I agree, the soft tyranny approach, leading unsuspecting cattle to the slaughter, seems to be burnt for the moment, too many people caught on to the fact that at the very least, government programmes might not always work quite as planned 😄 That's why I think the next thing they'll try is going to be the big patriotic hurrah of a "necessary and unavoidable war to defend our freedom" ... hundreds or thousands of miles from where our lives actually take place, destroying the lives of people so poor they can't find two goats to rub together while further impoverishing the lower and middle class in western countries.

And I also agree that the regime is getting weaker, they blatantly announce things they had the decency to at least cover up just a few years ago.

Or, you know, arresting protesters while telling them they should be happy they don't live in Russia where they arrest protesters.