Brian,
I agree completely with your assessment of the current rendition of “This is a crisis and only by giving US complete control can it be prevented”.
But won’t they just morph it into some other crisis?
It could be “We are poisoning the oceans”. Or “We are running out of (name practically any natural resource here)” ,or over population. Or one of a million other possibilities which only they can save us from.
After all, the real point is not any given set of perceived problems. It’s giving them power.