What surprises me is that "they" are fumbling the more economical way of going the totalitarian route.

The soft touch.

Perhaps "they" drew up a time-table during the Obama-years, and a certain someone's administration threw that time-table out of whack, causing internal strife and contention among the guiding hands of the greater progressive-totalitarianist trend?

The slow, soft and organic approach works much better, since it makes it all feel natural. Slowly but surely, people come to think of The State as the be-all end-all. Here's an example: Used to be when building a sewage tank for your house, that was amtter between you, the builder, any neighbours and the regulations (which were drawn up by engineers/tehcnicians with the relevant expertise). The local municipal administration didn't factor beyond sending an inspector out if asked to and when the job was done, ti counter-sign that the builder's job was a godd'un.

Nowadays, you have to jump through umpteen hoops asking various clerks for permission in advance, paying fees every step of the way and the local municipal admin in charge has zero technical education, training or experience; instead, they have a set of "guiding principles" drawn up by politicians to follow.

And people accept this as right and correct - because the change was slow, every step reasonable and logical from the preceding one, and it was done over a period of more than 50 years.

Of course, to do that the do-ers have to be humble enough that they put the cuase before their ego - maybe that's the problem? (Well, their problem - and you rambunctious "leave me alone-ists" advantage.)