The tools of conquest need not be bombs, bullets, and pestilence.
Shared hates, suspicions, and dehumanizations can be lies seared into the mind like being hypnotized. The domestic takeover requires seeing neighbors as monsters until we attack one to the other, one to the other, until it becomes hordes one to another. The fear of a single dictator becomes a fear of his hordes. The despots' playbook demands that the enemies are the intelligentsia, diverse points of view, or religion and skin color. It is the simplest tribal radicalism that repeats once the survivors of a previous dictator have died out, and the fascist strategy is seen as something new.

If one judge can judge honestly, we may be able to bypass the megatons of inevitable spilled blood.