Something that comes to mind is a line from, "Sin City." Roughly, "it's about lying. Lie a lot, and lie BIG and everyone will start to go along with it," (don't crucify me, it's not exact, haven't watched it in awhile).
At least in America there's another interesting experiment to "prove" this. Walk into a room of your average peers and say, "Americans have the best ," where that something is completely absurd. Such as, "Americans have the best Internet service." Watch as most of the time everyone just sort of nods their head and agrees sagely to whatever moronic bullshit just tumbled out of your mouth.
They, the People, don't feel the government's presence or get pissed off with it because they're lied to on a scale I don't think we've ever seen before. You've got an absolute NEVER ENDING stream of media bombarding the hell out of every last man, woman, and child saying, "America's great! We're doing better than ever! Everyone else sucks! Don't worry, you're not alone, we're all in it together and tomorrow's gonna be amazing!"
But it's just a lie. In the face of such insanity there is no defense. Wrong becomes right, black becomes white, poor becomes rich, and the People are tricked into thinking the same bad decisions they've made before are the best choices they've ever made.