Clinton caused some of these tough on crime and drugs laws. So if you voted for his party (Obama), then you voted for this.
All the politicians do is stir up emotional issues like "they're trying to take away your guns", or abortion, to distract the sheep. It works all the time.
In this case, we have the big media, big industry, and big government in a huge orgy of bribery and self-interest, that all benefit from people accepting authoritarianism. There’s a relief valve, a small minority of people getting their political analysis from Comedy Central or their security analysis from Bruce Schneier, but the vast majority get their talking points from people who are funded to act like there is still a debate about climate change.
It’s not technically against our will, but our will has been manipulated.
The smartphone example does not fit.
Very few needed to be manipulated into buying one. You've got to have a phone, whether it's a smartphone, a feature phone, or even a land line phone. Unless extraneous circumstances dictate otherwise, a phone is a necessity.
In a sense it was forced upon us. You see, we were whipped into a frenzy where the most likely thing to do, given our emotional states, was support whatever the perpetrators wanted in the first place.
It's a trick that works all the time.