At this point, that mostly seems like extraneous details that would most just lend themselves to rationalizations for people who still don't want to accept the current reality.

That narrative certainly had appeal in decades past when we appeared to be headed towards totalitarianism from the other direction. I was there for it, then. But then the corpo gloves gleefully came off, and the main thing that remains of the prior dynamic is referencing it as a soothing strawman.