Constitutional Totalitarianism (draft, comments welcome)

It should really not be possible to set up a totalitarian dictatorship without violating the letter of the Constitution at some point. But I’m pretty sure you can – given control of the White House and Congress.

Note that it is entirely possible under current law to control the Congress and Presidency with mere pluralities of the vote. Assuming no faithless electors, for instance, its possible to become President with only of ~25% of the electorate.

So, the Party has managed to win control of Congress and the Presidency by the narrowest margins – and immediately sets about engineering permanent 1-party rule.

• The opposition might try to stop you using filibusters, etc. Just eliminate any procedures that may create problems for you and protect the minority – you’re not going to need them.

• Pack the Supreme Court – nothing unconstitutional about that, and this prevents anyone from making inconvenient “violating the spirit of the constitution” appeals.
• Remember the point of this exercise is to do this without actually breaking any laws. Or at least without violating the Constitution – after all, Congress can change the laws.
• Use the “Kansas Plan” to pack the House and Senate.
• Hell, you could stop here, since an aggressive Kansification could allow me to simply amend the constitution however I’d like.

• Use the income tax to seize all income and then use tax code to manage the whole economy
• This is a kludgy workaround compared to GosPlan but it’ll have to do.

• Create some universal, unavoidable felony, and selectively enforce the laws to purge whoever you like
• Like the federal judiciary, legislators, etc.
• E.g. make breathing a felony
• Note that while you can’t directly suppress speech here, you can, by an amazing coincidence, just happen to arrest anyone who criticizes the government too loudly.
• Prosecutorial discretion is actually a tremendous tool of tyranny in the wrong hands. In the Party’s hands, of course, it will only be used for good.

• Since the Constitution doesn’t explicitly guarantee a right to vote, simply make it so that only members of the Party are permitted to vote.