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 · May 14
Former Qatar Lobbyist Bondi Approves $400M Qatari Plane Gift to Trump
2025 · May 14EPA Rolls Back PFAS Drinking Water Protections, Delays Enforcement, Terminates Research Grants
2025 · May 14Gabbard Fires Two Career Intelligence Officials Whose Venezuela Assessment Contradicted White House
2025 · May 14Musk adviser may make as much as $1 million a year while helping to dismantle agency that regulates Tesla and X
2025 · May 14Trump Commerce Secretary's Crypto Firm Ties to El Salvador Reveal Complex Business Networks
2025 · May 14Trump’s Middle East visit comes as his family deepens its business, crypto ties in the region
Recent additions to the record
DHS Files Zero Privacy Impact Assessments in 2026 While Operating $1B No-Bid Palantir Surveillance Network
Former GEO Group SVP David Venturella Named Acting ICE Director, Completing Revolving-Door Loop
ICE Issues Memo Requiring 48-Hour Prior Approval and Named-Detainee ID for All Congressional Oversight Visits
Iran War Drives U.S. Inflation to 3.8% — Highest in Nearly Three Years; Gas Above $4/Gallon; Brent at $105
Robert Reich Publishes Substack Piece Describing 25th Amendment 'Plot to Oust Trump'; Names Vance, Rubio, Johnson, Thune, Hegseth, Blanche; 30% Probability Within Four Months
Trump Calls Iran Ceasefire 'On Life Support' as War Hits Week 10; Pentagon Comptroller Reveals $29 Billion U.S. Cost
Trump DOJ Asks Court to Pause Section 122 Tariff Ruling; Signals Emergency Supreme Court Appeal if Denied
U.S. Spy Agencies Seek Expanded Power Over AI Regulation as Trump Admin Internal Battle Pits Intelligence Community Against Commerce Department
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.