What will Americans do when power breaks free from truth, and the lessons from our historical past, which are crucial for interpreting the present and shaping the future, are rapidly declining? Well, we are here now!
Civilizations rarely collapse in a single dramatic moment. More often, they erode quietly, grain by grain, as shared values weaken and truth becomes negotiable. History offers countless warnings about what happens when moral decay, unchecked power, and the abandonment of reason and evidence converge. Few examples are as instructive—or as haunting—as the final years of the Roman Republic.
The civic-minded, disciplined society that we fought for over the last 250 years is slowly dissipating in the rapidly corporate-driven, polluted air we are forced to breathe every day. Money-driven policies driven by billionaire/millionaire donors have neutered our political leaders; hence, wealth is rapidly concentrated in the hands of a few. Political offices are openly bought and sold, and public trust in institutions has thinned to a whisper.
This isn’t just institutional corruption; it is a deeper unraveling, a slow drift away from the shared moral framework that once held the American democracy together. Public service has been turned into a marketplace where influence is traded like stocks. Propaganda has replaced shared truth, and encounters become weaponized rumors, drowning citizens in competing realities.
In today’s America, power is concentrated in a dangerous manner. Specifically, the leadership of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Secretary of Defense commands personal loyalty from employees that eclipses loyalty to the Nation. It is apparent that, in most instances, decisions and expertise are sidelined for political advantage, not the public good. Violence has entered civic life, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers blurred the line between protecting the community and intimidating citizens.
The danger of power without truth is emerging in America because our society is losing its shared understanding of reality, making it increasingly vulnerable to manipulation. Competing narratives fracture the public into tribes, facts become optional, and emotion becomes the primary currency of persuasion. Without a commitment to truth, power no longer needs to justify itself. Without reason, it no longer needs to persuade. Without shared moral norms, it no longer needs to restrain itself.
Based on history, at some point, every society faces moments when truth becomes contested, when institutions strain, when leaders discover how easy it is to bend reality to their will. The danger isn’t simply that someone might seize too much power. The greater danger is that people stop caring whether what they hear is true. Case in point: January 6, 2025, became a turning point for truth, legitimacy, and public trust. A culture that abandons truth invites its own undoing.
In closing, America is at a turning point, and if we are to save our democracy, we must strengthen our civic virtue by rewarding our integrity, not spectacle. We must protect shared truth by supporting institutions that verify facts and elevate evidence. We must limit concentrated power and ensure no individual or faction can dominate unchecked. We must value expertise and reason and let decisions be guided by knowledge, not noise. Lastly, we must wholeheartedly reject political violence because no society can honestly debate freely when fear enters the room.
When power becomes disconnected from reason, when leaders elevate loyalty over honesty, and when people choose comforting lies over difficult facts, decline becomes inevitable. The warning is historic, but the responsibility is ours.