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 · August 27
Trump Convenes Oval Office Meeting on Gaza Development With Jared Kushner's Business Interests Central
2025 · August 27US Imposes 50% Tariff on India for Buying Russian Oil, Exempts Apple
2025 · August 27India Hires Mercury Public Affairs for $75,000/Month Amid Trump Tariff Threats
2025 · August 27Silicon Valley Launches $200 Million Super PAC to Block AI Regulations Ahead of Midterms
2020 · August 27Trump Delivers RNC Acceptance Speech from White House South Lawn in Unprecedented Mass Hatch Act Violation Event
2007 · August 27Questcor Raises Acthar Gel Price from $1,600 to $23,000 Overnight - Eventually Reaching 97,000% Increase Through Bribery
Recent additions to the record
Church Plaintiffs File Non-Compliance Motion Against DHS, Attaching a Whipple Shield ROI Documenting an Undercover Agent Inside University Baptist Church
Intercept: ICE Coordinated With Iranian Government to Deport 100+ Iranians Across Four Flights, Launched During the Twelve-Day War
Lake Worth Beach Faces Vote on 10-Year, $16M-Per-Year PBSO Contract Advocates Say Deepens ICE Collaboration
August 18, 2026Memphis Committee Advances 12-Month Data Center Moratorium as Greensboro Hearing Anchors Spreading NC Wave
August 18, 2026SEC Proposes Regulation Crypto Assets: $75M Offering Exemption and a Safe Harbor That Sunsets Securities Status
Federal Judge Dismisses DOJ's Minnesota Voter-Roll Suit as a 'Fishing Expedition,' Pushing the Department to 0-23 in Court
Flock Safety Adds Privacy Controls as Cities and Legislatures Exit ALPR Contracts Across Its 6,000-Community Network
The $150M Award Collapses From the Recipient's Side: Burke Law Group Withdraws From ORR's Single-Source Children's-Counsel Agreement, and ORR Never Says Why
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.