighted, Big Tech bears responsibility for censoring certain information and views with increasing regularity in recent years, and particularly conservative voices.
• Does the US live under a one-party system? As far as we can tell, the answer to this question is no. However, if the claims of election fraud abounding since the 2020 elections are true and the fraud remains unremedied, we effectively live in a one-party system, since one party can maintain power indefinitely through illegal means. But that is a substantial if.
• Are we witnessing mass arrests or mass killings? We clearly have not progressed into stage 5–type mass arrests and killings at this time, although the data on adverse reactions surrounding the covid vaccine is concerning. Still, that data, even if accurate, does not definitively show that premeditation or a totalitarian regime is the culprit behind these injuries and deaths. Yet the possibility, I think, should not be ruled out entirely.

One final point must be made. Though troubling similarities exist between the trajectory of the US and the historical examples of totalitarianism outlined above, we must avoid both the extremes of an alarmist fatalism and a starry-eyed state of denial. On the one hand, the events of the past few years in our country are grim. On the other, history does not work like a machine, and many factors are at play here. I do not claim to know the future, and I do not believe in historical determinism. In the end, whether the United States is headed for totalitarianism or not is largely up to us and whether or not we resist these trends.

About the Author

Walker Larson teaches literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin, where he resides with his wife. He holds a Master’s in English Literature and Language, and his writing has appeared in The Hemingway Review, Intellectual Takeout, and his Substack, https://thehazelnut.substack.com/.

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash. Article cross-posted from Mises.