[southernplaces7]

One major problem with these descriptions of inverted totalitarianism is how subject they become to ideological preference, even by those who create them. Note that Sheldon Wolin came up with his definition in 2003 during the hysterical Bush years (hysterical on the part of both the government with its war on terror justifications and by the progressive left for styling Bush as a new Hitler).

Would he have applied the same label to the same things under Obama later? After all, the later president expanded on nearly everything Bush did and took it to new levels. Trump after him did the same thing in many ways too.

In all cases, criticism is often divided along ideological lines against tendencies that can be used in either direction with just as much evil or authoritarian intent, and this selective blindness by critics becomes idiotica and absurd.