Everyone believes this before and while it is actually happening. The US already has literally all required elements. All that is missing is scale.
I don't believe it is useful to level accusations on a society based on such simplistic hand waving.
The details are important. The scale is important. On this very small scale there is significant resistance, what would you expect when the scale widens?
In a democracy, dissent is usually oscillatory. It will rise as public opinion takes a for all practical purposes random walk in some direction, and the people in power, who are necessarily few, develop into another direction. Then there's a bang, be it an election, an accident, a scandal, or something like Fukushima prompting the German exit from nuclear power, and "dissent" is incorporated into power, lowering the amplitude of discontent.