If you have never read the Harry Potter series, you might want to. Not just because of the popularity of the series, or the perfectly crafted characters and plots, but because of the parallels the characters and subplots have with the real world.
If you have read the series, then you should remember meeting the lovely Dolores Umbridge in book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. At the beginning of the book, Umbridge is seen working for the Ministry of Magic, as Fudge's right-hand-man, essentially, and is present during Harry Potter's Wizengamot trial for the use of underage magic in the presence of a muggle (an individual not a part of the wizarding world). She later gets appointed by the Ministry to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor (and Ministry spy) at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
With the help and backing of the Ministry, Umbridge appoints herself as Hogwarts' High Inquisitor, giving her the right to examine the other professors and fire whom she deems unfit to be a professor. She also makes herself the sole proctor of student discipline, which allowed her to overrule Professor McGonagall and ban Harry, Fred, and George from playing Quidditch for life. Umbridge also takes her discipline to a new level by making Harry's detention consist of him writing the line 'I will not tell lies' over and over again, which does not initially sound too bad but she did give the punishment a magical upgrade by making sure every time he wrote the line, it would be carved into his skin so he would not forget-- pretty sure that is a form of child abuse. Later in the book, she begins to suspect a group of students, led by Harry, to be secretly meeting and participating in an illegal school group as she had said that all school clubs and groups needed to be discussed with her first. This all gets chaotic, Dumbledore disappears, and Umbridge proclaims herself as new Headmistress of Hogwarts.
As a character, Dolores Umbridge is condescending, hypocritical, sadistic, and cruel. On her first day at Hogwarts, she interrupts the Headmaster until he allows her to untraditionally speak at the welcoming feast. As the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, she refuses to allow wands to be present in the classroom as all she wishes the students to study is theory. Umbridge also seems to have an irrational fear of those who are not pure-blood wizards, as depicted by her offensive words against centaurs and later in the series, her sentencing of muggle-born wizards to Azkaban for petty crimes. Umbridge also seems to have no shame in publicly and verbally abusing others, whether that be other professors, students (especially Harry), or ghosts at Hogwarts. Towards the end of the series, it is discovered that she has been sent to Azkaban herself for the mistreatment of muggle-born wizards and witches.
It is arguable that the Ministry of Magic itself is a totalitarian regime. Totalitarianism is a political system in which the body in charge believes they have control of every aspect of society (public and private) and can make and amend rules as time passes to their benefit. The Ministry does a lot of interfering and managing amongst the magical community in the UK, and whether that be how it was done traditionally, or not, it is still unacceptable. The government should have no direct say into the school system in terms of hiring and firing of professors they deem unacceptable, even though the very present Headmaster has deemed them exceptional at their craft and they have been teaching for years.
Linking the word 'totalitarian' makes sense when also thinking about Dolores Umbridge, a Ministry spy who entered Hogwarts and took control of it. Fred and George Weasley, besides Dumbledore, were the only ones to successfully get away from under her nose and be free from her tyranny. Umbridge changes the decrees set by the Minister to favor her, even though she does unlawful things. Her fear of being overthrown and not having full control led her to self-appoint as the individual you need to approach if you want to start a club, a team, or a group (including study groups). It was her fear of her beloved Minister and Dumbledore raising an army to oust him that caused her to make her Defense Against the Dark Arts class a theoretical class instead of hands-on as it once was.
In addition to this, the Ministry's fear of the possible return of he-who-must-not-be-made really ignited the spark to all this intervention. The Ministry was never this involved in Hogwarts because, at one time, they trusted Dumbledore. The Ministry, although it was infiltrated by Death Eaters, was afraid the news of the return of Voldemort by Harry and Dumbledore was true and did everything they could think of to prevent chaos, fear, and people siding with Dumbledore. The Ministry took control over the beloved newspaper, The Daily Prophet, and continuously posted fake news. Although Umbridge is not a Death Eater, she did have an exceptional amount in common with them and later became on their side, while not actually becoming a Death Eater because she, too, held the dream of having a world of pure-bloods.
It isn't hard to find a parallel for Umbridge in the real world; just think of Hilter and Stalin, even though they were much worse. The Ministry sent Umbridge to Hogwarts to keep the students, professors, and Headmaster under close supervision. Before she even came to Hogwarts, Umbridge even sent the Dementors to Harry in Little Whinging because he was supposedly going off about the return of a dark wizard and making people unnecessarily scared for their lives. If that's not totalitarianism, what is? The only bit that doesn't make the Ministry of Magic or Dolores Umbridge a fully totalitarian regime or a full totalitarian ruler is the fact that there were no known forced labor camps. Then again, the point of the Harry Potter books was not to expose the government, but rather Harry's link to Voldemort, this whole government bit was just a minor subplot you really had to look further into.
So, does the Ministry sound like a totalitarian regime yet? Does Umbridge sound like a totalitarian ruler?
