The civil libertarians were nowhere in sight. The courts did not work. Big business and media fully cooperated. The major religions caved. The national security state thrived, while both parties let it all happen. The population was mercilessly propagandized and pillaged with no resistance from the commanding heights. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, pharmaceutical companies revealed themselves as more powerful than any industrial monopoly in human history, capable of shutting down the entire world in order to panic people into consuming their product. 

As for the old distinctions between the public and private sectors, they melted away. The state did not save us from large corporations and the top layers in commercial society did not save us from the state. They worked together to strangle the liberty of everyone else. Which was the hand and which was the glove was unclear throughout. As for the politicians, they were almost entirely useless, fearful only to save their own lives and careers, shovel money to their constituents, and otherwise hide under their sofas.