Guardrails by Jaci Turner Democracy doesn’t fail because someone breaks the law. It fails when the law is still there but no longer heavier than power. It fails when enforcement learns to look up before it looks at the facts, 🧵

It fails when money learns a second language, when donations sound like access and loyalty sounds like protection, and no one calls it bribery because it isn’t written down. It fails when leaders ask for trust instead of restraint,

when they promise respect for the law rather than building walls they cannot climb. But it doesn’t disappear all at once. It pauses— waiting to see if anyone notices that pressure has replaced choice, that power has begun to negotiate with itself, that silence is being called stability.