Think vector, momentum and feedback. It's not the 1/4 cent - it's the direction and mass of the politics behind it. Once things start to turn, people will associate the turning with relief from suffering, and want more of it, etc.
That's why tyrants are so petty and vicious - they have to keep everyone in survival mode, or people will see how close to freedom they really are, and overthrow the tyrants.
It usually only finnaly fails when they make people feel so bad, fighting is better than living. But in the US, the Rats are trying to use this to trigger martial law to stop elections altogether.
That's why, if you want to see God's grace, it's in the patience conservatives are showing in waiting for the elections to come again.
The particulars of the negative attributes don't so much matter, but you are solid, bro, on the necessary objective of successful tyrants and oppressors.
See for example the Book of Judges where various Canannite and Philistine rulers tyrannized Israel in just the way you describe. Israel was reduced to survival mode, their crops raided at harvest, weapons banned, and all sorts of deprivations of the sort that allowed them to survive, but only barely.
It wasn't until Samson stirred up the hornets nesting in the body of the lion that the Lion became aroused and unified enough to fight back, leading up to David, the King.
Amen, FRiend. It’s the camels nose under the tent that the tyrants fear.