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I think there are two major components on the Left that are driving this and acting as a force multiplier or catalyst for each other.

This is the first, as you mentioned, and it has to do with power for the sake of power over others, to rule how they live and take pleasure in that power:
- "...When we lose our individual independence in the corporate-ness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse..."

This is the second part (as I view it) and it invokes this concept of altruism, something Ayn Rand absolutely hated and saw as the source of far greater evils. It is famously (and accurately) described by C.S. Lewis in this timeless quote:
- "...Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
  
  They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.
  
  To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals..."

One of the interesting things I have observed about this quote, is the portion after the words "...they do so with the approval of their own conscience..." is almost always left out. And I think that portion that is commonly left out is entirely as important as the first part that describes a "tyranny sincerely exercised".

In today's world, that "...'cured' against one's will..." ominously has more to it than just curing someone politically, ethically, or spiritually.

They mean it physically, too. And that has serious implications. We who are having this tyranny inflicted on us fully understand that granting a government that kind of power over you means you will allow them to do anything to you with any justification they deem valid. Which, given human nature, means anything that is politically expedient.

Up to and including loading unwilling people onto boxcars to be dealt with.