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 · October 16
Former NSA John Bolton Indicted on 18 Federal Counts
2025 · October 16DOJ Unseals First Federal Terrorism Charges Against Alleged Antifa Members in Prairieland Case
2025 · October 16Judge Alexakis Orders CBP Agent Exum's Vehicle Returned from Maine After Government Released Evidence Out of State
2025 · October 16Pentagon Strips Press Credentials After Hegseth Imposes Rules Labeling Journalists as Security Risks
2025 · October 16Planet Labs Wins $12.8M NGA Contract for AI Maritime Surveillance in Asia-Pacific
2025 · October 16Ring partners with Flock Safety and Axon, reversing privacy commitments and expanding police surveillance
Recent additions to the record
Ballard Partners Q3 Report for Aldyl Energia Shows $200,000 Income; Ketchel and LaRosa Listed as No Longer Expected to Lobby
Burkman and Wohl's Firm Reports $163,000 from Rajendra Parikh, Sentenced in a Maryland Bank-Fraud Case, for 'Pursuing a Federal Pardon'
October 15, 2026DOJ Sues California, Weber and LA County's Logan in C.D. Cal. to Bar Tabulating Mail Ballots of Over 20,000 Voters DHS Flags as Likely Noncitizens
Donor Eric Deters sues Guilfoyle and her lawyers in Kenton Circuit Court (KY) for defamation; says in video discovery will include Donald Trump Jr. and 'might just bring down the entire Trump administration'
Fired FBI Employees Sue Patel and Blanche in D.D.C. (Bacon v. Patel, 1:26-cv-03604)
FT, Citing Four Unnamed People: Witkoff and Kushner Proposed in Miami That Europe Unfreeze Some Russian Sovereign Assets Into a Washington-Overseen Vehicle; Europeans Said No
October 15, 2026League of Women Voters, EPIC and LULAC Sue DHS Over Voter-Data Collection Policy; Complaint Alleges Voter Files From At Least 47 States
Nine Senators (Shaheen, Tillis Lead) Write the Pentagon Inspector General Asking for an Investigation of the Ukraine Starlink/Starshield Restrictions and Intelligence-Sharing Disruptions; Letter Does Not Cite Sec. 1244
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.