In Athens last week, I walked among ruins around which the modern city had grown. Stone columns beside electric vehicles. The air itself carries argument between old and new. The remains of the Acropolis loom over the city. Hadrian’s Library is tucked into a neighborhood.

All reminders that democracy can be razed.

At the Athens Democracy Forum, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa gave the Aristotle Lecture. She warned of the rise of impunity. Seventy-two percent of the world’s population now lives under authoritarian rule.

Ressa knows whereof she speaks. She fought the Philippine dictator Rodrigo Duterte, and at one time faced a hundred years’ worth of charges. Duterte now awaits trial in The Hague.

At the Forum, the collapse of rule of law in the United States was part of every conversation. And people spoke of reform—of polarization, of inequality, of the failures of governance. All true.

Yet as I boarded the plane home, I wondered whether any of it mattered while the house itself burns.

* * *

ITEM. On September 25, a presidential memo instructed federal agencies to treat civil society itself as a potential threat, sweeping nonprofits, donors, community groups, and others into the frame of “domestic terrorism.”

The memo, NSPM-7, lays the foundation to criminalize the very things our Constitution protects: free speech, assembly, redress of grievances. It reads:

“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

The plan’s details include pursuing funders and organizations supporting almost any form of dissent.

ITEM. On the same day, a spare two-count indictment was delivered against former FBI director James Comey, now a private citizen. This came after relentless pressure on the Justice Department by Donald Trump and the firing of prosecutors who had refused to bring the case. Comey replied simply, “Let’s have a trial.”

The plan, according to reports, is a full public perp walk with handcuffs, tactical gear, “beefy” personnel, and cameras ready. One agent has reportedly already lost his job for refusing to take part in the spectacle.

ITEM. Days later, on September 30, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed hundreds of senior officers who had been summoned to Quantico. Between jabs at “fat generals” and “dudes in dresses,” Hegseth said: “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.”

Trump echoed him, making clear who those enemies are: “The next fight will be from within.”

This is the language of internal war. The military’s mission will no longer be limited to foreign enemies but will soon include domestic ones.

The assembled officers met the remarks with stony silence.

ITEM. The same day, in Chicago, ICE agents rappelled from helicopters and stormed an apartment building. Agents rousted everyone indiscriminately, including United States citizens. Children were pulled from beds and zip-tied. Dozens were detained without clarity about status or charges. Officials said some suspects were “believed” to be linked to drug trafficking.

All in one week.

* * *

A friend asserted the other night, “We are six months away from death squads.”

I cannot stop thinking about that. Hyperbole, perhaps. Still, weigh it against what is already unfolding.

Raids and killings framed as routine operations. A presidential memo defining political violence so broadly that any dissent qualifies. Domestic opponents treated with counterterrorism tools. Spectacle replacing legitimacy. Masked agents, propaganda, humiliation. War logic applied at home.

We may not yet have death squads roaming neighborhoods. But ICE already acts as secret police, and the military is already on the streets. Look at Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, Portland.

* * *

Here at home, what threatens democracy most is no longer disinformation, polarization, or apathy. It is the state itself, turned inward against its people. The National Guard now patrols streets in American cities. Federal agents break doors in the name of order.

From Manila to Moscow to Budapest to Ankara to Washington, the pattern repeats. The strongman will blame disorder, then claim the right to restore it.

Many watch, hoping that guardrails will stop the slide. But the machinery is not waiting. It is already in motion.

In every era, citizens tell themselves it cannot happen here until it already has.

Fiddle, Rome.