#death-of-democracy

And I don't just tend to agree, I fully agree with Ty on this.

Over the course of the past decade, Trump has never once not told the American people exactly who he is. He has been parroting this narrative of wide-spread interference in elections since before he was even president, the 1st time around.

Now: just look back, at last time he was president and lost (in Nov 2020 in the lead-up and following January 6th). However, the main difference - at least back then - there were guard-rails (of sorts; certainly push-back) surrounding this thing.

There's a reason behind why SCOTUS's opinion supported a president with absolute unchecked authority. There's a reason why Trump commuted all of the J6ers, referred to them as hostages, and in recent days has been dangling a carrot of $1M - right out in front of them. Likewise, there's a reason why he is referring to socialists and leftist Demoocrats and any associated violence as "domestic terrorism": when the left, never once, has acted violently. If anything it's been the right that has shown up and demonstrated their willingness to resort to political violence.

Likewise, we've seen with both Trump and this current administration: if you offer an inch, they'll take 12 square miles. If anyone believed that we were in a constitutional crisis when this administration during his second-term, ignored the law, lower courts and even SCOTUS (on a few occasions, where they offered push-back): that was just the warm-up lap. The next four months are going to be the proving ground.

We worked too hard to develop the various freedoms afforded by democracy, to sit back and not offer up our voice. It's a price that's too big to pay and yet, we live in terrifying times, where the powers that be have decided to create an economic environment and disincentivized environment for proper pushback.

I like to continually remind people, that it was not an accident following the events of January 6th, that even corporate America recognized that his verbage and rhetoric on January 6th - was beyond problematic. And in terms of what followed: we witnessed a president gripping onto power, through any and all means necessary. This included Trump seeking kompromat on Hunter Biden, Trump installing Louis DeJoy to slow down mail, calling up Georgia state's Raffensperger, demanding/gaslighting - explicitly (not implicitly) - that Georgia's Secretary of State: find the "missing" votes - plus one, Giuliani's false slate of electors scheme, Trump directing his supporters to walk over to the capitol and "fight like hell", along with waging war on the legacy media. Per the latter, look at where that's gotten us today.

Americans have grown too comfortable (or not discomforted enough) with the idea that for all that our forefathers baked into the constitution to prepare us - and prevent this very exact situation from happening - that this very situation and the death of democracy is about to land on our doorstep. If we truly believe or expect others to solve this debacle for us, by the time it hits and we're entirely blind-sided and unprepared because the truth is "too uncomfortable" to talk about, or for one to not share and voice the undercurrent that we all sense - but are unwilling to steward, then perhaps: we're not deserving of the very same democracy that offers us all of our freedoms.

And lastly, this is not conspiracy, but: following the conclusion of WWII, FDR - the legend that was responsible for the rise of the middle-class and creation of social safety nets and entitlement programs, these programs and upwards of 95%+ taxation on the ultra-wealthy is exactly what was responsible for the rise of the middle class.

Right now, we're sitting on the precipice of the arrow leaving the bow. Once it leaves the bow, there will be no going back to the kind of freedoms that democracy endowed its society with. To be honest, in all likelihood, if democracy somehow survives this - the 'honor system' afforded by the checks and balances of power - and their associated freedoms - likely will never return. This is why Trump adored Mein Kampf, as much as he did. He recognized something that we all failed to recognize: the baked-in weaknesses of the democratic process.

Now, he plans on assailing on and subverting the will of the People. This isn't a defect, this is an absolute design feature. For the past 30-40 years, we've heard the propaganda arm, that once operated covertly and behind the scenes - silently, say the quiet parts out loud. In the lead-up to where we find ourselves now, we were promised - starting with Reagan - that trickle-down economics was absolutely a real process and thing. However, we truly don't live in a laissez-faire economic society, when we live in a capitalist system that completely devalues regulation and checks and balances, and likewise one where the ultra-wealthy billionaire class owns everything. Even they too, have said the quiet part out loud, when they said: "you will own nothing and be happy." The stock market should have experienced market-correction, long ago and following COVID-19's ravaging effects on our economy. And yet, it never came. Instead, just siphon-up economics, and a social-welfare/socialist state for capitalists, and absolutely zero - in return - for everyday hard working Americans.

I truly wish people understood that the Overton Window has gradually, but consistently shifted over, over this past decade. Abuse after abuse, in-bad-faith attempt after in-bad-faith-attempt, has been made. Now that Trump has been successful in obtaining absolute power and through the help of Project 2025, they are free to gaslight the public, squash dissent, and render anything that sounds remotely center (not even leftist), sound like extremism. Just look at the legacy media state: after over a decade of attacks on the free-press and mainstream media and the ongoing and unchecked firehose of falsehoods, this Trump-regime has been successful in their ability to force "inferred consent" through intimidation and chilling effects, alone.

This is why the independent media and theunderKurrent.com, serve as a last bastion prior to and into the lead-up of the 2026-midterms. Even if we're presented with a clear and undeniable "blue tsunami wave", this administration is just going to predicate their illegal seizing of the 2020 election ballots as a means to create the exact kind of pretext they are seeking, to claim and unsubstantiated their claims of wide-spread voter fraud and foreign interference. It's not without a morbid sense of irony, that the documents released following Trump's speech on July 16th 2026, demonstrated/corroborated that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, in a manner that worked to the advantage of Donald Trump. Likewise, it's no mystery Trump's undeniable connections to Russia: whether that be Trump Tower tenants, his lenders, his wives, or his 1980s beauty pageants. Mark Elias's Democracy Docket has been both exposing and defending against these abuses for years, and yet... regardless of what occurs within the courts, the sway/the court of public opinion - often matter to a much greater degree.

It's part of the inherent human-condition, that - as humans - we are pain-averse. We tend to avoid the very same issues, conversations, and self-examination that's necessary to transcend the problems we create, or enable. I genuinely fear that if Americans fail to start using their voice, recognize and expose the subtextual patterns of abuses, and call the abuses out right now - while in their choreographed, priming, and predicated stages: that we'll swiftly and silently lose our democracy, overnight. It won't go out in one last-big grand standing - with the public denouncing the abuses, but instead go out with a wimper and our "inferred consent" - all because we were too afraid to speak up and use our freedom of speech, as the last bastion that it is to raise public, societal and political attention and to engage actively in this discourse and the unfolding of absolute power and this authoritarian regime - not just throughout America, but by extension: throughout the remainder of western democracies, throughout the world. I'd rather we sense and identify this undercurrent (underkurrent) for what it is, rather than what we wistfully wished it wasn't. It's time to trust our gut, and offer up the courage necessary to help call out these abuses and defend democracy, for both the first and the final time. It can feel hopeless and helpless, but the voices of the majority - mean a very great deal, right now.

I would like to conclude by saying, if you haven't yet checked out the Kronology section, now's the time to do so. We're building a timeline of these subtextual abuses of power - to serve as both a memory-jogger, as well as to clearly lay out the narrative and pattern of abuses, in detail. A clear pattern has emerged, and likewise we live in a 24/7 news media cycle that lacks kuration and exposing the subtextual subversions and abuses of power, that should be sitting not only on the forefronts of our minds/guts, but moreover, should be actively voiced before it's too late. We don't need to go at this alone: we can accomplish this together.