American Democracy Was Executed Quietly. Everyone Just Kept Scrolling.
The United States of America, the so-called “land of the free,” the self-declared “leader of the free world,” has collapsed. Not in some sudden, cinematic implosion, but in a slow, hollow rot that began long before anyone was willing to admit it. The American experiment is over. The democracy it once claimed to model for the world is not in crisis. It is dead. What remains is a corporate-fueled authoritarian state, wrapped in patriotic branding, animated by grievance, and ruled by a cabal of billionaires, fundamentalists, and opportunists.
This is not a partisan observation. It is a historical reality. The republic, such as it was, has succumbed to the very forces it once condemned: corruption, propaganda, surveillance, suppression, and the brutal prioritization of capital over people.
The Illusion of Choice
What passes for democracy in America today is a grotesque performance, a relic so distorted it barely warrants the name. Elections are bought, gerrymandered, and manipulated with precision. Voter suppression is state policy in many regions. Political parties no longer represent ideologies but factions of an elite consensus, oscillating only in aesthetic.
In 2024, despite being embroiled in multiple criminal cases, Donald Trump regained power, buoyed by a base radicalized through disinformation and grievance politics. The election itself was marred by widespread voter intimidation efforts, disqualification campaigns, and the deliberate underfunding of polling stations in marginalized communities. Courts, increasingly stacked with ideologues, refused to intervene.
A Government of Grift, by Grift, for Grift
From for-profit detention centers to multi-billion-dollar defense contracts awarded without oversight, the U.S. government has become a marketplace for influence and exploitation. Universities now prioritize donor loyalty over academic freedom, cracking down on student-led protests against genocide, apartheid, and state violence. In 2025, several prominent institutions expelled students and faculty for anti-Israel protest activity, citing vague "safety concerns," while billionaires pressured administrations behind closed doors.
Meanwhile, vital infrastructure decays. Water in Jackson, Mississippi remains unsafe. Power grids fail during climate disasters. Hospitals collapse under privatized, for-profit health systems. And Congress continues to funnel billions into military spending while teachers strike for living wages.
Propaganda as National Identity
American media no longer functions to inform. It manufactures narratives. Legacy networks like Fox News openly peddle white nationalist ideology, while centrist outlets normalize extremism by treating fascism as just another point of view. The Overton window has shifted so far that calls for universal healthcare or ceasefires are treated as radical threats.
Social media platforms, many now controlled by ideologues or profit-driven algorithms, serve as echo chambers for rage, misinformation, and psychological manipulation. Truth itself is eroded. Language is weaponized. Basic facts are debated endlessly while real atrocities unfold.
Militarism and Manufactured Enemies
Domestically, the government frames dissent as terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security has labeled climate activists, racial justice organizers, and even librarians as potential threats. Police departments have acquired military-grade equipment, deploying armored vehicles and drones during peaceful protests. In 2023 and 2024, numerous Black and Indigenous-led protests were met with state-sanctioned violence, mass arrests, and draconian legal repercussions.
At the border, children are still being detained. In prisons, inmates work for slave wages. Abroad, drone strikes continue under classified orders, with zero accountability. The military budget now exceeds 900 billion dollars annually, dwarfing any social investment.
Crossing the Threshold: This Is Fascism
We must dispense with euphemisms. The U.S. has crossed every threshold required to meet the definition of fascism:
Cult of Personality: Trump has become a messianic figure to his followers, immune from criticism, above the law, and mythologized by propaganda. His words override reality.
Disdain for Human Rights: From trans bans to abortion restrictions to criminalizing homelessness, basic civil liberties are no longer guaranteed.
Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause: Immigrants, journalists, queer people, Muslims, academics—all scapegoated as internal threats.
Controlled Mass Media: A compliant corporate press and fractured social media landscape that elevates lies and silences truth.
Obsession with National Security: Used to justify endless war, internal surveillance, and censorship.
Corporate Power Protected: Corporations write policy, exploit labor, and influence legislation without check.
Labor Suppression: Union busting is rampant. Strikes are criminalized. Gig work is the new serfdom.
Intellectual and Artistic Repression: Book bans, curriculum restrictions, and attacks on educators are national policy.
This is no longer speculative. It is the reality.
The Collapse Has Already Happened
Let us stop pretending we are on the brink. We are past it. America is not sliding into fascism; it has already arrived. The question is no longer whether democracy can be saved. It cannot. It was never as stable as we were led to believe. Built on exploitation, exclusion, and expansionism, it was doomed the moment it prioritized property over people.
What comes next is uncertain. Authoritarian systems rarely collapse cleanly. But amid the wreckage, seeds of alternative futures are being planted: in mutual aid networks, in worker co-ops, in underground journalism, and in the quiet refusal to comply.
Small communities are reimagining education free from corporate influence. Labor unions, though battered, are regaining relevance in sectors once thought unorganizable. Digital tools are being repurposed to build encrypted, decentralized resistance networks. Artists and writers are finding new ways to speak truth in hostile environments, refusing to let memory or morality be rewritten.
In a country that has betrayed its own mythology, survival is resistance. Compassion is rebellion. And imagining a different world is an act of revolution.
The American experiment has failed. Now it is up to us to imagine something better from the ashes.