The author is right to use the German term Gleichschaltung, he should have mentioned that it is a tactic used by the NAZIs to subvert democracy in Germany during the 1930s. That is clearly is purpose now.

From Wikipedia:
Gleichschaltung (German pronunciation: [ˈɡlaiçʃaltʊŋ] ( listen)), meaning “coordination”, “making the same”, “bringing into line”, is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control over the individual, and tight coordination over all aspects of society and commerce. The historian Richard J. Evans offered the term “forcible-coordination” in his most recent work on Nazi Germany.