METHODS USED TO SUBDUE THE PEOPLE OF A COUNTRY FOR AUTHORITARIAN/TOTALITARIAN PURPOSES
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 4-26
On a recent visit in Prague (Czech Republic), a visit to the Museum of Communism illustrated many of the methods a determined leader, party, or other entity could use to gain control of a country, particularly a country that has had some democratic practices.
1. Espouse a cause (e.g., higher wages for workers) that is acceptable to much of the population, even if you don’t really plan to honor it later on.
2. Bad mouth any opposition groups regarding that cause, using exaggerations and lies but doing so in so forceful and confident a manner that what you say seems plausible.
3. Speak with such confidence that even your lies begin to sound correct. Repeat your lies so often that they begin to sound correct.
4. Identify a sizeable group of people in the country as the cause of the woes of the rest of the citizens. In Czechoslovakia, anyone disagreeing with or criticizing the Communist plan or regime was identified as an enemy of the state.
5. Identify any free press as an enemy of the people, accusing it of being biased and actually serving groups that are against progress for the people. Sue the press for libel, if possible.
6. Criticize the courts as being biased and corrupt. Attempt to have judges installed who agree with you or can be corrupted.
7. Establish youth organizations that teach children some laudable virtues but twist those virtues to apply primarily to service to the state. Give children the feeling that they are crusaders and are the final hope of the country. Make it sound as if citizens exist for the purposes of the state, rather than the state existing for the people. (In Czechoslovakia, honesty was taught to children as being owed to the state and that children should be honest by reporting on their parents’ behaviors to the state.)
8. Extort rich people and leaders to tolerate your cause by threatening to bad mouth them to the people and ruin their reputations or damage their incomes.
9. Convince adults (men especially) to believe that only their strength and resolve can save the country, and make it sound as if violence against opponents and the corrupt is justified. Educate them about guns and/or provide weapons.
10. Make it as hard as possible for citizens to get accurate news of the world, including news of their own country. Give them the version of events that you want them to have, regardless of accuracy. Use lies and distortions to give only one view of things and to make it more and more difficult for citizens to figure out your lies and distortions.
11. Constantly accuse your opponents and other countries of misdeeds, regardless of accuracy, while portraying yourself as a savior. People will know that some of your accusations are lies, but your lies will eventually overwhelm their ability to discriminate.
12. Establish a cadre of adults, with uniforms, that will rally publicly for your cause and will spread the word about what needs to be done to change the system.
13. When you have some power, establish some form of secret police, whose purpose is to keep the citizenry in line and harass/harm any who disagree with you.
14. Spy on the citizenry using all types of surveillance available. Encourage family members to turn in other family members to the police and secret police, children to turn in their parents, neighbors to turn in neighbors, thus establishing an atmosphere in which it feels dangerous to disagree with your cause or to criticize it.
15. Establish some policies and take some actions that indicate your alliance with the proletariat, usually giving them things and making them more dependent on you, and never reinforcing principles of government that support free speech and individual freedom. (In Czechoslovakia, for example, vacations were “granted” to workers individually, instead of workers choosing when and whether to take time off.)
16. Establish bribery and corruption as the normal practice, thus making more and more people dependent on you as the net of money flow that you control gets larger and larger. Keep track of all that have violated laws in receiving your patronage and bribery, so that you can control them and blackmail them in the future.
17. Prohibit citizens from leaving the country, since they serve the state rather than the other way round. Police the borders and instill fear.
Here is an evaluation of how these tactics may be in use in our own country.
1. Espouse a cause (e.g., higher wages for workers) that is acceptable to much of the population, even if you don’t really plan to honor it later on.
Our Current Situation: Candidates of both of our major parties promise things that they know (because of law or practicality) that they cannot deliver. Citizens may believe these if they want to believe them, but at the same time citizens know from experience that most of these promises will never come to fruition. This practice sets up a double standard for truth, giving people permission to believe lies if they want to (if it feels good to believe them) rather than sticking to the expectation that all citizens will analyze words and events in terms of actual truth.
2. Bad mouth any opposition groups regarding that cause, using exaggerations and lies but doing so in so forceful and confident a manner that what you say seems plausible.
Our Current Situation: Pres. Trump publicly regards any opposition as evil and characterizes those opponents and groups as evil, stupid, or un-American. Most citizens don’t know enough in detail about those opponents to be sure that the President is wrong in his characterization.
3. Speak with such confidence that even your lies begin to sound correct. Repeat your lies so often that they begin to sound correct.
Our Current Situation: Pres. Trump’s speech uses this device. He rarely allows in his speech that his ideas or actions may not produce his desired outcomes. He never admits that he has not fulfilled a promise. This approach gradually takes control of some citizens’ sense of reality, since it is difficult to keep track of reality when confronted with such confidence.
4. Identify a sizeable group of people in the country as the cause of the woes of the rest of the citizens. In Czechoslovakia, anyone disagreeing with or criticizing the Communist plan or regime was identified as an enemy of the state.
Our Current Situation: The President and his supporters identify immigrants as the cause of many problems of the President’s supporters, just as Hitler falsely identified the Jews as the cause of Germany’s problems after World War I, and Pres. Trump also routinely calls the press “enemies of the country.” There is nothing inappropriate about the administration’s greater enforcement of our laws regarding immigration and citizenship, but it seems clear from various studies and reports that immigrants are not the cause of MAGA supporters’ economic problems, and the thinly veiled paramilitary/secret police look of ICE in enforcing the law has divided the country further and frightened people into believing that the President will use similar tactics with other citizens.
5. Identify any free press as an enemy of the people, accusing it of being biased and actually serving groups that are against progress for the people. Sue the press for libel, if possible.
Our Current Situation: Pres. Trump is correct that most of the press is biased against him (although it is not more biased against him than the conservative press (and radio) is biased against Democrat leaders). Their reporting is for the most part correct factually, but they rarely praise him when they should. However, this status does not make the press an “enemy of the people,” it simply makes them a somewhat inadequate press. He sues so often that the populace has generally come to believe that all of his lawsuits are poorly supported by the facts.
6. Criticize the courts as being biased and corrupt. Attempt to have judges installed who agree with you or can be corrupted.
Our Current Situation: Pres. Trump characterizes any loss for him in court as meaning that the court was wrong, rather than that the courts are our society’s best method of settling disputes, even when they don’t agree with him. His efforts to stack the court (to appoint judges that agree with him in general, just as other parties do) further damage the public’s belief in the courts. Judges are human and have their own biases (as do we all), but it would be better to work to help judges rise above those biases rather than portray them as purposely failing in their duties (being “bad” people).
7. Establish youth organizations that teach children some laudable virtues but twist those virtues to apply primarily to service to the state. Give children the feeling that they are crusaders and are the final hope of the country. Make it sound as if citizens exist for the purposes of the state, rather than the state existing for the people. (In Czechoslovakia, honesty was taught to children as being owed to the state, so that children should be honest by reporting on their parents’ behaviors to the state.)
Our Current Situation: We have not fallen this far, yet, but efforts of both parties to vilify the opposition give adults and children the idea that fighting is necessary, rather than that we must live together and should do so civilly and with a positive attitude. The administration’s downplaying of the evils of slavery in schoolbooks and museums gives support to those who wish to believe they are superior to other citizens (as in slavery), and the downplaying of the Jan. 6 attack on the capitol building supports some citizens in the exciting belief that the dangers of the opposition are existential and that violence is justified.
8. Extort rich people and leaders to tolerate your cause by threatening to bad mouth them to the people and ruin their reputations or damage their incomes.
Our Current Situation: The President uses his favors and punishments frequently to seek compliance with his wishes, and business leaders and legislators often respond, obsequiously praising the President as well as conforming. This erodes their independence and prompts ordinary citizens to comply as well, in case the President’s punishments could extend to them.
9. Convince adults (men especially) to believe that only their strength and resolve can save the country, and make it sound as if violence against opponents and the corrupt is justified. Educate them about guns and/or provide weapons.
Our Current Situation: The President has encouraged men to “fight” and use their strength to save the country. This prompted groups like the Proud Boys to go to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally that turned into an attack on the capitol itself. He later claimed that he did not encourage them, but his recorded words (you have to fight…) stand as a record of it. He further sought to embolden his violent supporters by pardoning over a thousand people who were convicted legitimately of various crimes with regard to the violence at the capitol (including violence against officers trying to defend it). He claimed that the punishments were excessive, but the actual impact was to downplay those crimes when committed to support the President.
10. Make it as hard as possible for citizens to get accurate news of the world, including news of their own country. Give them the version of events that you want them to have, regardless of accuracy. Use lies and distortions to give only one view of things and to make it more and more difficult for citizens to figure out your lies and distortions.
Our Current Situation: Domestic press reporting and foreign input have not been directly interfered with, but the President frequently calls honest reporting “fake news” if it is critical of him, and he occasionally sues for libel. (He has lost most of those suits. At least two such suits were settled for damages before trial completion.) As noted above, the President uses absolutely confident and repetitious false statements to deny reality and assert versions of events that are more favorable to him, making it easier for citizens to just go along with his version of reality rather than trying to figure out what is what. The President portrays his own site (Truth Social) as the only source of accurate news.
11. Constantly accuse your opponents and other countries of misdeeds, regardless of accuracy, while portraying yourself as a savior. People will know that some of your accusations are lies, but your lies will eventually overwhelm their ability to discriminate.
Our Current Situation: The President constantly accuses his “enemies,” both foreign and domestic, of bad deeds and bad faith and never acknowledges his own such deeds and faith. He has stated that he “hates” his domestic enemies (those who oppose his wishes). These constant accusations have the net result of convincing some citizens that he is a good guy and the country’s savior but is beset by enemies who wish to harm the country. His picture posted on-line of himself as a savior illustrates how far he will go with this. (This image was altered to make it look more medical than religious and then later removed from the internet.)
12. Establish a cadre of adults, with uniforms, that will rally publicly for your cause and will spread the word about what needs to be done to change the system.
Our Current Situation: This has not occurred yet, but organizations the President supports, like the Proud Boys, would almost certainly adopt uniforms and parade them in public if he askedthem to.
13. When you have some power, establish some form of secret police, whose purpose is to keep the citizenry in line and harass/harm any who disagree with you.
Our Current Situation: This has not occurred yet, but the Dept. of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, and the FBI have been used to investigate the President’s opponents (“enemies”) more than they investigate his supporters. His administration claims that he was unfairly targeted by investigations by the FBI and DOJ during other administrations, and apparently in their eyes this requires revenge using the current investigations.
14. Spy on the citizenry using all types of surveillance available. Encourage family members to turn in other family members to the police and secret police, children to turn in their parents, neighbors to turn in neighbors, thus establishing an atmosphere in which it feels dangerous to disagree with your cause or to criticize it.
Our Current Situation: This has not occurred extensively yet, but the internet is being used more and more for surveillance purposes, and more and more cameras are being installed in cities for surveillance. It is claimed that these are for legitimate purposes, and it can be argued that as individual citizens gain more and more potential to harm others (guns, bombs), law enforcement will need more surveillance to keep the peace. The DOJ’s attempts to get poll workers’ personal data is another message to citizens that if they seem to be opposing the President, they, too, will be targeted.
15. Establish some policies and take some actions that indicate your alliance with the proletariat, usually giving them things and making them more dependent on you, and never reinforcing principles of government that support free speech and individual freedom. (In Czechoslovakia, for example, vacations were “granted” to workers individually, instead of workers choosing when and whether to take time off.)
Our Currente Situation: There seems to be a trend for the President to seek political popularity by giving citizens things, like lower taxes, no taxes on tips, money from the current tariffs, and support money during COVID (approved by both major parties). Lower taxes have not been balanced by additional ways to pay the government’s bills, thus increasing the national debt, which makes it all the more likely that the President will keep trying to buy favor with voters by giving them money (while he reduces support for needed programs for food and shelter).
16. Establish bribery and corruption as the normal practice, thus making more and more people dependent on you as the net of money flow that you control gets larger and larger. Keep track of all that have violated laws in receiving your patronage and bribery, so that you can control them and blackmail them in the future.
Our Current Situation: As noted in #8 above, the President’s favors and his punishments for business and political figures damage the integrity of voters as they begin to believe that backroom and under the table deals are taking place constantly (so they better get in on the action themselves in order not to be left behind).
17. Prohibit citizens from leaving the country, since they serve the state rather than the other way round. Police the borders and instill fear.
Our Current Situation: This is not occurring, but the uncertainties of persons deported by ICE regarding re-entry if that were to be ordered by the courts brings up the possibility of further efforts to control citizens’ going and coming.
Clearly our country is still a “free society,” but the degree to which the above tactics are already being used by a determined and apparently ruthless administration shows us what could be done in the future. It is unlikely that many of those who voted for Pres. Trump would own up to or publicly approve of all of the tactics being used by the President’s administration, but their pent-up anger about decades of what they sense as cultural erosion pushes them to tolerate what is being done even if they wouldn’t wish it done to themselves. (The push back regarding ICE tactics in Minneapolis has shown the administration that there are limits to what will be tolerated, or perhaps has alerted them to figuring out other tactics that could accomplish their goals!)
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