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 · July 28
Augusta Township, MI: Referendum on Thor Equities $1B Data Center Rezoning Hits August 4 Ballot
2025 · July 28EPA Delays Methane Pollution Rules for Oil and Gas Industry, Adding Equivalent of 25 Million Cars' Emissions
2025 · July 28ICE blocks members of Congress from detention facilities, violating oversight law
2025 · July 28SEC chair attended Don Jr.'s party before SEC granted Don Jr.-backed gun company approval to go public
2025 · July 28Trump’s budget bill benefits private immigration detention companies that donated to Trump
2019 · July 28Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats Resigns After Repeated Conflicts with Trump Over Russia
Recent additions to the record
Augusta Township, MI: Referendum on Thor Equities $1B Data Center Rezoning Hits August 4 Ballot
July 27, 2026Congress Quietly Eliminated ICE Biweekly Detention Data Mandate — New Analysis Finds 16% Undercount
EU AI Act Full Enforcement Begins August 2 — Facial Recognition Bans, High-Risk AI Rules Binding
Escambia County FL Commissioners Vote 5-0 That Data Centers 'Not Permitted' Under Land Code
July 24, 2026ICE Plans 1,400-Bed Detention Center at Shuttered Rivers Correctional in Hertford County, NC
Nun Detained by ICE While Walking to Daily Mass in Texas — Speaks Out for First Time
Police Experts Flag ICE Agent Vetting Failures as Agency Doubles Force Under OBBB Hiring Push
The Intercept Documents Four ICE Deaths in One Week; Hearing Contradicts DHS Account of Salgado Araujo Shooting
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.