Ask anyone in this country whether the United States could become a totalitarian regime and you’ll hear the same answer:

“Not here.”

We’re the land of the free. We’re the guardians of democracy. We have checks and balances, free elections, a Constitution. That sort of thing happens in banana republics and history books—not in America.

And that’s exactly how it happens.

Because tyranny doesn’t walk through the front door in jackboots—it slips in the back, wearing a flag pin.

It doesn’t declare itself in year one—it builds, administration by administration, until the institutions designed to stop it are so hollowed out that it no longer needs to ask permission.

This is the slow American tyranny—not sudden, but inevitable.

And we are closer than anyone wants to admit.

The Reagan Era: Planting the Seed of Distrust

Let’s begin with the holy icon of conservative America: Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s presidency marked a turning point—not because he declared war on democracy, but because he began a long campaign of dismantling trust in government.

He famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

That line became gospel. What followed was a calculated undermining of regulatory bodies, workers’ rights, and federal oversight. Government was no longer seen as a tool of the people—it was an enemy to be feared.

The result? A disempowered public and an empowered elite.

A citizenry taught to distrust the very institutions designed to protect them.

It was the perfect environment for future authoritarians.

The W Years: Security Over Liberty

After 9/11, President George W. Bush gave us the Patriot Act, mass surveillance, indefinite detention, and a war waged on lies. The public, terrified and grieving, went along. Civil liberties were sacrificed for the illusion of safety. Dissent was labeled unpatriotic.

We accepted a permanent state of emergency, where the government could spy, detain, and kill in the name of national security. We normalized unitary executive theory, paving the way for a presidency that no longer answered to Congress or the courts.

This wasn’t tyranny yet—but it was the blueprint.

The Obama Era: Hope, But No Reckoning

Barack Obama ran on change and won. But he did not undo the surveillance state. He did not prosecute the architects of torture or the financiers of collapse. Instead, he normalized the tools of unchecked power—using drones to kill citizens without trial and expanding executive authority while speaking eloquently of restraint.

Worse still, he failed to rebuild trust in institutions.

And in that vacuum, rage and paranoia festered.

Fox News, birtherism, the Tea Party—the fire was lit under Obama’s feet, and the Left barely noticed the far-right organizing for the future.

Obama didn’t bring tyranny.

But he left the doors unlocked.

The First Trump Administration: Laughing All the Way to Collapse

Donald Trump didn’t have to build authoritarian infrastructure.

He inherited it.

All he had to do was use it—and use it he did.

He weaponized the DOJ, defied congressional subpoenas, attacked the press, and surrounded himself with cronies and sycophants. He dangled pardons to allies and called for prosecutions of opponents. He normalized lies so thoroughly that truth became a partisan issue.

And when he lost an election, he tried to end democracy altogether.

It wasn’t subtle.

It was loud, proud, and televised.

And it was met with shrugs.

Why?

Because still, even then, millions said:

“It can’t happen here.”

Joe Biden Looked The Other Way

Let’s not pretend the Biden administration is some heroic break in the chain. While Biden spoke the language of democracy, he did little to reverse the machinery of authoritarianism left behind. The surveillance state remained intact. Whistleblowers were still punished. Executive power? Bloated. And when the opportunity came to truly hold the architects of the January 6 violence accountable—to draw a hard line against authoritarian rot—he flinched. In trying to “restore normalcy,” Biden too often preserved the very structures that made Trump possible, leaving the next tyrant with the same loaded weapon—just waiting to be fired again.

The Second Trump Administration: The Crown Returns

Trumps return to power came with no “adults in the room.” There are no clear guardrails within the Executive Branch. This time, the plan is open: purge the civil service, weaponize the military, gut the courts, crush dissent, and rule through loyalists alone.

Project 2025 is not a conspiracy theory—it’s a playbook, written by the Heritage Foundation and embraced by Trump’s inner circle. They don’t want a republic.

They want a strongman state, cloaked in flags and prayer, powered by vengeance. They want subservience, flattery and a country of sheep. The first Trump administration created a culture of stupidity and pride in denying science, critical thinking and rational discourse. He managed to divide us, each side hating the other and sure they are the righteous ones…and now our country is ripe for the totalitarianism Trump so deeply admires.

They don’t even hide it anymore.

The Next Administration: Redemption or Final Descent

What happens next may be our last choice. Because once tyranny consolidates, it rarely loosens its grip.

There will be no dramatic explosion of democracy. There will be only the quiet suffocation of it.

Will the next administration—whoever leads it—reverse the erosion? Will our next president restore due process, free speech, press freedom, institutional integrity?

Or will they continue to look the other way, happy to inherit unchecked power, convinced that they are the good guys and don’t need restraints? Will they continue embracing oligarchy and elitism at the expense of the rest of us?

Every day from now until November 2028 is critical. Activate yourself. Make noise, raise issues loudly and often, don’t let these bastards take away our country and replace it with anything even close to fascism and the stench of tyranny.

This is not about Republicans and Democrats. This is not about division. This is the time to be an American that JFK or FDR, Lincoln or Jefferson would recognize. This is the time to listen to George Washington’s warnings about splitting into parties and not thinking for yourselves.

Right now, as you read this: this is the moment.

The most dangerous thought we can have right now is the one we’ve been told our entire lives:

“It can’t happen here.”

Because it can.

Because it is happening.

And unless we act like it, believe it, and fight like hell to stop it—

it will.