The Collapse Of Democracy

There have been many writers that are telling us that we are witnessing the collapse of American democracy since the election of Donny for his lovely second term as president….that is wrong…..we have been living through it well before Donny started his assault on our rights.

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, American political life has taken on a familiar rhythm. Each week brings another court ruling framed as a breaking point, another election cast as the last real one, another executive order described as the moment it all finally tips over the edge, another person murdered by a government that’s finally gone too far. Democratic party fundraising emails promise to “save the Republic”. Commentators warn that the guardrails are giving way. Anxious citizens refresh their screens, waiting for the collapse of American democracy.

This state of permanent panic rests on what Sigmund Freud called an illusion: a belief embraced not because it reflects reality, but because it satisfies a psychological need. The illusion in this case is that the United States still has a democracy to lose. The more unsettling truth is that Americans are not living under threat of future democratic breakdown; we are living inside the aftermath of one that has already occurred.

For tens of millions of people, democratic life has been absent for decades as they endure precarious housing, inaccessible healthcare, unchecked policing powers, debt servitude, vanishing public goods, and near-total exclusion from meaningful formal political power. For others – the wealthy, the politically connected, the donors and oligarchs – the same system produces not insecurity, but insulation, along with a constant need to rationalize the deprivation of others upon which their power is predicated and to disavow any responsibility for it.

These are not signs of a democracy under threat. They are symptoms of one that eroded – if it ever existed – long ago. Why, then, does American political discourse remain fixated on a catastrophe that always seems imminent but never quite arrives?

https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2026/mar/08/trump-democracy-oligarchy-policy

This is a situation that some of us have been saying for decades but people were too busy to notice the slide….and that is where our problem lies….people think that living only for their individual interests will keep everything on a an even keel…..I believe people can see now that that was a moronic reason….well some people.

Disagree?  Knock your socks off.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

8 thoughts on “The Collapse Of Democracy

  1. Just read this and it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who notices the differences: As reporters who follow Trump, we track the president’s moods and rhetorical styles closely. Teleprompter Trump is different from the looser telephone Trump, and both are different from the president at a rally or among his closest confidants.

  2. ‘The more unsettling truth is that Americans are not living under threat of future democratic breakdown; we are living inside the aftermath of one that has already occurred’.
    The above quote is one of the best and most accurate things I have read about America in many years.
    Best wishes, Pete.

    1. I agree and so very true this has been happening in real time and most Americans were too stupid to see it. chuq

  3. Yes, U.S. democracy died decades ago, and it was an intentional killing in the dark of night. Trump just hammered the final nail into the coffin when everyone was watching.

    Who is to blame, the actual murderers or their collaborators in sheep’s clothing?

    1. That is a great question….those hiding in the clothing and turning the blind eye did more to kill it than anyone. chuq

  4. Now he is telling us that the usa can no longer afford to pay for medicaid, medicare and all of the other “Little Scams and we have to focus our spending on defending the nation by war– and his administration is asking for another trillion dollars for the defense department …and in other news I discovered that the administration, despite promising to never touch social security are in the process of making seriously deep cuts in their disability program…it’s all on the internet.

    1. This such be no surprise…..GOP and its creeps have hated the programs for decades and have promised to destroy them.,…again no surprise. chuq

Leave a Reply to JohnCancel reply