What seems to have happened in the past decade & accelerating since the 2020s is that, as the neoliberalism consensus collapses, the former veneer of democracy, free speech and the rule of law has been completely abrogated. In its place, we have entered an openly imperial era in which the previous verities mean little, even if they are still used for rhetorical purposes. Recent actions in Venezuela, or the rolling unrest in US cities and response to it are examples of the new reality. The picture is complicated by the fact that, as late as probably the 2000s, there was basically a consensus among the elites that kept things stable. But more and more, the system has fallen into factions which disagree about the course of action. These factions existed before but the tension was less. Now, it has reached the point where the stability of the state is threatened. For example, factions disagreed whether we should focus on foreign or domestic policy, whether we should have mass immigration or a more restricted system, and so on. During the heyday of neoliberalism, the "open society" advocates mostly won out. That is less common now. But now, it reaches the point where political factions try to achieve the most extreme outcomes in the shortest amount of time, knowing the limitations of term of office, which still exists as an artifact of the democratic-republican age. Which, I must stress, is an *anomaly* of Western history, the largest part of which was aristocratic, monarchical, or some combination thereof. Given current trends it is probably leading to the dictator for life model as has already been adopted in Russia or China. Until that time, we can expect escalating chaos. None of this is exactly new - the late Roman republic would have found such a situation very recognizable. We are not Romans but humans are broadly the same across ages and there are "rhymes" as they say.