Literature, film, and even video games have all produced various visions of dictatorial dystopias and ruthless regimes, yet all have been, of necessity, outlandish — necessarily so because each tale of totalitarianism is meant to be a warning, and warnings must always be writ large and in brightly-colored letters, not whispered or scrawled on the corner of a notepad.

Despite the countless warnings issued over the course of history — from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” to America’s Declaration of Independence to Orwell’s “1984” — the dictatorship foreseen by so many of Western civilization’s greatest minds has come to be, and much of the West is blissfully (or, perhaps more accurately, fearfully) unaware of the fact. In fact, it may be because those warnings were shouted so loudly that the West of today never expected the real threat to be so quiet, so mundane, and so incredibly boring.

The American Founding Fathers spoke of tyrants, Orwell warned of Thought Police, and Huxley painted pictures of industrial-sized laboratories growing new humans to serve as cogs in the globohomo corporate machine, long before the term “globohomo” was in use. It is perhaps understandable then why, in 2020, so few paused to seriously scrutinize the “experts,” diminutive men in button-down-collar shirts and blazers they’ve owned since 1999, middle-aged women with glasses and pantsuits that could only accurately be classified as “librarian.” Yet these establishment academics and professional jargon-slingers achieved what Machiavelli had to create a draconian prince to do, what Orwell needed a brainwashed-and-brainwashing Party to achieve, and what America’s Founding Fathers hoped their posterity would never have to suffer.

The “experts” told their tale of terror, discussing a mysterious virus in terms that really only the initiate few could understand, changing their definitions and advice from day to day, manipulating words as easily as they later manipulated statistics, and gambling their bland but unquestioned status as “experts” on one of the grandest hoaxes perpetuated on a global scale: the establishment of “science” as a worldwide religion.

What allowed the “experts” to become the inaugural high priests of this new religion was cognitive dissonance. “Two weeks to flatten the curve” didn’t quite translate into almost a year of virtual house arrest. “The shot will keep you safe” never really squared with that sixth booster. The mantra “the science is settled” glaringly contradicted the ever-fluctuating advice and prognoses of the “experts,” but this was permissible because only the “experts” could divine the will of the virus gods and interpret these mystical truths to the rest of mankind.

Their gamble may have been the undoing of the “experts,” though. As is the case with all dictators, they became greedy for too much power. Serving as the high priests of the new science-religion wasn’t enough for them, they also wanted to be grand viziers and, eventually, kings and princes. With their highfalutin degrees and fancy-fangled jargon, they convinced politicians to offer sacrifice to their new gods, closing down churches (the new religion’s competition), and mandating the ritual garb pleasing to the new gods, the face mask. Eventually, they also instituted their church’s ultimate sacrament, the “vaccine.” That proved a bridge too far for much of the West which was founded on principles like religious liberty and freedom of conscience: it was one thing if the “experts” wanted to pontificate and offer advice, but just as the Spartans and Athenians were free to disregard the recommendations of the oracles and soothsayers, so too should Americans be free to disregard the ramblings of the “experts.”

And thus a rebellion was launched, to oppose the Evil Empire of the “experts.” Mask and “vaccine” mandates were challenged in court, gym and restaurant owners let fines pile up unpaid, everyday citizens refused to comply with arbitrary lockdown orders, and county sheriffs refused to enforce them. Though a startling number of Americans went along with the “experts,” with many in law enforcement and bureaucracy citing an eerily-familiar “I was just following orders” justification, enough rebelled that the “experts” were forced to either abandon their now-blatant dreams of an Evil Empire or else face the best-armed populace in the world in potentially the worst PR nightmare since the Nuremburg trial defendants asked, “Wait, what camps?”

Unfortunately, while many Americans were duped into “staying home, saving lives,” an old friend of the “experts” managed to claim the White House. Since then, masks have become relics of the past, the flu has made a surprise comeback, and the term “mutant variant” has once again become the exclusive property of zombie apocalypse comic book nerds. But 2020 and the tail-end of 2023 share something in common: an upcoming presidential election. So as sweaters are returning to folks’ wardrobes and children are returning to school, the “experts” are returning to their boxes on CNN and MSNBC.

America is about to face — not a new strain of COVID-19 — but a redux of the fearmongering 2020 lockdowns, and just in time for the ballot boxes to open. Orwell’s approach may be too phantasmagorical for the present age, but it is time America returns to its roots and begins to use the word “tyrant” again. The next time a state governor orders his constituents to wear mouth-breathing muzzles, don’t be afraid to use the word “tyrant.” The next time a county shuts down favorite restaurants and pubs in the name of “public health,” don’t be afraid to say, “tyrant.” The next time a nerd in a lab coat pops up on cable news to talk about protein spikes and rising death tolls, don’t hesitate to call him a tyrant. Tyrant, tyrant, tyrant, hit them with that word over and over again. They’re not “experts,” they’re tyrants, and they will do their damnedest to sink this country to satiate their own frustrated lust for power.

This is no matter of hollow hyperbole. Already, mask mandates are resurfacing, cases of COVID are being counted again, and the White House is partnering with the “experts” at Pfizer and Moderna (far worse than even the hellish corporatocracies Huxley dreaded in “Brave New World”) to push more “vaccines” — because that eighteenth booster was such a hit, wasn’t it? Americans, however, have one advantage they didn’t in 2020 — or rather, one hard-learned in 2020. The “experts” have been exposed as frauds, and are known now by their real name as tyrants.

Debate may rage amongst Americans, and even within the conservative movement itself, about what the Founding Fathers got right and where they missed the mark, but one thing their very lives (and, in some cases, deaths) made abundantly clear is that Americans cannot and must not submit to tyranny. Constitutional framer Benjamin Franklin wisely warned his countrymen, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” So when “Lockdown: The Sequel” rolls around, do not comply.