Publisher's Synopsis
For fifty years, America's democratic institutions have been systematically dismantled while maintaining the appearance of functionality. This wasn't an accident or natural decay - it was a sophisticated campaign of sabotage that transformed public institutions from servants of democratic good into tools of plutocratic power.
Drawing on extensive historical analysis, this book traces how corporate interests methodically hollowed out democratic institutions, wealthy power brokers normalized corruption, and political leaders surrendered principle for profit. It reveals how media systems were degraded, labor power broken, and public discourse poisoned - all while maintaining just enough democratic appearance to prevent revolt.
Most crucially, it exposes how democratic leaders consistently failed to recognize or resist this systematic destruction, treating coordinated attacks as normal political disagreement until resistance became impossible. From Carter's moral blindness to Clinton's corporate embrace to Obama's institutional faith, the book shows how democracy's defenders repeatedly missed opportunities to halt the decay.
The culmination of this democratic dismantling - the criminal's return to power - represents not an aberration but the logical endpoint of decades of democratic surrender. This book provides the deep context needed to understand not just how we got here, but why traditional resistance strategies no longer work, and what this means for democracy's future.
Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how America's democratic experiment is being transformed into sophisticated corporate feudalism - not through revolution but through careful management, not through force but through systematic erosion of democratic substance while maintaining democratic form.
