This Didn’t Happen All at Once

On erosion, accountability, and the cost of looking away.

Photo by Khristian Ortiz on Unsplash

There’s something deeply unsettling about watching the country you love slowly twist into something unrecognizable, and seeing people cheer it on.

I keep asking myself: how did we get here?
How did we reach a point where federal agents can drag people from their homes in the dead of night, where rights are treated as privileges, and where questioning this erosion is met with scorn instead of solidarity?

My entire life, I was warned about this very thing: the government coming for us.
I grew up hearing that we had to be ready to stand up if tyranny ever arrived at our doorstep, that we’d fight back against authoritarianism, that we’d never allow the government to overstep its bounds.

And yet, now that it’s happening, not to “us,” but to “them”, so many of those same voices are silent. Or worse, they’re cheering it on.

And now the threat isn’t abstract.
The president is openly discussing the use of the Insurrection Act, preparing troops not to protect the public, but to quell dissent. This is the scenario I was warned about my entire life. The line we were told would never be crossed. And yet here it is, unfolding in real time.

They justify it because they’ve been told the people being taken “don’t belong here.” Because fear and dehumanization have proven easier than compassion and truth. Because it’s simpler to accept a label, illegal, criminal, other than to confront what it means to live in a country where government power can be weaponized against anyone.

What I see now isn’t patriotism.
It’s fascism hiding behind a flag, and the guise of “law and order.” It’s the quiet acceptance of cruelty when it serves one’s politics. It’s the rationalization of state violence when it targets the “right” people.

And it’s the hypocrisy of those who once cried “tyranny” over mask mandates, now applauding while the masks are worn by the ones holding the guns.

When I speak out, I’m met with two kinds of responses: affirmation from those who see what’s happening, and ridicule from those who refuse to. Some tell me, “Well, the left are the real fascists.” But when pressed to explain how, they fall back on slogans and talking points, not principles.

At this point, it’s tempting to believe the chaos began with one man. That if we could just remove him, everything would return to normal. It’s a comforting story, one that offers a clear villain and a simple ending. But the truth is harder to face.

The cracks in our democracy were forming long before Trump arrived on the scene. He didn’t build the system that enables corruption, division, and authoritarian impulses; he simply learned how to use it.

The Long Erosion

If we step back far enough, we can trace a slow and steady dismantling of the democratic guardrails that once held our leaders accountable.

From the 1970s through the 1990s, deregulation and privatization shifted power from public institutions to private interests. Corporate lobbying grew from a side industry into a central engine of policymaking. Politicians on both sides of the aisle became increasingly dependent on large donors just to remain competitive.

After 9/11, fear expanded executive power in ways we still haven’t rolled back. The Patriot Act normalized surveillance of American citizens, eroding privacy in the name of safety. Wars were launched without formal congressional declarations, setting dangerous precedents for unchecked military authority.

Then came the 2010s. Citizens United opened the floodgates to dark money in politics, allowing corporations and billionaires to quietly shape elections and policy. Gerrymandering hardened districts so thoroughly that many elections became performative, decided by party lines rather than the will of voters.

These weren’t the actions of one administration or one ideology. They were the product of decades of bipartisan complacency, each generation inheriting a weaker version of democracy than the last.

The Perfect Storm

By the time 2016 arrived, trust in government was already near historic lows. Congress was gridlocked. Elections felt more like spectacles than mechanisms of accountability. Many people no longer believed their voices mattered. The soil was fertile for a strongman.

Trump didn’t create this environment. He capitalized on it. He didn’t invent the loopholes; he exposed how many there were. The checks and balances meant to restrain executive power had already been weakened by years of neglect. Parties prioritized winning over governing. Media evolved into a business model built on outrage. All he had to do was step into the chaos and declare himself the answer.

What followed didn’t end with his first term.

January 6th marked a rupture, a moment when political grievance spilled into open defiance of democratic process. An attack on the Capitol, carried out in the name of a stolen narrative, revealed just how fragile our shared commitment to democracy had become. For some, it was a breaking point. For others, it was reframed, minimized, or justified. The lie endured, and with it, a deeper fracture in reality itself.

The years that followed were supposed to be a reset. Instead, they became a period of unresolved tension. While the Biden administration restored certain norms on paper, it struggled to restore trust in practice. Institutions remained opaque. Accountability felt selective or insufficient. Many Americans, across the political spectrum, felt unheard, dismissed, or talked past rather than engaged.

In that vacuum, distrust didn’t fade; it hardened.

Conspiracy thinking flourished. Cynicism deepened. For some, January 6th became proof of authoritarian danger. For others, it became evidence of persecution. Two incompatible narratives took root, and the space between them grew wider with each passing year.

By the time Trump returned to office in 2025, the conditions that first enabled him hadn’t disappeared; they had matured. The anger was sharper. The institutions are weaker. The appetite for strong, unilateral action is more pronounced. What once felt unthinkable now felt, to many, inevitable.

This is how democratic erosion works. Not in a single collapse, but in stages. Not through one election, but through the accumulation of distrust left unaddressed. Not because one man is uniquely dangerous, but because a system repeatedly failed to repair itself.

The Cost of Apathy

Somewhere along the way, many of us began to tune out. We became spectators rather than participants in our own government. Civic education gave way to misinformation, and social media turned politics into a team sport, red versus blue, instead of a shared responsibility.

Every time we say, “That’s just how it is,” or “All politicians lie,” we surrender a little more ground. Cynicism became fashionable. Outrage became easier than engagement. But democracy cannot survive on resignation. Participation requires hope.

Rebuilding What Was Eroded

The good news is that what’s been dismantled can be rebuilt—but only if we stop waiting for someone else to do it for us.

That means demanding transparency in campaign finance and ending the legalized bribery of big donors. It means pushing for independent redistricting so voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. It means reinvesting in civic education so citizenship doesn’t begin and end on Election Day. It means supporting democratic innovations that give people a direct voice in the policies and budgets that shape their lives.

Reform rarely comes from the top. It begins when ordinary people decide that resignation is no longer an option. Because the system isn’t some abstract machine, it’s us. The people who tolerate it, question it, or demand better.

Fascism isn’t a partisan insult.
It’s a political reality that grows when citizens trade conscience for comfort, when fear replaces empathy, and when silence becomes complicity.

So here’s the call to action, quiet, but urgent:

Pay attention.
Question narratives that ask you to fear your neighbors.
Defend due process, even when it protects people you disagree with.
Support institutions and organizations that hold power accountable.
And refuse the comfort of silence when something in your gut tells you this isn’t right.

I’ll ask the question one last time: how did we get here?
And now that we know: what will we do differently?

Because if we want to heal what’s broken, we have to stop pretending the wound is new.