The Realists

One particularly charming and effective path in the direction of what may be broadly called a totalitarian state is the one most obviously being employed in Britain: that is foist a degraded tabloid, tower-block 'culture' upon people and then reap the inevitable rewards. In other words, having treated people as subhuman and gotten the results, one then says "What are we supposed to do with such scum, we need strong measures!" Though in more prettified and reasonable language. Such realists.
Or to put the phrasing of such an advocate slightly differently- "Man when left to himself is evil. We must deal with the reality." Except man here certainly hasn't been left anything like to himself. Though here if one talks of treating people with the dignity of humans, one would be met with a response like "We must deal with the reality as is. You're talking about pie-in-the sky idealism." Except- all these excepts- they are the idealists. It's just that the ideal happens to be a sick one. (The mere existence of an ideal doesn't mean the ideal is in any real sense ideal.)
As usual, whether this is a conscious, unconscious, or mixture of both, process is irrelevant to the outcome.