To the Powers that Be, and Will Be.Mr. or Mrs. Power Elite,
First, I must extend congratulations to you, for your ongoing dominion over your nations, and near total global hegemony.
In order to ensure the loyalty of the people in this country, and to protect from foreign intruders and influences, it is imperative that a New American Citadel be fortified from the existing models
To best facilitate this project, I will outline parts of the citadel which are at least partially constructed.
The most important and seemingly well maintained pillar of the citadel, The Controlled Morale and Media of Citizens. In order to effectively organize our citizenry, and what they believe to be in their best interest, we must maintain and fortify our current systems for CMMC. These include ongoing radio, television and internet broadcasts, as well as newspaper publications, and even phone services and advertisements promoting our interests. The past managers of this system have done well to proliferate the types of message we require, however; there is an area of increasing concern, and that is the growing popularity of free publication of ideas and concepts, as the dissenters organize to share ideas, our way is increasingly threatened. As future guardians of this dominion I implore you to find more thorough ways to marginalize and discourage. If your efforts fail to quash the dissent, this could morph from one of our most pleasing successes, to one of our greatest failures. Consider this your only warning, should the citizens have access to relevant information, you may have to watch for Coup D'etat.
Among other key elements, a part of your responsibility is the constant manipulation of social norms and other policy, such that even the most well meaning and active dissenter will become disoriented as to what the enemy is (you), and what is necessary to be done against it (revolution). First and foremost, create effective rifts between the people, these rifts must be a combination of social scenarios, in order to be effective; they will in essence, be factions built by your design. Employ ideology to promote your cause. You will need to make a charade of creating a whole new faction for people to follow, in order for them to feel active enough to make up for their guilt for serving their needs before others. They must feel that they've accomplished something by joining... make it in some way exclusive, this will also be effective to keep them from organizing against you, as they will be busy trying to defeat small opposition from other factions you create. To create your factions, and guarantee they will organize tightly against one another, you must maintain that desired exclusivity. One part of your job in creating the factions is to focus on at least one unalterable* feature of the people who are to join it. For example, area of upbringing/nationality, religion, race, gender, economic status, etc. (* unalterable can be loosely defined.. it will be effective so long as they feel it is a part of their identity) Also, this must be achieved with the relative illusion of inclusiveness.
Illusions of inclusiveness can be maintained by having representatives from each faction shuffled in to another faction. Past tense works great in this. For example, let's say one of your factions is Wealthy Conservative White Males, which you will call "Righteous Change" (see you've actually surpassed your needs for unalterable feature, with white, male, and wealthy) in order for them to not inspire unison between the other factions (which will put pressure on you) there must be at least one carry over member, which is where the element of past tense comes in. If you can get somebody who is, say, African American, then you can parade them out whenever you are accused of being exclusive, better, to avoid scorn for playing up races, you can have a member that was Formerly Poor (and maybe they came from the soviet block, just for kicks) Your faction will be a thriving barrier between other factions and change, and you don't even need to break out the payroll.
Dependency and fear. The more dependent the people are on you, the better. They must fear every other race, custom, and nation but their own, and should they have different customs than you, Mr(s). Elite make sure they wouldn't even realize it. If your hobbies are flying in private jets, buying land, or eating organic, the plebus had better not be able to tell. Perhaps consider, showing up at a rodeo/nascar race, or carnival, make public speeches without being well dressed, hell, why not mess up a few times too!
Be sure also, in your maintenance of the CMMC, to have many fingers pointed, especially if you can direct attention to something controversial, focus again, on things people believe to be fundamental, like right to life/pro choice, evolution.. Note: do not focus on something you do not want people to realize! Health care, for example, may result in more people throwing insults toward you, than will promote your interests elsewhere. Be sure to convince them of some evil that is greater and more faceless than the evil that you build. If you need to lie to make something more evil than you, you're doing a great job of being the best elite you can be.
Socio-political Mobility. Your policies should always hint at the aforementioned concept. Particularly each plebian must believe that the way to become a Power Elite, is not by being born into it, or otherwise predetermined to belong, and holding tons of cash (as you and all other real elites are). The plebs must believe that they too can wield unimaginable power, if of course, they somehow know you to exist, and on top of that are aware of how powerful you are. Generally deception is not too tricky with this, as it is easy to make it seem like your faction is one that nobody (in the plebs, at least) would want to join. Make it seem tedious, and complacent, better, make it seem like it is a "public service" you will see no hands in the air from volunteers.
These factions will help to sabotage any valiant efforts by any part of the population. As is evidenced by the stagnant activities in the house and Senate. The one voice that would spark change is marginalized by how small a percent of the total power they have, and so nothing will alter the status quo. The status quo, naturally, is whatever you want. So long as you can keep the factions rallying against things which are unrelated to their personal needs, and instead seek to limit one anothers' you will experience little opposition.
Of the key pillars of your Citadel, the following is the most dangerous to you, and to those who oppose you. You must maintain a force of influence beyond even the most preposterous measures of "diplomacy." You must have, for your enemies and those among the factions who somehow felt they had the courage to dissent, some sort of violent (read very bloody and horrible) retribution for those individuals. Secret torture prisons are good. Public ones are even better. Then should there actually be someone in the world more evil than you, they won't know themselves as such, and you will maintain that control. Your force of violence can manifest many ways. The favorite of abusers like you has often been rampant missile programs, and growing armies, building bases all over the globe, maniacal weaponry for use in battle, like the modern depleted uranium bullets, use of nerve gas, chemical warfare. But these are not the most frightening violence in the long run. No, they for the most part, have been defeated in the past. The most convincing and frightening violence you can commit, is one against your own people.
For the relatively short term, you can utilize Police brutality, interrogations, and imprisonment using the force of the government. Short term you can utilize the scared and paranoid public towards ostracizing the dissenters, and instilling fear of retaliation in them. This will make your enemies and your people pliable to an extent. But the most effective long term I can pass down to you, is the nature of the most sacred pillar in your reign over the people, the maintenance of constant, blinding poverty. The people must fear at all times that they will die if they do not have money, which they will never ever receive enough of, and because of this fear, the people will bend. They will not threaten their employment, if they are lucky enough to have it, by staging protests. They will not threaten the government which provides just enough for them to die on. The sweetest part of this deal, my future or present leader, is that all their work will benefit somebody, and that somebody is you.
For new things you must make, there are only a few, and seldom are really necessary, so long as nobody knows the extent of your potential. First, complete control of science and innovation, by law as well as influence through things like grants, and further, organizations like the FDA, as well as Ethical review committees, which can destroy science with which you disagree. Second, as has been done throughout history, you must create and file lists of suspected terrorists, communists, anarchists, etc. To be on this list must first require some sort of incredible (as in not -credible) story, as well as a connotation of horrifying effects, should somebody find themselves on this list. The list, by the way should be constantly expanding, and in spite of complications with facts, and other such nonsense, the accuracy is unimportant, especially if during a wrongful arrest, you find drugs.
Create along with this citadel, through policy and censorship, and denial, an actual physical citadel, especially one that is expensive and ineffective. Hire inept guards to watch while so-called enemies carry their children over the citadel and prepare to set systems to harass them and accuse them. Have hometown favorites support this and other decisions, and he public will support it as well, make sure to drive away the idea of xenophobia, or anything we are called out for by nations we provoke and invade..
Through the effective organization and maintenance of those pillars you will be able to have your powers almost indefinitely, with few if any drawbacks, and with small measures of effort, rather than legitimate struggle at any point. Congratulations, to you the powerful, and remember, God's blessings go to those who create things. Like gods.
