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 13
ICE Agents Fatally Shoot 26-Year-Old Colombian Man in Biddeford, Maine — No Body Cameras Worn
2025 · July 13Christ Kirk DC Inaugural Service: Wilson's CREC Denomination Plants in Capitol Hill Building Owned by Conservative Partn
2024 · July 13X Algorithm Modified to Amplify Musk and Right-Wing Content Following Trump Endorsement
2022 · July 13Celsius Network Files Bankruptcy After Freezing $4.7 Billion in Customer Deposits, Exposing Crypto Regulatory Void
2022 · July 13Ring admits providing police with warrantless access to user footage 11 times in 2022
2018 · July 13HHS Inspector General Finds Tom Price Violated Federal Travel Rules, Wasted $341,000 on Private Jets
Recent additions to the record
ICE Agents Fatally Shoot 26-Year-Old Colombian Man in Biddeford, Maine — No Body Cameras Worn
GENIUS Act's July 18 Deadline Looms: Banks Poised to Enter Stablecoin Market as Trump's WLFI Conflict Intensifies
McConnell Discloses Mid-June Fall Caused Weeks-Long Hospitalization, Cites Post-Polio Condition
OSINT Investigation Documents ICE Using Vehicle-Containment Tactics Designed for Violent Felons in Routine Civil Stops
Senator Lindsey Graham Dies at 71; SC Governor to Appoint Graham's Sister to Hold Seat
Federal Judge Orders Washington State Health Inspectors Into Tacoma GEO Group ICE Facility
Nevada Federal Judge Rules ICE Is 'Rebelling' Against Court Order, Forces Release of 17 Detainees
Trump Fires Remaining Election Assistance Commission Members Nine Days After Humphrey's Executor Overturned
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.