[pnemonic]

I think the tin-foil man is saying that you wouldn't know a totalitarian state if it were successfully masquerading as a democracy.

"Successfully" is the real loaded term here. Those that claim to see the cabal behind the curtain unfortunately have woefully underdeveloped facts to support it.

[mcpackieh]

There's no hiding totalitarianism, totalitarian governments exercise total control over virtually every aspect of the private lives of their subjects. Under totalitarianism, you can forget about choosing your school or career. You might -MIGHT be allowed to choose your mate, but even that isn't certain because totalitarianism is characterized by such an extreme lack of individual liberty that the state may even tell you who to marry.

A subverted liberal democracy secretly run by a cabal of oligarchs but on the surface still playing hands-off with everyday people's lives is not totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is not some generic insult to describe any oligarchy or authoritarian government. Totalitarianism is the extreme absence of individual liberty.

[ohwellhere]

I wonder if there are measurable personality differences that predict how well someone responds to hyperbolic rhetoric.

For instance, the US has been doing down on the Economist Democracy Index in recent years. "Flawed democracy" is not totalitarian, but it's trending away from "full democracy" and cries of totalitarianism may well be responding to real concerns.

In the abstract, I wonder if it's better to raise such issues with incremental language and small arguments, or to raise them with hyperbolic claims, or to tailor to your audience, or some other combination.