By labeling a problem with a single, highly emotional term (e.g., 'insurgents,' 'fentanyl'), leaders can create a public mandate to act decisively, often ignoring accountability, due process, and congressional oversight.

A bureaucracy can function like a tumor. It disguises itself from the "immune system" of public accountability by using noble language ("it's for the kids"). It then redirects resources (funding) to ensure its own growth, even if it's harming the larger organism of society.

AI provides a structural advantage to those in power by automating government systems. This allows leaders to bypass the traditional unwieldiness of human bureaucracy, making it trivial for an executive to change AI parameters and instantly exert their will across all levels of government, thereby concentrating power.

Even when transparency is mandated, there are levers to control the narrative. The allegation regarding the Epstein files is that they will be redacted to protect powerful figures, with "national security" used as a convenient and difficult-to-challenge justification for censorship.

An undercover video reveals a tactic where government employees secretly copy and save federal data they fear a new administration will destroy. Their plan is to reintroduce this data and its associated policies once that administration is out of power, effectively subverting the elected government's agenda.

While private crypto has scams, the true systemic risk is Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Being programmable and centralized, they give governments the power to monitor, block, and control every citizen's transactions, creating an infrastructure for authoritarian control under the guise of progress.

Cheering for a president to use executive orders or emergency powers is short-sighted. The opposition will eventually gain power and use those same expanded authorities for policies you oppose, creating a cycle of escalating executive action.

The Canadian government freezing the bank accounts of citizens for making legal donations to the Freedom Convoy protestors established a modern precedent. It demonstrated how a Western government can use financial infrastructure to suppress political dissent without trial or due process, foreshadowing the potential risks of centralized digital currencies.

Historian Anne Applebaum observes that significant US constitutional amendments often follow profound national traumas like the Revolution or the Civil War. This suggests that without a similar large-scale crisis, mustering the collective will to address deep-seated issues like systemic corruption is historically difficult, as there is no single moment of reckoning.