Will we even notice when democracy is gone?

[marmar]

Will we even notice when democracy is gone?
Normal life continues for most of us, most of the time — but everything we took for granted is slipping away

By Mike Lofgren
Contributing Writer
Published September 1, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) We’d better start by stating that the metaphor involving boiling a frog by gradually increasing the temperature of the water is a myth. That the story is so widespread shows its appeal as a means of illustrating the inability or unwillingness of people to react to a threat if it is sufficiently concealed or slow-moving.

....(snip)....

Unless you had the bad fortune to be a federal government employee, the texture of your lived experience probably hasn’t changed much in the last several months. Companies have mostly tried to “hold the line” with price increases related to Donald Trump’s tariff policies, but businesses are not philanthropic enterprises and will raise them sooner rather than later.

....(snip)....

If you pay attention to the details, America is rapidly transforming from a service state — one that provides education, health care, infrastructure and parks to its citizens — into a carceral state that punishes and imprisons them.

....(snip)....

Looking further ahead, what happens when not only vaccines and medicines are no longer available (biomedical research has been slashed across the board) but the supply of physicians begins to dwindle as prospective medical students from other countries are prevented from studying here and taking up practices? The same may happen with nurses and other hospital staff (a large proportion come from countries like the Philippines) or attendants in nursing facilities. That, apparently, is how we make America healthy again. Trump’s GOP underlings are also conspiring to destroy health care at the state level as well. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/09/01/will-we-even-notice-when-democracy-is-gone/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. No because we've been ruled by corporations since the 1950s or 1920s

AND we've been losing control over issues that affect our lives forever as Congress legislates decisions out of our control. This is what states and the State does.

Autocracy is the natural outcome of the erosion of democracy.

[CousinIT]

2. Well, most Americans didn't, so I'd say no. n/t

[JustAnotherGen]

3. It IS gone

The military has been turned on the American people in the same way crazy King George did.

It's only a matter of time before they start requisition of private homes to house HSI, ICE, National Guard etc etc

[Timeflyer]

4. In DeSantis' Florida, dems noticed, and activists got busy on the local level when Moms for Bigotry

tried to take over school boards. That's where the fascists started their campaign to capture all parts of government here. It takes constant pushback by people on the local level who know enough about issues, educate themselves enough and stay informed. They see what's happening and then get organized.

Exhausting, often discouraging, but once you know, you know, and you must resist and never stop.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Most of the German population didn't realize things were going wrong until the bombs started dropping...

Even then, most of them wondered why they were being attacked.

[mikeysnot]

6. 77 million fools

failed their IQ test last November…

[bdamomma]

9. or

what "IQ"

[mikeysnot]

12. Right!

Shoe size numbers.

[kkmarie]

11. And the 90 million idiots

that didn't stop to think what would happen without their vote

#EpsteinFiles

[randr]

7. When armed agents of the government are in the streets without widespread protest

[Ping Tung]

8. "Americans dreaded democracy and contrived their constitution against it." Lord Acton

[Solly Mack]

10. ...

[sinkingfeeling]

13. I certainly feel like Orwell's character. I saw the deck on fire and have tried to

warn others. And I have left the US for my own safety and sanity.

[indusurb]

14. If you're having to ask the question, it's already gone

We've been under the rule of an ever increasing oligarchy for decades now. In fact one could argue that we're now in our fourth period of oligarchial rule. The first was the colonial rule of the British. It took a revolution to break that. However oligarchs almost immediately took over, mainly from the South. It is no accident that four of our first five presidents was a southern slave owner, nor that our Founding Fathers came from the elite rich.
Washington was the richest man in the country at the time. Nor is it an accident that the Constitution at the time favored the southern oligarchs, from the Electoral College, to the election of Senators, to the disenfranchisement of over half the population. The Founding Fathers didn't like democracy, likening it to mob rule, so they put just a thin veneer of democracy over their oligarchy, just enough to pacify the population.

This lasted until the Civil War blew it apart, destroying the economic base of the southern oligarchy. Sadly, with the end of Reconstruction, combined withe the accelerated industrialization brought about by the Civil War, our third period of oligarchy came about, commonly known as the Gilded Age. Politicians were bought and sold, African Americans were brutally suppressed by Jim Crow laws, unions were violently put down, and women still weren't allowed to vote until a mere nine years before it all came crashing down with the Great Depression.

We were fortunate that FDR was able to step in and save capitalism from itself. In the process he put some serious checks on the oligarchy, checks that kept it from starting to reform until the early seventies with Nixon. Factors such as the Southern Strategy, the Powell Memorandum(and subsequent appointment of Louis Powell to the Supreme Court), the rise of evangelical Christianity as a theocratic power, capped off and accelerated by the Reagan/Bush years. During that time oligarchy came rushing back in force, increasingly making the money game of elections more and more important, and our votes matter less.

This led us to Citizens United, and where we are today, virtually a democracy in name only, with the big money players calling the shots while we the people are almost entirely ignored. The curtains have been pulled back, the stage set struck, and we are facing that proverbial brick wall, to paraphrase Frank Zappa.

Will we even notice when democracy is gone? I contend that the better question is, except for a few brief moments, was democracy ever really here?