> The People's * is a prefix used by totalitarian governments.

Indeed. And so are words like "homeland".

The last ~2 decades have seen a widespread change in ideas about the relationship between the U.S. federal govt. and the people. As a result, practices that were once restricted to highly repressive states are now merely a bit controversial in the U.S. And then we also have these ways of naming things that you & I noted.

So I wonder: could it be that thinking more like a totalitarian somehow naturally leads one to talk more like a totalitarian?