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 · November 2
GEO Announces ICE Deal Through the City of Big Spring, Texas, Activating a 2,329-Bed Complex
2023 · November 2Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted on All Counts in 'One of the Biggest Financial Frauds in American History'
2021 · November 2Pfizer Reports $22 Billion Profit on COVID-19 Vaccine, One of Most Profitable Drugs in History
2010 · November 2Republicans Gain Record 680 State Legislative Seats, Securing REDMAP Objectives
2007 · November 2CIA Detainee Gul Rahman Froze to Death at Black Site - No One Prosecuted for Homicide
2005 · November 2Washington Post Reveals CIA's Secret Prison Network in Eastern Europe
Recent additions to the record
GEO Announces ICE Deal Through the City of Big Spring, Texas, Activating a 2,329-Bed Complex
November 1, 2026At Dubuque Rally, Trump Says Somali Immigrants "Vote Exactly the Way They're Told" and Calls Alaska Race "Voter Fraud"; CNN Says No Evidence
November 1, 2026Colorado: Archuleta County Moves Voting Locations in Pagosa Springs Because of Flooding
November 1, 2026Rep. Haley Stevens Endorses Republican Mike Rogers Over Democratic Nominee El-Sayed Before the Michigan Senate Vote
November 1, 2026Seminole County Reissues Over 500 Mail Ballots; Supervisor Says Voters Waited, USPS Reports No Delays
October 31, 2026Mississippi Free Press: Polling-Locator Errors Remain Before Election Day; Neshoba Clerk Says Address Can't Change
October 31, 2026Newsom Writes California's Chief Federal Judges About Search Warrants for Ballots
Walz's Minnesota Truth Council preliminary report: Metro Surge and PARRIS violated constitutional rights, 70+ children detained, an estimated $244 million in lost wages
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.