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 7
Cornell University Agrees to Pay $60 Million and Accept Federal Oversight to Restore Research Funding
2025 · November 7ICE Bans Prayer Outside Broadview Detention Center
2025 · November 7Letitia James Files Vindictive Prosecution Motion to Dismiss Federal Charges
2025 · November 7Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Full SNAP Payments to 42 Million Americans
2024 · November 7Wolfe on Webbon Election Night Livestream — "Our Separation From Vance Is Not That Far"
2019 · November 7Trump admits misusing Foundation for business/politics; $2M penalty, mandatory training
Recent additions to the record
San Francisco Chronicle: ICE's Own Mortality Reviews, Obtained Under FOIA, Found Deficient Medical Care Preceded 23 of 29 Detainee Deaths From January 2025 to January 2026
November 6, 2026Sun-Times: Flock Safety Gave Campaign Money to Illinois Officials Whose Agencies Use Its Plate Readers, About $485,000 to Candidates Since Early 2024
November 6, 2026Trump Names Stephen Miller, Architect of His Immigration Crackdown, White House Chief of Staff, Replacing Susie Wiles After Midterm Losses
November 6, 2026U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, Whose Office Ran the "Grand Conspiracy" Probe of Trump Foes, and National Security Division Chief John Eisenberg Resign
November 5, 2026DOJ Counselor Henry Whitaker Moves to Withdraw in the Letitia James Appeal, Saying He Is Leaving the Government
November 5, 2026DOJ Launches Super Intelligence Task Force, Merges Its AI Task Force Into It and Asks Prosecutors to Notify It Before Charging SI Matters
November 5, 2026DOJ Sues Penn State Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students, Its 27th Suit Against In-State Tuition Policies
November 5, 2026Florida's 27th Congressional District: Democrat Eliott Rodriguez Demands Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Alina Garcia Recuse From Recount After She Called Salazar the Winner
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.