[dfraser992]

"Drug Warriors and Their Prey" takes a look at the WoSD from another angle [0]

Basically, the WoSD 'was' (still is?) a mechanism by which authoritarians could impose control on society by oppressing society's undesirables. Echos of the Nazis, engender a police state, control Black people, etc etc.

But the WoSD hasn't gone so well, so it (as the main phenomena) was been supplanted by the War On Terrorism (cue the Patriot Act...) That has gotten a bit stale (but is still in effect?), so now it's ... Russians? Covid-19 and all the relevant restrictions?

Or the GOP has decided to stop being indirect and now is going blatantly full out towards overt authoritarianism using The Big Lie as the mechanism? In some parallel universe, liberals are now being rounded up and put into FEMA re-education camps on President-For-Life Trump's orders because they tried to steal the election (and every future one as well).

There is no one Single True Motivation to this sort of social phenomena - they are all different expressions of the sociopaths in charge's drives for power.

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drug-Warriors-Their-Prey-Police/dp/...

[asoneth]

WoSD = "War on Some Drugs".

(Primarily used by drug legalization advocates, presumably to convey the arbitrary distinction between legal and illegal drugs.)