In June 2025, Donald Trump threatened Elon Musk with “serious consequences” for supporting Democratic candidates. Musk had criticized Trump’s bloated budget bill—a rare act of dissent from his most powerful financial backer. The president didn’t debate. He retaliated.
In a functioning republic, that would provoke outrage. Instead, it passed like noise. The Supreme Court has granted presidents near-total immunity. Legal recourse? Gone. Musk—one of the richest, most influential people alive—has no protection, no path, no rights the system will defend. And that’s the point. This is the last straw. Not because Musk is special—but because even he isn’t safe.
Musk, once a progressive icon, turned right seeking freedom, order, and respect for enterprise. He became its loudest megaphone—and its deepest pocket. Now he’s threatened by the very machine he helped fund.
This isn’t about politics anymore. It’s about power. If Trump’s biggest donor can be silenced, the illusion is shattered: the system serves no one but itself.
But this didn’t appear from nowhere. It’s the culmination of decades of bipartisan decay: Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, the 2008 collapse, the birther movement, the rise of Palin and Trump, the sabotage of Obamacare, court-packing, January 6 pardons, a $34 trillion debt, congressional paralysis, and silence in the face of Gaza, climate collapse, and mass shootings. At every step, we moved on. No accountability. No reckoning. Just an amnesiac march forward—as if memory were weakness and reflection, surrender.
What ties it all together? We let it happen. Every failure above was not just a policy collapse—but a civic one. Not just betrayal from above—but disengagement from below.
Democracy didn’t fail by accident. It failed because it was built on faith, not safeguards—on assumed virtue, not limits. On the belief that those in power wouldn’t abuse it. That belief was wrong. The disease isn’t division—it’s democracy itself, where ignorance is sanctified and every fool’s vote weighs as much as the wise. Yet in supreme irony, some think the cure is more democracy—that every last idiot must vote, that a drowning man needs more water.
Government is a contract: the people surrender sovereignty for justice, safety, and liberty. But when that contract breaks, there’s no clause for revocation. No legal exit. You can renounce citizenship and leave—as many now consider. But exile is not reform. Escape is not remedy.
What’s left? Protest is ignored. Voting is rigged. Insurrection, like January 6, becomes farce—or worse, pretext for a police state. Any real reset would meet not negotiation, but martial law. We’re trapped: bound to a system we can’t exit, ruled by a contract we can’t renegotiate, surrounded by powers we can’t remove.
What’s needed isn’t violence. It’s vision. Not a mob—but a plan. Not reaction—but replacement. We need a new framework. A post-democracy Manhattan Project. But instead, our brightest minds are tied to institutions that demand obedience to a dying model. The few with clarity lack a platform. The few with platforms lack courage. Name one mainstream thinker who’ll say democracy is dead. You can’t. Because speaking that truth would cost them everything. So silence deepens. And the burden falls not to them—but to us.
Still, we look for someone else to blame: the politicians, the billionaires, the courts, the other side. But here’s the truth I can no longer avoid: I am the problem. This is my government. By me. For me. There is no “they” in democracy. Only “we.” And if “we” failed, then I failed.
I tolerated lies when they were convenient. I ignored cruelty because it spared me. I mocked instead of stood. I watched instead of acted. I waited—always—for someone else to do what I wouldn’t. Every time I pointed fingers, I gave power away. Every time I stayed quiet, I helped keep the silence. I didn’t just witness the rot. I helped sustain it. I am the boiling frog.
If the system reflects its builders—then it reflects me. And if it’s beyond repair, I must stop pretending someone else will fix it.
The first act of rebuilding is not outrage—it’s ownership. Not blame, but responsibility. Not despair, but clarity. No one will throw in the towel for me. I have to drop it. And once I do, I can begin again—not with rage, but with resolve.
We say we want change. Then we must become the kind of people who deserve it. Only then can we build what comes next—together. Deliberately. Without illusions. Not to restore the past—but to finally outgrow it.
- Not One of US