1) Do something egregiously illegal, immoral, and wrong. Make sure it's highly visible and affects a lot of people.
2) Wait for protests to begin.
3) Send thugs to disrupt the protests and incite violence.
4) Call the protests "riots" and "crack down" with overwhelming force.
5) Arrest and imprison all the protestors--because they're now "rioters."
Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China, every two-bit tinpot dictatorship in the world--we've seen this recipe, time and time again.
But who thought we'd ever see it in the United States?