How an Open Society Collapses
The disintegration of a free open society is rarely a sudden rupture, it is a structural rot, a “slow-boiling” process driven by deep-seated trauma and a profound shift in how we view our neighbors.
The disintegration of a free open society is rarely a sudden rupture, it is a structural rot, a “slow-boiling” process driven by deep-seated trauma and a profound shift in how we view our neighbors.
To understand our current path, we must look at the blueprint of the past, specifically the fall of the Weimar Republic. This was Germany’s experiment in an open society from 1919 to 1933. The parallels lie not in the personalities of the leaders, but in the social conditions that render a population receptive to “strongman” worship and the dismantling of the norms that keep a society open.
9/11 and the Permanent Emergency
In history, the Weimar Republic failed because it relied on Article 48. This was a constitutional loophole that allowed the President to rule by decree during an “emergency.” It was intended as a safeguard, but it eventually became the tool that killed the open society.
Our modern “Article 48” moment began on September 11, 2001. This was the day we accepted that “emergency” could be a permanent state of being. We traded the “burden of freedom” for the illusion of security. This ushered in an era of executive expansion that never truly receded.
The most physical manifestation of this shift was the creation and massive expansion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What began as a move to coordinate fragmented agencies quickly ballooned into a sprawling federal behemoth. By centralizing law enforcement, intelligence, and border control under one roof, we created a “state within a state.” Over time, this led to the inevitable abuse of power. We saw the deployment of unidentified federal agents to domestic protests and the surveillance of peaceful activists. Once a massive hammer is built, every domestic problem eventually looks like a nail, and the “openness” of society begins to close.
2008 and the Great Bifurcation
In 1929, the Great Depression shattered the German middle class. They did not just lose money, they lost faith. They felt the “elites” in Berlin were more interested in international reparations than in feeding German families. This economic despair functions as a psychological bridge to radicalization.
We saw this same bridge built in 2008. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was not just a market failure, it was a profound psychological rupture. The subsequent recovery was not felt equally, it created a sharp bifurcation in economic wellbeing. On one side, those with access to capital and assets saw their wealth inflated by stimulus measures. On the other side, the middle and working classes faced permanent losses in home equity and stagnant wages.
This divergence created two different Americas. One group saw the system as functional, while the other saw it as a machine designed to protect “insiders” at their expense. When people see architects of a crisis receive bailouts while they receive foreclosure notices, their trust in the open society evaporates. They no longer see themselves as stakeholders, they see themselves as victims of a predatory system.
COVID-19: The Stress Test of Social Cohesion
If 9/11 built the security apparatus and 2008 broke the economic trust, COVID-19 acted as the ultimate stress test for our social fabric. It accelerated every trend of disintegration already in motion. The pandemic was managed not through transparent, civic cooperation, but through an intensification of the “emergency” mindset.
The pandemic response further polarized the population, turning public health into a battleground for identity. It normalized the use of state power to regulate the most intimate details of daily life, from where one could walk to whom one could see. For many, the foundational principles of the open society were replaced by a cold realization. They saw that “rights” could be suspended indefinitely if the state deemed the crisis sufficient. This experience deepened the cynicism of the population, who watched as the state used “science” as a tool for political synchronization, further hollowing out the neutrality of our institutions.
Strongman Worship
There is a dangerous tendency to believe that “the man maketh history.” This is the “savior myth,” and it is an intellectual failure common to all sides of the political spectrum. The progressives had the quasi-messianic hope of the Obama era, the anti-progressives have the cult-like devotion to Donald Trump. Many have forgotten how we got here, but the reflex remains the same.
Strongman worship is, at its core, intellectual laziness. It is a psychological shortcut, a way to replace the difficult task of understanding complex, systemic root causes with a simple narrative of heroism and villainy.
By focusing on the "heros" or the “villains” we ignore the "Perfect Storm" of circumstances—9/11, 2008, and the technological displacement of the middle class—that actually dictate our path. The strongman does not create the discontent, he merely harvests it. When people do not understand the machinery of the world, they are happy to hand the controls over to a driver who promises he knows the way, even as he drives us off a cliff.
Executive Aggrandizement
The most insidious feature of a collapsing open society is that it dies in a courtroom or a legislative chamber, under the guise of “reform.” This is Executive Aggrandizement, the incremental expansion of presidential power at the expense of other branches.
The Weaponization of the Civil Service: In 1933, the Nazis used specific laws to ensure “loyalty” over expertise. Today, we see this mirrored in the push to reclassify non-partisan federal workers as “at-will” employees. When the machinery of the state “self-coordinates” to serve a leader’s will rather than the law, the institution is no longer a check on power, it is a megaphone for it.
The Delegitimization of the Judiciary: For the executive to have total control, the courts must be neutralized. This is done by framing the judiciary as “partisan actors.” By attacking the court’s “legitimacy” rather than its legal arguments, the executive creates the psychological license for the public to ignore judicial checks.
Rule by Decree: Much like the Weimar Republic’s reliance on Article 48, the modern executive increasingly relies on Executive Orders to enact policies that cannot pass through a gridlocked legislature. As the legislature becomes more paralyzed, the public cheers the “strong leader” who bypasses the “do-nothing” system.
The Vacuum of Authority
Nearly half of the U.S. population now identifies as “Independent.” While this looks like a rejection of tribalism, it creates a dangerous Vacuum of Authority if rooted in pure discontent and cynicism. This vacuum is being hollowed out by “Algorithmic Seduction.” Social media feeds use a “flood of misinformation” to fracture our shared reality. This is not merely a chaotic flood, it is a “death by a thousand cuts” for our foundational principles. The algorithm does not need to sell you a grand ideology, it only needs to show you 1,000 micro-targeted instances of a “corrupt judge” or a “rigged system.” Each clip acts as a tiny incision.
Over time, the “Noble Lies”—the foundational myths and principles, such as the “rule of law” or “checks and balances,” that we agree to believe in to maintain an open order—simply bleed out. This Architecture of Othering provides a “psychological license for cruelty,” using dehumanizing language to frame rivals as “vermin” or “enemies from within.” An independent who believes in nothing, whose faith in these noble lies has been eroded by a thousand algorithmic cuts, is the perfect recruit for a strongman.
The Path Forward: Reclaiming Agency
We have passed almost a generation since 9/11, and we have largely forgotten how the security state was built. We have passed nearly two decades since 2008, and the economic wounds remain unhealed. We have survived a pandemic that turned neighbors into threats. I am no longer sure if the frog can jump out of the pot, the water is hot. If there is a way forward, it will not come from the state.
We must also realize that this is not just an American issue. Similar phenomena are observed in nations across the globe, from Europe to Latin America and Asia. Populism is on the rise globally, and this synchronicity signals common underlying causes. The shared experience of technological disruption, economic displacement, and the hollowing out of traditional institutions is creating a worldwide receptivity to authoritarian solutions. It is about time for more people to be made aware of the danger.
The solution rests in a quiet, individual reckoning within three spheres:
Civil Society: We must stop treating neighbors as “fictitious enemies.” Rebuilding local associations, such as churches, clubs, and charities, is where we relearn how to treat people as humans rather than political abstractions.
The Market: The market should be a space of genuine competition and voluntary exchange. We must defend it as a space that resists the state’s “Us vs. Them” binary and the “rigged” recovery of the GFC.
Technology: We must use innovation to decentralize power. Supporting technologies that prioritize privacy and individual sovereignty makes it harder for any central agency or “strongman” to control the levers of our lives.
We must overcome the intellectual laziness of worshiping power. The only way to cool the pot is for the individual to take back their agency, understanding that the real history of our era is made by those who maintain their own liberty, not those who wait to be saved.