[rayiner]

It’s completely different?

> adjective relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.

The word “totalitarian” has a meaning—the root “total” reflects the intrusion of government and enforcement of behavioral norms in every facet of life.

Even snooping on the content of everyone’s calls, which the US never did, wouldn’t make it a “totalitarian state.” Snooping in everyone’s calls and prosecuting everyone who said anything bad about the President would be closer to the real meaning of the word.

[Lammy]

  "of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures (such as censorship and terrorism)"

Is it only "total" if it's explicit visible control of some aspect of my life? An even more effective way to control my life would be to control the set of possibilities that come to my mind for a particular decision, because then I'll probably think the result of that artificially-constrained choice was my idea and may even fight to defend my choice from people who picked a different iOS/Android, Xbox/Playstation, PC/Mac, Reddit/Instagram than me.