There is also the brainwashing element.
By constantly changing the rules and viciously attacking anyone who doesn’t follow the new rules they are seeking to undermine individual autonomy and replace it with group-think.
They call it “progress” begging the question of what seek to “progress” towards.
Orwell’s 1984 nailed it.
At its worst end game it looks like the picture of Sodom when all the men of the city approach the one holdout household that has just taken in a looker of an angel and orders it to send that angel out for their fornication pleasure.