The Fire Alarm is going off. No one cares.

The fire alarm has been pulled. The alarm is going off. The lights are flashing. No one is panicking. No one is even paying attention to them. Smoke fills the air. The flames grow. We continue to go about our day as though the building isn’t on fire. It’s nothing more than annoying noise in the background. Maybe if we ignore it long enough, someone will shut it off.

Yep, that’s us right now. That’s the good ole USofA. The building, that’s democracy. The fire alarm, that’s the democrats and anyone else shouting concerns. The fire, that’s authoritarianism. It’s coming. The house is on fire. The alarm is going off. And most people aren’t running out of the house or trying to put the fire out.

Why is democracy burning? How are we descending into an authoritarian regime? Good questions. It’s probably not what you think. Let’s go back in time.

It’s April 30, 2011. Barack Obama is president. Donald Trump can’t stand him. Trump was the loudest birther conspiracy theorist. Remember them? Yeah, the people who couldn’t believe Obama was an American citizen and won the election so they made up a story in their minds to delegitimize him. His name is Barack Hussein Obama. To them, he obviously couldn’t have been an American. He sounds like Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had a baby. I digress. Recognize the date? That’s the night of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Trump got roasted like a rotisserie pig by President Obama and Seth Meyers. Trump has been playing the long game of revenge ever since.

Trump may insist that he did not run for president because of that night. However, many generally see it as the turning point. Even his political advisor Roger Stone thought so. About one month earlier, Trump did a Comedy Central Roast, but he insisted on inflating the jokes to make himself sound more wealthy. They joked on his hair and cracked other jokes. Trump made his own joke at the roast, “What’s the difference between a wet raccoon and Donald J. Trump’s Hair? A wet raccoon doesn’t have seven billion fucking dollars in the bank.” Trump played along. He loves attention. You’d think taking on a publicly televised roast one month before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner would mean he could take a joke. But there was a difference. Trump was the star on Comedy Central. He was the punchline at the Correspondents’ Dinner. Trump’s 2012 bid for the presidency was never made official and he bowed out in May of 2011. President Obama was the incumbent for the Democrats, and as evidenced by the 2012 election, the Republicans weren’t popular enough to win. Of course, Trump, in announcing he wasn’t moving forward, insisted that he would have fun if he stayed in for the election.

Flashforward to June 16, 2015. It’s the infamous golden escalator moment, where Trump announced his official candidacy for the Republican Party. True to his nature, he talked about making the US “bigger and better and stronger than ever before.” MAGA was born. Sadly, the best the Republican Party could offer was a loud, orange, bitter man hellbent on revenge who plagiarized Ronald Reagan’s “Make America Great” campaign slogan. Sad as that is, it worked. Unable to take down then President Obama in 2012, Trump was like a boxer in the gym focused on revenge. While the world moved on, he was training and fighting for his chance. In the 2016 primaries Trump out did long time Republican politicians like Lindsay Graham, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. Like a fighter going after a belt, he was taking down every name ahead of him until he got a mandatory fight for the title. However, since Obama’s hit the two term limit, Hillary Clinton was up. Down goes Clinton. How do you take revenge on someone who can’t get in the ring anymore? You tear down their legacy. Obamacare was the primary target.

Still not convinced Trump took the Correspondents’ Dinner personally? He is the only President to skip the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He also made it his first and primary mission to dismantle Obamacare. He cancelled DACA and environmental regulations. Anything Obama had put in place, Trump was on a mission to undo. Omarosa Manigault, a former Apprentice contestant said this, “Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed, whoever challenged him — it is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”

He got his revenge on Obama by tearing down everything he possibly could. There was one problem for him in his first presidency; the law still applied to him. Multiple advisors and even his own lawyer went to prison. Many of his efforts were thwarted, either by Congress or the courts. He saw what was in his way. As time went on and Trump’s fan based grew, his endorsement became the carrot and disparagement became the stick. Most Republicans needed him to win their next election. Back Trump and he’ll back you, stand against Trump and good luck winning the election. His fans will vote for whoever he endorses. With the Republican party growing behind him, he put favorable judges into place as well. It wasn’t just about overturning Roe v. Wade, it was also about solidifying his power as president. Trump wasn’t just trying to win the game, he was changing the rules and buying the referees to ensure a victory.

In 2020, Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden; Obama’s VP. The Democrats hit back in the hardest way possible. Since Obama couldn’t run again, Biden winning was the next best thing they could do to infuriate Trump. And Trump refused to just sit there and take it. If the insurrection at the capital building doesn’t make it obvious, HE WAS PISSED. It was gasoline and gunpowder to his fire. Trump losing the election in 2020 was like the moment Deontay Wilder knocked Tyson Fury down and his head hit the canvas. “Down goes Fury!” For a brief moment, everyone thought he was down and out. Somehow, he gets back up on his feet. Fury ends up winning the three fight saga. When Trump was down, everyone thought he was out. Instead, he got back on his feet and came out swinging harder than ever. That same pissed off fighter who took a loss personally was back in the gym training for his knockout moment. When 2024 came around, Trump was on a different level. Nothing was holding him back. Biden went down before the election. Kamala Harris stepped into the ring. Everyone thought she had a chance. Election night came, and she fell too.

During Biden’s presidency, the investigations and criminal proceedings only enraged him more. His fan base, fed into the lie that it was a political ploy meant to humiliate Trump and keep him from being eligible to run for office again. It did humiliate him. That made his hunger for revenge grow even more. The Project 2025 playbook was ready to go. Of course he acted like he never heard of it. His big promise late in the campaign season was to lower grocery prices. Shortly after winning the election he told NBC News he “can’t guaranty anything” when asked about his promise. Just like the first time around, he lied his way into the office. For some reason, his fan base doesn’t care when he lies to them.

It's a different game this time around. He’s on a warpath. Anyone who would hold him back or tell him no isn’t in his corner this time. With his Supreme Court Justices in place and no elected Republican willing to defy him, Trump is winning the game and the top referees are in his pocket. Trump was signing executive orders on day one. He pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists immediately. That was a personal middle finger to Biden’s preemptive pardons. It’s been a blitzkrieg of executive orders since. (Nazi implication intended). Trump and Elon Musk have been acting rapidly on all fronts. They are burning down the house. Like the Dark Knight’s Joker, they just want to watch the world burn. The Democrats in Congress are idly standing by in shock. Democratic attorneys general and governors, along with legal organizations can’t respond with lawsuits fast enough. The courts don’t stand a chance at keeping pace. Then there’s the question of whether Trump will ignore the courts outright. Afterall, Andrew Jackson did it.

Democracy is on fire right now. The alarm is going off. The lights are flashing. The smoke fills the air while the flames grow. No one is running or grabbing a fire extinguisher. We’ve been desensitized from the first Trump Presidency. Just like the infamous dog meme, were sitting in the middle of the fire thinking, “this is fine.” The courts may not be strong enough to hold this fire back. The elected Democrats need to act. We the people need to act. When the house is on fire, the proper response isn’t to let it all burn down. The proper response is to put the fire out as fast possible.