This is a bit from RFK Jr's book, "The Real Anthony Fauci". Anyone who has not read this book...I cannot recommend it enough. I don't believe in required reading but this might be an exception. The book is mind blowing and very well sourced. I'm still going back through and looking up citations for further reading.
Playwright and essayist C. J. Hopkins:
There is nothing subtle about this process. Decommissioning one ‘reality’ and replacing it with another is a brutal business. Societies grow accustomed to their ‘realities.’ We do not surrender them willingly or easily. Normally, what’s required to get us to do so is a crisis, a war, a state of emergency, or . . . you know, a deadly global pandemic.
During the changeover from the old ‘reality’ to the new ‘reality,’ the society is torn apart. The old ‘reality’ is being disassembled and the new one has not yet taken its place. It feels like madness, and, in a way, it is. For a time, the society is split in two, as the two ‘realities’ battle it out for dominance. ‘Reality’ being what it is (i.e., monolithic), this is a fight to the death. In the end, only one ‘reality’ can prevail.
This is the crucial period for the totalitarian movement. It needs to negate the old ‘reality’ in order to implement the new one, and it cannot do that with reason and facts, so it has to do it with fear and brute force. It needs to terrorize the majority of society into a state of mindless mass hysteria that can be turned against those resisting the new ‘reality.’ It is not a matter of persuading or convincing people to accept the new ‘reality.’ It’s more like how you drive a herd of cattle. You scare them enough to get them moving, then you steer them wherever you want them to go. The cattle do not know or understand where they are going. They are simply reacting to a physical
stimulus. Facts and reason have nothing to do with it.