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Nine Months In and the Frog Is at Full Boil [1]
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Date: 2025-09-18
Over the past nine months, Americans have been living through what many call the boiling frog effect. One outrageous act follows another—an insult here, a threat there, an abuse of power that once would have dominated headlines for weeks is now overshadowed by the next. Each new act numbs us, leaving little time to process the last before the next arrives. What once looked like a drip of norm-bending and institutional insult has become something far more dangerous. This is no longer erosion. It is seizure.
The Project 2025 plan that many dismissed as far-fetched or impossible to fully implement is now taking shape in practice. The government is acting with a confidence born not from checks and balances, but from their absence.
The killing of Charlie Kirk reveals how crisis is being weaponized. The tragedy should have been a moment for coming together to decry violence. Instead, within hours, Trump and his allies declared it the work of the “radical left.” No evidence was presented, no investigation completed, yet the conclusion was announced as fact. Senior officials vowed to dismantle entire political groups they claim are connected. Violence became not a warning sign of division but an opportunity to consolidate control.
Days later, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was suspended after a monologue about Kirk’s death and the political theater surrounding it. His remarks were not jokes but observations. Within a day, his show was off the air. Federal regulators suggested that networks that failed to reflect well on the president could face scrutiny. In a healthy democracy, criticism of leaders is proof of resilience. In an authoritarian system, criticism is defined as disloyalty and punished accordingly.
Trump himself underscored the point by suggesting that television networks “against” him should perhaps lose their broadcast licenses. What might once have been dismissed as an offhand remark now carries a different weight. Authoritarian leaders rarely joke about their intentions. The purpose is not necessarily to revoke a license tomorrow but to remind journalists and executives that survival depends on obedience.
The deployment of the National Guard into American cities reinforces the pattern. Framed as necessary for public safety, federalized troops have supplanted local authority in places where dissent is strongest. The effect is less about restoring order than about demonstrating presidential power in its rawest form.
Together these actions sketch a clear picture. The politicization of tragedy, the silencing of comedians, the threats to networks, the occupation of cities—all follow the outlines of Project 2025. What once looked like disconnected scandals are revealed as pieces of a larger design.
So many Americans have struggled to recognize the danger because the daily flood of chaos has been overwhelming. Each new violation blurred into the next. Media outlets treated events as isolated scandals rather than a coordinated assault on the democratic order. Opposition voices often lacked the unity to explain that this is not politics as usual, but the systematic dismantling of democracy itself.
History teaches that democracies rarely collapse in a single night. They are hollowed out step by step until the break feels sudden and irreversible. Hungary, Turkey, and other nations provide clear examples: outrage, consolidation, silencing, normalization. By the time citizens fully recognize what has happened, the space for resistance has narrowed, or they are too frightened to speak out.
That is why this moment matters. The frog can still jump, but the water is boiling. Nine months in, we can no longer dismiss Trump’s actions as excess or showmanship. Tragedy has been weaponized, critics silenced, networks threatened, cities occupied. What once was a steady drip has become full seizure.
The question before us is not whether this is happening. It is whether we, the people, will act to stop it. Democracy does not end with a single decree. It ends when citizens grow accustomed to its absence.
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