Before I saw your comment I had just deleted a spam text message on my phone that claimed to be an "old friend" wanting to catch up on WhatsApp. I'm not an important journalist, or person, but it was extra spooky after seeing that article.
So yeah, deleting WhatsApp now.
My wife is in a similar situation with her family. She has an uncle and cousins who are in Tampa and are not evacuating. They have the means to do so, they just.... aren't.
It's wild
Edit: I also know it's easy to fall into blaming people for not leaving when they don't have the money or ability to do so, but to the best of my knowledge that isn't the case here. They are very securely upper middle class and recently moved to Florida. I think they just don't understand the severity of it? Maybe I'm mistaken though. Idk. I hope somebody can get through with your family and they can be safe!!
If your idea of democracy means executing slaveholders, then we deserve slaveholders 
Yeah the dissolution of the Soviet Union isn't really a story of a "totalitarian regime" cracking down and tightening control before the masses come swooping in to restore "democracy", but more of a counter-revolutionary overthrow allowed to occur via factions within the Party either by the naivety or malice of Gorbachev. In fact, surrendering state control of the media to capitalist forces is an important aspect of the Soviet Union's dissolution. The media was allowed to fall into the hands of capitalists who were also encouraged to criticize and deligitimize the CPSU.
Some long quotes from Keeran and Kenny's Socialism Betrayed:
In April 11 1985, for example, Gorbachev called for the release of more administrative information to the public. Soon, Gorbachev transformed glasnost’s meaning from openness by the Party and other bodies, to open criticism of the Party and its history.
In June, the General Secretary met with media officials and urged them to support the reform effort by making “open, specific, and constructive” criticisms of shortcomings. Soon after, the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya criticized the Moscow Party head, Viktor Grishin. Gorbachev then replaced him with Boris Yeltsin, a presumed ally.
...Yuri Afanasyev, soon a partisan of Boris Yeltsin, became head of the Moscow State Historical Archives. These men soon took leading roles in criticizing Stalin and the Party and pushing the most rapid and extreme reform measures
... In short, Gorbachev began to encourage intellectuals and the media to criticize the Party and Party history, while simultaneously diminishing the role and authority of the Party over the media. Indeed, he did not simply diminish the Party’s oversight of the media, he actually turned the media over to people who were hostile to the CPSU and socialism.
... Gorbachev opened the door to criticism without limits. “It is time for literary and art criticism to shake off complacency and servility…and to remember that criticism is a social duty.” The next month, Gorbachev and Ligachev met with representatives of the mass media, and Gorbachev said that “the main enemy is bureaucratism, and the press must castigate it without backing off.” A truly anomalous situation thus emerged. The General Secretary, who was the leader of the Party and who had the power to reform the Party and government, was inciting attacks from the outside on those very entities, as if he were a mere bystander, not ultimately responsible for them
... Mike Davidow, a Communist journalist stationed in Moscow, rued, “Never in history did a ruling party literally turn over the mass media to forces bent on its own destruction and the state it led, as did the leaders of the CPSU.”
... Boris Kargarlitsky noted the enormous irony of a powerful campaign in support of privatization unleashed in 1990 by television, newspapers and magazines in most cases still controlled by the Communist Party. “Anyone who doubted the new wonder-working recipe was not allowed to be heard.” The Soviet media monopoly was now capitalist.
Sometimes I look back at my lib reaction to 2016 and I give myself a little pat on the back with how far I've come lol. Feels like another time altogether
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
Isn't that why they're planning on holding it (or parts of it?) virtualy?
Gross. Also, an aside, I hate this type of horror subgenre. The Catholic Church are always the good guys, or at least flawed but good. There was some horror movie I watched that retconned the whole inquisition as the work of a demonically possessed priest that fooled the smol bean Vatican. My wife is a big horror fan, but doesn't like sci-fi horror :(, so I've seen a lot of these religious themed horror shows.
I always wonder if these people are naive useful idiots or actually malevolent like you just asked. I guess it doesn't matter in practice, but I am curious too when it comes to her and others. Westerners are chauvinistic enough to just be this naive unfortunately. I was like that when I was a baby leftist (repeating bullshit about authoritarianism and both sides, etc.) and unfortunately I see that a lot of my "leftist" friends and acquaintances fail to grow past it. Idk my point, I guess I'm just lamenting
Economics is a SCIENCE
There are currently 7.0 fears in the market