In China, the little space that once passed for free speech has been sliced away, cut by cut, blow by blow, under Xi Jinping—until silence became ordinary and fear became the very air people breathe. And now, in a twist of tragic comedy, the "great American people" have chosen their own Trump-Jinping, eager to mimic Xi's totalitarian playbook. If this is the future, America had better brace itself—for the suffocating silence that always follows the applause for strongmen.