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Except the US clearly has a stratified society, even when it tries to lighten that with myths of fair pay, opportunity and get-rich-quick schemes (all the old American dreams before the post WWII townhouse family.)

Part of the rise of fascist rhetoric (targeting minorities like trans folk and immigrants) is to distract from the failure of these myths. Millennials and Zoomers know they're probably never going to own a home, or get to retire well, which not only discourages the Protestant work ethic (see quiet-quitting) but also elevates civil unrest (see the Great Depression).

So the Republican response is to kill elections and install one-party autocracy backed by a police state. That way they don't even have to listen to fellow Republicans, after they realize getting benes from being party loyalists are not actually soon to arrive. This is literally a return to monarchy, as Representative and constitutional historian Jamie Rasken has observed.

Well it also helps that it would be overall cheaper, with the only difference being that a few assholes wouldn't be getting rich off it at everyone else's expense.