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 3
OMB Director Russ Vought Uses Shutdown to Execute Mass Federal Purges
2025 · October 3SCOTUS second shadow-docket stay in Noem v. National TPS Alliance pauses summary judgment order restoring Venezuelan TPS
2025 · October 3Supreme Court Uses Emergency Docket to Expand Presidential Power
2025 · October 3Noem Tells ICE Agents at Broadview to "Go Hard" and "Hammer These Guys"
2024 · October 3NGA Awards BlackSky $290M Luno A Contract for AI-Powered Global Surveillance
2021 · October 3Pandora Papers Expose Global Elite's Offshore Financial Networks
Recent additions to the record
Family of Renee Good Files Two Federal Lawsuits Against Trump Administration Over Fatal ICE Shooting
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha on Detention Without Bond Hearings
Wayne County Overrides Executive Veto on Google Data Center Tax Break; Michigan Regulators Approve DTE Power Deal
DOJ Announces Wave of 90 Election Cases in 12 Days; DHS Claims 1,600 Fraud Investigations Ahead of Midterms
Georgia Judge Dismisses DOJ Voter Data Lawsuit, Trump Administration's 26th Loss
California Bans Electrical Shock Gloves After ICE Bought 6,000 Pairs for $16.7 Million; DHS Says It 'Will Not Abide'
DHS Budgets Nearly $17M to Expand Batavia ICE Facility with Soft-Sided Structure for Migrant Women; Mullin Letter Reveals Medical Staffing Gaps
DOJ Charges Garces Perez With Assaulting a Federal Officer; DHS's Official Account of the Stop and CBP One Dispute Become Public
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.