Politics: The End of Democracy?

Since the sixties, one party -- systematically and untiringly -- has sought to delegitimize democracy. Have we reached the tipping point?:

As a result of a twenty-eight-year-long deregulatory spree, we've reached the point where it's painfully difficult for government to undo the damage done to our economic infrastructure by a few thousand millionaires and billionaires playing Monopoly.

And the destructive shift of power in this shift in cultural assumptions isn't just limited to the economy. We have reached the point in the United States where corporatism has nearly triumphed over democracy. If events continue on their current trajectory, the ability of our government to respond to the needs and desires of humans -- things like fresh water, clean air, uncontaminated food, independent local media, secure retirement, and accessible medical care -- may vanish forever, effectively ending the world's second experiment with democracy. We will have gone too far down Mussolini's road, and most likely will encounter similar consequences, elements of which we have already experienced: a militarized police state, a government unresponsive to its citizens and obsessed with secrecy, a ruling elite drawn from the senior ranks of the nations largest corporations, and war.

From Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture (2009) by Thom Hartman.