See, the trick we’ve found is to raise the water temperature slowly, so the frog doesn’t notice. Then, when agitators start to become a noticable problem, you can back off a little. You can get pretty far with scare tactics (“terrorism” is a good one which can be applied to almost any enemy of The State!), although the absolute best thing is to foment class warefare: the traditional, tried-and-true way is to convince the middle class that their problems are caused by the poor, but a better way is to get the middle class to fight with themselves! Keep most of the poor almost starving – we don’t want another French Revolution! - and they’ll be too busy just getting enough to really revolt. Media helps a lot here, too; bread and circuses, indeed!

With some minor hiccups (pwew, the 60s and early 70s had us sweating, I can tell you) it’s been mostly smooth sailing. Social media has been a godsend, I can tell you - it really put some gas in the old “circuses” dial - but the real breakthrough has been convincing everyone that they have some sort of mental health issue that requires pharmaceuticals. The entire country is taking something, and that’s been a huge help in keeping people docile.

No, we’re pretty sure we’ve figured out how to prevent open rebellion; we have all the tools and methodology, so you won’t see any rock-bashing anymore.