During last night's debate, the Democratic presidential candidates gave a helpful step-by-step guide to implementing a tyrannical socialist government. For any good Bolshevik-style revolution to take hold, one must first pit the classes against one another by demonizing those with money and political power.
"The truth is, we cannot afford to continue this level of income and wealth inequality. We cannot afford a billionaire class whose greed and corruption has been at war with the working families of this country for 45 years," Bernie Sanders said last night.
Once the resentment of this "billionaire class" is widespread, the revolutionaries must establish that they know better than anyone else how the nation's resources should be redistributed.
As Andrew Yang put it last night: "We should not be looking to other countries’ mistakes, we should look at what Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden still have, which is a value added tax if we give the American people a tiny slice of every Google sale, we can put it into our hands because we know best how to use."
Only the government, of course, can be a wise and fair arbiter of who can be allowed to accumulate resources so it's only natural for government to seize wealth from the unworthy and transfer it to the deserving. Naturally, there will be some pushback to this, which is why any good totalitarian state will publicly demonize its enemies to the point that even being seen with them will be something for which a citizen must atone.
"I also believe, to just speak about the incident last week with Ellen and George W. Bush [in which Ellen had to explain why she was seen at a football game with Bush], I completely understood what she was saying about being kind to others. I believe that we should be more kind to other folks," said Julian Castro last night. "I also believe that we should hold people to account for what they’ve done, especially public servants who have a record of having done something or not done something. And I think that we can do both of those things. I think that we can be kind to people and also hold them accountable for their actions, and there are people, whether it’s our former president, George W. Bush, or others that should be held accountable. We shouldn’t be made to feel shameful about holding people accountable for what they’ve done."
But what about those who won't submit to the show trial of public shaming? What if they try to fight back? Then their weapons must be seized.
"If someone does not turn in an AR-15 or AK-47, one of these weapons or war or brings it out in public to brandish and intimidate, then that weapon will be taken from them," explained Beto O'Rourke during the debate. "But the expectation is that Americans will follow the law. I believe in this country, I believe in my fellow Americans. I believe they will do the right thing."
And if they don't? Then they will be made to do the right thing. And any last vestiges of resistance will be criminalized, while opponents' access to the media will be eliminated.
As Kamala Harris explained last night: "Here we have Donald Trump, who has 65 million Twitter followers and is using that platform as the president of the United States to openly intimidate witnesses, to threaten witnesses, to obstruct justice. And he and his account should be taken down. We saw in El Paso that that shooter in his manifesto was informed by how Donald Trump uses that platform, and this is a matter of corporate responsibility. Twitter should be held accountable and shut down that site. It is a matter of safety and corporate accountability."
Only then, when the media is controlled by the government, when the citizenry is successfully disarmed and terrified to even be seen in public with political undesirables, when the wealthy are demonized, and when only government can be trusted to redistribute wealth, can a nation function as a healthy totalitarian state.
It's just alarming to hear this step-by-step guide coming from people who are running to be the leader of the free world!