Democracy doesn’t fall.
It cascades.
4288 verified events. 7,682 named actors. Court records, government filings, investigative reporting — sourced and indexed from 1142 to today.
Which capture lane was dominant when?
Each year normalized to 100% — the bands show which mechanisms of institutional capture were most prominent across 56 years of record. Hover a band to isolate it. Click any year to enter that year.
On this day · September 25
POGO Exposes Ballard Partners Clients Winning No-Bid ICE Biometric Surveillance Contracts
2025 · September 25Former FBI Director James Comey Indicted by Unlawfully Appointed Prosecutor Halligan
2025 · September 25Federal Grand Jury Indicts Former FBI Director James Comey for Disclosure of Sensitive Information
2025 · September 25DOJ Orders Federal Prosecutors to Investigate George Soros' Open Society Foundations for Alleged Terrorism Ties
2025 · September 25DOJ Sues Six States to Seize Voter Data Including Social Security Numbers and Driver's Licenses
2025 · September 25Trump's Hand-Picked Prosecutor Indicts James Comey Days After Trump Demands DOJ Act 'Now'
Recent additions to the record
Clearfield County Approves Six-Month Moshannon ICE Extension 2-1, Citing School Tax Base and Its Own Oversight
Prince William County Supervisors Vote 8-0 to End By-Right Data Center Development, Requiring Special Use Permits
September 22, 2026Trump Tells UN General Assembly U.S. Documents Will Call AI 'Super,' Rejects 'Globalist Scheme' to Control AI
Bessent Proposes U.S.-China AI Safety Incident Notification Channel in New York Talks With He Lifeng
ICE Agent Shoots Venezuelan Delivery Driver in Austin; HSI and FBI Investigate, Travis County DA Seeks Independent Probe
State Department Data Shows 10,255 of 10,258 FY2026 Refugee Admissions Were South Africans — 99.97% Under EO 14204
White House Bars CNN, Politico, and MS NOW Reporters as Secret Service Confiscates Press Badges at the Gate
Expanded Public Charge Rule Takes Effect With No Injunction — No Emergency Motion on Either SDNY Docket
Curated timelines
Hand-picked swimlane views — pick a thread and read the cascade as it built. Each is a story you can read in five minutes and share as a URL.
Eleven named figures, one think tank, and a transition team blueprint that became governance in real time.
From Reagan-era founding through the six-three majority — the named architects and the justices they …
The Roberts Court ruling on January 21, 2010 — and the cascade of dark money, super PACs, and constitutional …
Two corporations, one agency, and a quarter-century of building the infrastructure that 2025 weaponized.
Both terms on one chart. The first term was chaotic, the second is operational. The difference is the …
Jeffrey Epstein's operation depended on institutional cooperation — from a U.S. Attorney's secret …
Built to be used
Compose, share, cite.
Pick actors. Set a year range. Filter by lane. The chart re-renders live; the URL is the citation. Every event has stable IDs and a JSON endpoint.
For journalistsPatterns, not anecdotes.
Twelve capture lanes show coordination across decades. Actor pages plot every event on a swimlane. Source tiers tell you what is court-record solid.
For citizensRead it as history.
Walk decade by decade. Every event has plain-language context: what happened, why it matters, where it fits in the cascade.
The most-documented actors
The patterns become unmistakable when you put them in order.
This timeline is the data layer for an ongoing investigation. The reporting traces how each captured institution enables the next.