Reading "American Midnight" right now and the parallels to what was going on in the run-up to WW I and what's happening now are incredible.

US government used access to the mail the same way the internet is now being used to suppress speech and promote propaganda. The origins were in the Philippines war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine–American_War

US military intelligence was born there and used surveillance and control to repress and crush nationalists. Those tactics were then imported to US (by the same guy who originated the program in Philippines) and brutally expanded to crush US left, labor, and radicals like IWW and Socialists. The Espionage Act and the Sedition Act were enacted in 1917 and 1918 to crush anti-war dissent. Far more draft dodgers in WW I than Vietnam!

But now, the government doesn't even have to put activists in jail. The "left" either self censors or capitulates.

The current pathetic "left" is either ignorant of or ignores this history and once again got outflanked by the Right wing Fascist forces.