Mollie Hemingway

94%.

And I think there's something about this book that relates to that, which is, like you, I'm thinking, there is no way that the America I know will tolerate this level of repression just because, you know, we don't listen to the CDC about whether to eat cookie dough that hasn't been baked.

Why would we listen to them about shutting down our entire lives and destroying years of our productivity and killing our businesses and keeping us from worshiping?

And then to see it happen was horrifying.

But I think part of the way that they controlled things was by making people feel that they were alone when they were not alone.

They controlled debate.

They horrifically censored any expression of skepticism about what they were doing.

They would say, you are not allowed to share this information on public channels, on social media, if you disagree with the CDC, which was...

horrible and also kept people from understanding just how many people didn't agree with them.

We kind of later realized, oh, there were far more of us than we realized.

We felt alone because everything we were being fed reinforced the narrative of the one state.

And so, again, why books like this can help you resist that and think through whether you're getting accurate information or whether authoritarian systems are keeping you from knowing, for instance, the perspectives of your colleagues.

Like, remember, oh, I love this part.

They have elections each year.

They have an election to re-institute the great benefactor as the leader of them.

And he talks so glowingly about how this is all public voting.

He's like, can you believe they used to vote in private elections?

And, you know, we don't have any need to do that.

We all just proudly affirm how much we love this guy.

And he says it's the best day of the year.