dichotomy between "elite" and "mass" where the elite are made to be natural leaders and the "mass" are indistinguishable from each other and tend to follow,
totalitarianism is characterized by a one-party system,
a belief system that is coherent and palatable to a large audience and represents a world view, sometimes even as a substitute to religion (hegemony),
control of mass-communications, related to propaganda, it is the strive to make party dogma the most prominent,
the use of terror; the incentive to instill a state of fear, sufficient yet not overwhelming enough, to be able to suppress dissent,
expansionist, a certain dynamism that takes the state outwards (ie: treaty violations, disregard for international treaties, etc.),
the subordination of domestic policy to foreign policy; domestic policy has a secondary importance and usually just there in order to quell dissent,
the military is exalted; heroism, manliness, willingness to die or sacrifice for the state are considered to be exalted virtues,
Wolin claims that a regime can formally pretend to be the opposite of totalitarianism while still being a totalitarian state. Starting from the previous definitions, the "inversion" in Wolin's definition of "inverted totalitarianism" consists in:
elections, exemplified with elections under the Nazi regime, being staged, controlled or manipulated by the state given very few choices or non-existent; elections became "plebiscites" with the purpose of showing declaratively that the regime was popular,
the media becoming more centralized or pipelines such that opposing views have less of a chance to make it through thereby achieving the effect of state-controlled or power-centric propaganda,
the only purpose of an "inverted totalitarianism" state is to wage war:
Wolin exemplified with the "war on terror" and the events of 9/11, where the president hinted that the "war on terror" could last for multiple decades, thereby achieving the effect of being "eternal" or an "eternal war",
Wolin notes that the "war on terror" is a war against an ever-elusive enemy given that "terror" is an abstract concept such that it is possible for the war to be never-ending,
the "war on terror" then gets subsumed by the other layers of society such that "war" becomes ingrained in the culture itself and changes culture accordingly,
the ability of a state to wage war without bothering the population (exemplified by Wolin though the Vietnam war),
"inverted totalitarianism" is left in free-fall without taking measures, an economy that produces fear by obsoleting trades such that society does not really want to cure matters such as unemployment,
the manipulation of voting polls in order to receive a desired answer especially when the polls are directed on an anemic or apathetic voter base,
voting polls originally created with a marketing motivation invented in Michigan, such that the voter and consumer became interchangeable items,
a pseudo-democracy, a democracy whose opinion is solicited, a democracy that is wanted by the leadership, a democracy that existed within the polls with the purpose of appeasing dissent,
the system was geared towards the military and war instead of democracy, a military of minorities, a class army composed of cultural or racial minorities; this leads to democracy being reduced at the favor of the military,
antithesis between empire and democracy leading to oxymorons such as a superpower democracy or imperial democracy,
from Abraham Lincoln, "no one man should have the power to take a nation into war", the weakening of the legislative branch that leads to such events being made possible; the elites being beholden to the sponsors rather their constituents,
the transformation of the two-party system since Regan into a right-wing (republican) and center (liberal) party where both parties follow conservative ideologies
the meld of political parties into a singular effective party (exemplifies with Bill Clinton being a centrist without opposition),
the politicization of courts (independent court becomes a myth),
similar to
David Harvey's claim that the US has no left-leaning party,
media concentration (the suppression of alternatives) leading to the homogenization of opinion; undermining intellectual independence where key-positions are occupied by well-groomed candidates and think-tanks,
typical erosion of civil liberties,
totalitarian regimes mobilize populations, regiment them or control them in an unanimous fashion whereas inverted-totalitarianism seeks to demobilize them