It's incredibly difficult to stop a well-funded, 50-year plan to subvert a democracy. The attention spans of politicians, corporations, and the public are measured in days, months, or years, not decades.

After 9/11, the Bush administration was accused of abusing the crisis to expand executive power and the national security state. Those who raised the alarm about things like the Patriot Act were often dismissed as fringe alarmists.

Now, nearly 25 years later, we're seeing the downstream effects of that gradual degradation of democratic pillars.

On both sides, voters and politicians can be influenced by propaganda and campaign finance to accept small, incremental changes that don't seem dangerous in isolation, but can cumulate to crush an empire.

Every democracy carries these risks. Do we think our opponents haven't noticed?