Most people I know think I am insane to suggest that the West is rapidly descending into soft totalitarianism, despite all the obvious indicators that this is the case.
Some of them actually approve of the totalitarian impulses, mostly on the basis of compassion, or fighting encroaching "fascism," whatever that means to them. Basically, Republicans existing and thinking differently than they do.
But just as many or more think it's nuts because they simply can't imagine liberal societies, in which they have grown up, being anything other than basically free and decent, so they downplay the many ways in which ordinary freedoms are circumscribed by the day.
Since the freedoms are taken away one by one, or only impact people they dislike, they dismiss the trend as unimportant, sanding off the edges of society and reducing friction.
Of course, if you are paying attention, or, as many of us are, the target of those restrictions, it's glaringly obvious that the decline is rapid and the trajectory is someplace that no sane person who grew up before the turn of the century could approve of.
In most cases, it's other countries in the Anglosphere and some European countries where the decline is most obvious because the oppression is more open than here. It's depressing to see a country like Germany send out goon squads to track down people and seize their phones and computers for being "mean" or calling politicians "fat," but far more alarming to see what is happening in Anglosphere countries, because it is here where the whole concept of freedom of speech developed and was codified.
It's not like it's a surprise that Germans might get a bit totalitarian; it's shocking to see the United Kingdom throw people in jail for a tweet.
Canada has been going down this path for a couple of decades. You probably know about the harassment of Mark Steyn and Jordan Peterson over their words, of course. But now there is a movement to put people in jail for denying that something provably false actually happened.
Canada is likely going to make correctly pointing out that there were no "residential school mass graves" a felony.
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) July 17, 2026
Perfect metaphor for the modern left. https://t.co/9M6ewpVVsL
You have probably heard of the now-disproven claims of mass murders of indigenous children in Catholic-run residential schools. There were claims of mass graves, systematic abuse, and a conspiracy that spanned decades to hide non-existent murders.
Trudeau Promotes 'WATCH IT BURN’ While Chiefs Demand JAIL FOR DENIALISM!!
— Dan Dicks (@DanDicksPFT) July 16, 2026
First Nations Chiefs are pushing for new “stand-alone legislation” that would make questioning or “downplaying” the residential school narrative a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison.… pic.twitter.com/UaosJjL5Se
It was a moral panic, promoted not just by activists, but by the Canadian government itself under Justin Trudeau, who made outlandish claims of discovered mass graves that turned out to be entirely false. Millions of dollars and multiple years of effort were put into attempts to uncover evidence, and it's clear that none of it is true.
Despite that, a wave of church burnings happened, and Catholics still suffer scorn for alleged crimes that were invented out of whole cloth.
In 2021 Trudeau went on live TV and lied to Canadians about the Kamloops Residential school. After millions & millions of dollars being spent, not a single body has been found, but those lies have contributed to countless churches being burned to the ground. pic.twitter.com/uXvb0DAtKc
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) February 24, 2026
More and more people are pointing out the obvious fact that this was pure fantasy, and the response of liberal politicians and the Indigenous activists is to...make it illegal to do so. To send people to jail for stating an indisputable fact.
As outlandish as this sounds, we know that in many cases people can get punished for pointing out that gender is binary, that a criminal who claims a transgender "woman" is really a man, or who says out loud that Muslim migrants are a dangerous addition to society.
Chiefs call on feds to criminalize residential school denialism as hate speech https://t.co/e6mwuRSjcE
— CTV News (@CTVNews) July 15, 2026
Jordan Peterson had to leave Canada after being harassed over his license to practice psychology because of his political views. Helping gender-confused children become more comfortable with their bodies is attacked as "conversion therapy" and banned in many states. Parents can lose their children in some states if they don't consent to hormone and surgical treatments for minor children if they want them.
During COVID, the majority of Democrats wanted people who didn't get the vaccine put in confinement or concentration camps, and comedians openly joked about them dying without medical care.
This poll below shows just how insanely evil and authoritarian the left was during Covid-19
— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) November 25, 2025
Among Democrat voters:
-55% supported fines against the unvaccinated simply for refusing the jab.
-59% wanted permanent house confinement for anyone who refused to get vaccinated.
-48%… pic.twitter.com/Mk54LR1KHY
This poll below shows just how insanely evil and authoritarian the left was during Covid-19
Among Democrat voters:
-55% supported fines against the unvaccinated simply for refusing the jab.
-59% wanted permanent house confinement for anyone who refused to get vaccinated.
-48% supported fines or PRISON for questioning vaccine efficacy on social media.
-45% were in favor of the government having the ability to put the unnvaccinated in "designed facilities" aka internment camps.
-47% supported "a government tracking program" to monitor unvaccinated citizens.
-29% agreed with the state being able to REMOVE UNVACCINATED PARENTS' CUSTODY OVER THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
Reminder that these are the exact same people that accuse us of being “fascists.”
This is textbook totalitarianism. And while few liberals are openly calling for our extermination, and most would recoil at being accused of even thinking about it, it's actually quite common for liberals to blame conservatives for violent attacks perpetrated on them.
As Mark Ferguson put it in The New Republic when he mocked Scott Bessent over his own assassination attempt, "his infallible moral compass, never once considering that they—and their predecessors—have created many of the conditions which have forced people to resist, whether it be abroad or domestically."
"Forced to resist" means, to Ferguson, burning Bessent alive is actually kinda justified.
All of this is justified in the name of making for a kinder, gentler society where everybody can flourish. But that is always the justification for totalitarianism. If we all think the same, everybody will be better off. Both the Nazis and the Communists were utopians, too.
2 Days Left To Vote, Remember What’s At Stake
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) November 4, 2024
1st: Hillary Clinton calling for Trump Supporters to be thrown in prison for sharing Misinformation
2nd: Kamala Harris saying she will end Free Speech
3rd: NY Democrat calling for Trump Supporters to be put in reeducation camps… pic.twitter.com/uyjQaxOhqU
1st: Hillary Clinton calling for Trump Supporters to be thrown in prison for sharing Misinformation
2nd: Kamala Harris saying she will end Free Speech
3rd: NY Democrat calling for Trump Supporters to be put in reeducation camps
At the moment, most "nice" liberals like their totalitarianism soft. The coercion should be gentler than concentration camps, although some are now openly talking about "reeducation" or "deprogramming" for MAGA.
Yesterday: Newsweek reports that FBI is declaring war on MAGA
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 6, 2023
Today: Hillary Clinton floats reeducation (camps) for Trump supporters pic.twitter.com/MHuoGNnuvl
None of this is compatible with a liberal democratic order, and in some ways it is worse in the Anglosphere than elsewhere in the developed world, at the very least in the sense that we are the progenitors of a government model where citizenship is directly tied to our right to think and speak as we like, and to inform our politics with our own point of view.
That freedom is under attack is nothing new. The totalitarian impulse itself isn't new, although modern technology made it possible at a level never before conceived.
What is new is that powerful, even dominant parties in Western liberal democracies have embraced it.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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