In historical terms , the event we are witnessing is an attempt at Gleichschaltung . The Nazi term is usually translated “coordination,” sometimes “consolidation” or “streamlining.” In this phase of totalitarianism, the Movement, now elected to power, uses its hold on the legitimate authority of the state to try, illegitimately, to align neutral, nonpartisan, or independent institutions with the extra-state Movement, forging an obligation to the Leader rather than to the constitutional state. The hallmark of totalitarianism at this stage isn’t genocide or extremes of violence. It is doubled or twofold organization. The Movement (here MAGA) or its party (here the Republican Party, parasitically devoured and replaced from within) generates a vision of second institutions, however hallucinatory or inverted, with which original or real institutions are then coordinated.…