America will not be the first nation to slide toward authoritarianism, nor will it be the last. Democracy appears fragile not only here but across much of the world. Many say, “It’s going to be a hard four years,” as if this moment were limited to a single term. However, the person at the center of this functions less as an individual than as a vessel.
Some may argue that legal protections are still in place, but the truth is that there are no meaningful constraints. The Supreme Court has granted the president extensive executive power and control over prosecutions, resulting in a concentration of authority that permits the bending or ignoring of constitutional norms. In this environment, opposition poses risks for legislators, judges, and private citizens alike. While supporters celebrate this lack of restraint, the fear of retaliation suppresses dissent. Instead of resisting, party infrastructure has largely adjusted to align itself with this new reality.
When temporary security barriers were erected around the Supreme Court in May 2022 following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, I felt they were placed on the wrong side. Indeed, America does need a barrier around the Supreme Court, but it should be positioned inside the court to serve as a buffer between church and state, running across every conservative justice’s desk.
Christian zealots have overtaken the Supreme Court, and the separation of church and state is quickly eroding. Nationalism and fascism are slippery slopes, and America precariously balances at the edge of those slides. The poor are taxed more heavily than the rich, and a significant portion of that money is funneled into wars we will never win. Politicians make false promises on the campaign trail just to get elected, and once in office, they rarely consult citizens about their actual needs. Voters are treated like disposable rags, useful only when politicians need them to clean up their own slime.
The Republicans played the long game, and they won. It won’t be hard to look back on this and see how they did it. Democracy became a chessboard where only one side understood the stakes. The irony is that Republicans beat themselves at their own game. Not only did Republicans win, but they beat their own party. Even the GOP is gone. The Republicans have morphed into the Party of Trump’s Project 2025, with the 900-page political blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation as their governmental plan.
Many Americans have lost their financial stability, their sense of security, and their ability to achieve a better life than their parents did. If the American experiment isn’t ending, it’s certainly evolving. From this point forward, we are entering the era of the MAGA experiment.
This situation goes beyond the destruction of democracy as a political system, for it affects every aspect of civil society and government. From the crippling of public health and disaster response to the handling of the climate crisis and the suspension of foreign aid, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation. Seeing the world’s richest non-elected official hold press conferences while carrying a toddler on his shoulders wasn’t remotely normal; it was a medieval-monarchy-level spectacle beyond modern belief. It’s these technocratic elites who are reshaping the system to insulate themselves from any negative consequences so they can leave the masses to cope with the fallout.
Nonpartisanship has collapsed, and voting behavior has become rigidly aligned along party lines. Politicians have always believed in their own bullshit, but now they are consuming it like it’s dessert. The media needs to hold politicians accountable for the problems they create, but they don’t, and the silence is deafening. Corporate media ownership dictates what information gets released, and it has become increasingly clear who benefits from this arrangement. I wonder how different Athens would appear to me now if I visited the ancient democratic sites today.
Yet, historical reflection offers little comfort. The contradictions of our founding seem less like flaws and more like foundational elements. Describing certain figures as “enlightened” while they upheld human slavery highlights how easily the rhetoric of liberty coexisted with oppression. Many of the current fractures in the system may be original rather than recent. The American political system may have been designed to fail, for these contradictions have always been inherent.
Of course, the answer to everything is money. However, I’m concerned about the future of the dollar. The current regime seems determined to give the global market reasons to abandon it. They’re angling for America to go crypto so they can unleash another one of their self-enriching scams. And according to them, why not? They show indifference to regulation and disregard the environmental damage caused by cryptocurrency mining. Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that the money my employers and I contribute to Social Security will be there when I retire. This uncertainty arises because the current administration is exploring ways to take those funds, along with other benefits that Americans have paid into throughout their entire working lives.
Greed is not new, but its incentives are now structurally amplified in a capitalist system that tends to reward those who seek greater gains. Most of us are mere pawns on this four-dimensional chessboard, but even pawns have the power to take out a king.
I recently read The Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition by the Conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, and one sentence in the introduction stood out to me: “To this day, apologists refuse to acknowledge the destructive impulses nurtured by the Conquistadors and instead justify their efforts by any means possible.” In the future, a historian may rewrite this sentence by replacing “Conquistadors” with another word.
No empire ever believes itself temporary, yet history is strewn with their remains.
My books Memory Road Trip (e-book, paperback) and Time Traveled (e-book, paperback) are both available! You can also find them at most major international book sites.
Krista Marson 