Lately, I have been particularly fascinated with World War II and the descent of several countries into totalitarianism. It is hard to imagine these things actually happened, but this stuff is well documented at this time.

Allow me to share the playbook the bad actors used to control normal, kind, peace-loving citizens:

• First, ban all guns.
• Create or use a crisis, blame it on your political opponents and pit specific groups of people against one another.
• Declare a national emergency to procure emergency powers for the executive branch to fix the crisis.
• Take over the media and repeat propaganda over and over. Censor opposing views in the name of truth.
• Take over the schools to indoctrinate the children with the party line and demonize their parents.
• Co-opt industry giants to do the government’s bidding.
• Create bewilderment by redefining the meaning of words.
• Keep emphasizing the growing emergency and rewrite history to fuel fear, anger and confusion.
• Send groups of thugs into the streets to intimidate the population. Then promise security, which is only possible through government intervention.
• Extend the emergency powers indefinitely.
• Demonize any critics, calling them vile names.
• Close the churches.
• Isolate neighbors and family to make them feel powerless. Fuel people’s anger toward their neighbors and non-complying friends. Get the angry people to turn in their neighbors. (This is still practiced in China and North Korea). Go door to door to check for compliance.
• Mark and track the opposition. (“Show us your papers.”) Take away their livelihood for non-compliance, and send stubborn dissidents to special camps, telling them they will be taken good care of.

Thank goodness none of this is happening in America.