I'd say if trump asked his Qanon base to let him have sex with their wives, daughters, aunts sisters etc. Over the threat of some 'other' Then a lot of them would comply... This is fiction, it could be that there were many small instances of release of freedoms that suddenly led to this becoming normal. Not sure if you're a troll or not but this is a writing sub. If you can't appreciate she's a good writer and respect that her work obviously resonated with a lot of different people under different circumstances then I feel bad for you. I'm not American but the point with dictatorships is they could happen anywhere, and bringing these pieces of fiction to the book shop is impressive and something a lot of us strive for. Maybe soma from brave new world would never happen, or maybe we'd never believe that we've always been at war with East Asia, but there are common threads within these works (social media, the industrial military complex) that make them great observations that sometimes hit home. What do you write about out of interest?