Democracy died on the 4th of July.
The signs are everywhere: tanks on our streets. Prisons guarded by alligators. Men with shaved heads and “Mom” tattoos, kneeling in orderly rows like some AI hallucination.
The guy who bankrupted casinos didn’t design the downfall of a preeminent world power, of course. He opened the door, though. If he’d fallen from grace—or the Air Force One staircase—before July 4th, we might have woken from this nightmare largely intact.
Instead we move, zombie-like, through a swirling dystopian miasma. Half-glimpsed threats snarl before subsiding and reforming. DOGE melts away as Palantir snaps its teeth.
We need a battle plan rooted in reality. It’s always too late to fight fascism, but it’s never soon enough. If you were waiting for Trump to die, it won’t help now.
On July 4th, Congress passed “Trump’s” budget, which reads like a Project 2025 wish list. It’s not the Heritage Foundation’s first win. President Ronald Reagan executed more than 60% of their first manifesto before I was old enough to vote. [1]
They capitalized quickly on the MAGA Messiah’s unexpected 2016 victory. Trump stumbled into the Oval Office not just with their newest “blueprint,” but with dossiers of staff to run the country while he golfed.
They had eight years to plan, this time.
On the new budget’s long list of economic travesty, this blazes brightly: a federal police force that would drop Hitler’s jaw. ICE’s budget is unimaginably large, exceeding the military budgets of Italy or Israel. [2] Larger than the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and Federal Bureau of Prisons combined, this isn’t about immigration:
ICE has fewer constitutional controls than the Army and answers to federal leadership, not states. Built into the DNA of this armed, domestic behemoth is Palantir, Peter Thiel’s AI/data analysis/cybersecurity company. [3]
Rat King of the Tech Bros, Peter Thiel has a manifesto, too. Curtis Yarvin, philosopher-prophet of the technocrat princelings, is who first instructed MAGA to “take the red pill.” Yarvin proposed “liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law.” [4] Then an obscure, pseudonymous blogger, Yarvin derived “Dark Enlightenment” from dystopian sci-fi and actual innovation, advocating a neo-libertarian techno-feudalism complete with human slavery.
Men like Musk and Thiel vie to immanentize his vision—and wear the crown.
I can’t tell you whether the patient, well organized Christian Nationalists or the rash, unimaginably wealthy Tech Bros will win the battle for power after Trump passes (J.D. Vance has extensive ties to both [5], [6]), but I know this: we won’t.
Not if we keep waiting for a savior.
We voted ourselves right over the edge of the map. These are our monsters, so pick up your sword.
Fascism and its handmaiden authoritarianism are rising worldwide, not just in America. There’s always an undercurrent, of course. Nazis never die away entirely, and human greed is perpetual. Fear drives us towards these strongmen, skulking in the alleys.
“Psst. Buddy…I got yer clear, simplistic answers right heah…”
There’s plenty to be afraid of, of course. Climate change brings “once in a century” floods and droughts and fires several times each year. The same forces driving our inability to address it also fuel income inequality and strip our safety nets for parts. Reagan set us on this path, which is to say that the Heritage Foundation did. Pull back the curtain on our greatest national mistakes, and chances are you’ll see their shadow.
Meanwhile, we now live in a perpetual fishbowl, tracked and monetized online by indifferent forces intent on addicting us to the serotonin hit of another “like.” We can’t just opt out—where would we build our hermit’s cabin? And won’t AI make us all irrelevant soon, anyway? Russia’s 2016 electoral interference looks quaint beside today’s AI-fueled disinformation—and “people.” What’s a recently unemployed internet troll to do?
And just six months into Trump’s second term, we have so much more to be afraid of. It’s the paradox of authoritarianism: power seeks to grow, so authoritarians can’t risk solving problems. By failing to fulfill their promises, they sow more fear and reap more power.
We’re still in the early stages. They wouldn’t have fought to gerrymander Texas if elections didn’t matter. Checkpoints exist on our streets, but civilians can still divert traffic without being shot down. The regime loses in courts ruled by judges who remain free, for now.
It is always too late to fight fascism, but power never yields voluntarily. We will never have more power than we have today. Not until we win, and that requires action.
The MAGA messiah may have carried old, warring powers into our Oval Office, but we can’t restore democracy the same way. Democracy is the manifestation of the collective power of the people. It cannot be won by a strongman or a military coup. It lives and burns within We, the People.
No one is coming to save us. No one can. If we want democracy back, we have to fight for it one brave citizen at a time.
The fight against fascism begins within ourselves.
[2] https://represent.us/explains/ice-accountability/
[4] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile
Wow, I will share this with family /friends. So well stated. We the people matter and must be weakened in force to fight this Administration and Project 2025.