I have the feeling that our dear leaders have some tool to measure in the feeling of the population at any moment and they know at any moment how far they can go with any political issue without creating a too big push back in the population, they can measure the willingness of the people to oppose or to accept specific issues.
I want to make a mental excersise: If I had the money and the power, and I wanted to impose my tyranical and nightmarish vision of society and I knew this would be not so popular, I would call first to my friends at Google, Facebook and Twitter and I would ask them to create me some tool with which I would be able to measure the tolerance and the approval of the society regarding specific issues. Specially important would be to have clear predictions where a rebellion/uprising is inminent, so that I can avert the situation before it is too late. I do not want to give the impression the people have the power to achieve anything, therefore it is importat never to confront overtly the majority population and lose because it would make the people believe they can make a real change. The political system could implode.
Once this tool is developed with data. I can see which points of my political agenda are most unpopular, and I can start to work on the issue using control of my friends at the main stream media. Starting campaigns and all the dirty tricks of the propaganda, and if it is not enough I can call my friends at the secret services to prepare some false flag event to work my political agenda as reaction to the well prepared false flag. When I think the moment has come to implement a new step in my agenda, I would make a sneak test putting the issue in the public arena a see the reaction, if positive, yeah! we can implement new laws, if not back to propaganda campaigns.
Also important in this strategy is to full the public news with bullshit to distract from the real problems, so when real important issues come, people will be indiferent or will not recognise the importance. This is how I would describe the “modus operandi” of our democracies. And remember in this mental excersise I am not a politician, they are bought and owe me favors. So if things go wrong they are dispensable and replaceable. I operate in the shadows out of light of the public arena.