HE’S NOT WRONG:  Political Reprisals and the Death of the Republic.

He is, however, missing the root cause of this.  When the electoral (and incidentally the judicial) system becomes so corrupt that a party can be assured of winning even if they run a potted plant and a blowup sex doll who campaign exclusively from the basement and promise to raise everyone’s taxes and keep them house arrest indefinitely, why not hold show trials? Why not cancel every “enemy’s” ability to access the net? Why not arbitrarily declare all ideas in opposition to your own seditious?

I mean — why not? If you’re utterly sure that you can retain power forever and the greatest danger is someone tumbling to the con, you are in fact going to move ahead with all the punishment, all the shutting down of speech, and the destruction of all opposition. Because that’s the only way you can retain power.