Our anti-political plebiscitary democracy and the compliance state

Comment published (here, as modified) on New York Times blog, in response to opinion essay by Jedediah Britton-Purdy, “The Republican Party is succeeding because we are not a true democracy,” January 3, 2022:

"A party doesn’t have to persuade majorities that it has the best vision for the country. It only has to persuade a selective minority that the other side is a mortal threat."

This describes both Democrats and Republicans.  Left-liberals do this as much as conservatives, by using fear-mongering to close down all options except voting to support "us" against "them," good vs. evil.  This works to move people who may be bothered or angry about anything away from politics as contestation, problematization, and changing of the way things are, to mere assent.  This generalized assent is marketed as support for an embattled faction not challenged by differences of opinion, but threatened by the fear of losing power, fear of a tyranny displaced from what the one that actually exists, onto a possibility that could be prevented.    

Activists who support politicians generate this support from masses, while the politicians are kept in office by gerrymandering and campaign funds from corporate and interest group donors.  Those are the stakeholders they worry about as they work with their assistance to shape policy, in its details, a possibility from which the public is mostly removed.  A democracy of voting means that all we can do is say yes or no to a candidate.  

Citizens are thus effectively disempowered except in acclamation.  Governance itself is carried out by an administrative state with armies of managers and social control officers.  That state offers you what you need in return for compliance.  When that compliance is not readily forthcoming, people are judged psychologically, personally attacked, or threatened with state violence.

On occasion, they may even be summarily killed, a possibility our national security state exploits with a rhetoric of perceived and targeted threats that is also operational for the solicitation of willing consent under the guise of getting what one wants or needs.