Totalitarians want more than power. They want to use the coercive powers of government to control political and cultural thought and speech. Hillary Clinton in a recent CNN interview let slip her totalitarian instincts. After criticizing Donald Trump, who defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Clinton described Trump’s supporters as a “cult” and said they should be subjected to “formal deprogramming.” That is the language of totalitarianism — the language of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. And it is the language of Hillary Clinton.

More than 40 years ago, French philosopher Jean-François Revel wrote The Totalitarian Temptation, a book that explored “democratic” political leaders’ tendency to attempt to “wield the powers of a tyrant.” “Certain personalities,” Revel wrote, “bloom only when exercising absolute power.” There is a desire among such leaders to “escape pluralism.” The power elites “consider it their right and duty to impose their truth by any means, no matter what the public may think, or better still, by preventing the public from thinking at all” — in other words, “deprogramming” those who oppose the power elites. Totalitarians like Hillary Clinton would stamp out freedom of opinion when, in Revel’s words, “it will only propagate error and impede the functioning of the one true social and moral order.”

Revel noted that political regimes and leaders pass themselves off as “progressive” — as leaders only interested in improving the lives of the citizenry. In reality, the progressive totalitarians are interested not only in attaining and maintaining power but also in controlling the thought and speech of their political opponents. Hillary Clinton’s totalitarian instincts are shared by those who want to deprogram middle-class Americans, who, as Barack Obama said, “cling to guns or religion,” and by those progressives who insist that all Americans must support “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the “right” to abortion on demand, gay marriage, climate change, vaccine mandates, electric cars, transgender “rights” for children against their parents’ wishes, gun control, and other “woke” policies and programs.

And now, the progressives, as represented by Hillary Clinton, seek to “deprogram” any American who supports Donald Trump, who, according to all polls, is the leader of the Republican Party. More than 74 million Americans supported Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election — all, presumably, are now targets of Clinton’s deprogramming agenda. Hillary Clinton wants to use the coercive powers of the state to control their thoughts and speech.

Soviet commissars suppressed political dissent by many means, including confining political opponents to psychiatric wards. Soviet, Vietnamese, and other communist regimes also used “reeducation camps” to deprogram dissidents. Perhaps that is what Clinton meant by “formal” deprogramming.

But what if the Trump supporters resist “deprogramming”? What if the deprogramming doesn’t work? What if the Trump supporters don’t follow the “message” of the Hillary Clinton progressives? Perhaps the answer lies in the warning that Whittaker Chambers provided in his review of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Chambers described the book’s “dictatorial tone,” one “of overriding arrogance,” “dogmatism,” and “shrillness … without reprieve.” “Dissent from [Rand’s] revelation,” Chambers wrote, “can only be willfully wicked,” and the way to deal with dissent is to command: “To a gas chamber — go.”

The title of Chambers’ review was “Big Sister Is Watching You.” Hillary Clinton, who, in 2016, called Trump supporters “deplorables,” based on her recent deprogramming remarks, wants to be “Big Sister.” The totalitarian temptation is alive and well among our progressive elites.