You cannot just “turn off tyranny”, since a sizeable chunk of the population actively welcomes it. Rescuing the public from despotism (without it being demanded) turns the rescuer into a new persecutor, and the rescuees (now denied their place in the autocracy) into new victims.

We are going through a paradoxical process whereby the tyranny has to not just manifest, but also absurdly overreach its claim to authority. The loss of freedom and harm done is very real, but without the painful experience a “new new normal” (i.e. genuine freedom) cannot stick.

If genocidal maniacs have a “lockstep” plan to impose medical martial law, you can bet that good people in the military will have worked tirelessly to infiltrate, sabotage, and hijack it. Allowing a limited rollout exposes all the devious plotting creeps to truth and justice.

People have to believe that they “wake up” to the scale of corruption and deception as a result of their own initiative, so that they “own” the outcome. In practice the conditions have been orchestrated so that “buying the lie” gets progressively more costly and less rewarding.

The challenge is to “keep faith in Good” through this process as a member of the “awakened” community. It may look like dystopia is imminent, but extrapolation is naive and unwise. Exposure and delegitimisation is a necessary prelude to removing tyrants from power peacefully.