Smh. All you need to do is watch Fox News to understand why it could happen here. Just because you live in a democracy don't naively assume that everyone values it the same. All you have to do is create enough chaos, and make people frightened and resentful enough and the average person will GIVE away their freedom in exchange for the illusion of safety and the opiate of material prosperity. Why do you think the Chinese are so focused on their economy? Since Tienamen Square they've been trying to use prosperity to lull their people back to sleep and have them forget that their simply living in a police state. Any communist pretenses having been dropped decades ago.