US democracy's most recent red flags
This US democracy slide is long in the making and not yet done, IMO. Some say that this reversal of freedoms started with the McCarthy era hysteria (and the blacklisting of many lefties or sympathizers), or the post-Vietnam Era/Civil Rights reactionary backlash, or the Robert Bork getting "borked" in 1987, but I wasn't in the US at the time. The events that I lived in the US (or after I moved to Canada) that raised huge red flags for me were:
* The 9/11 reaction and waving the flag and wearing the flag mass hysteria that reminded me of the Romanian pre-1989 "defilari" but much worse because they were not imposed top-down, an era that culminated with UAV drone strikes that killed innocent civilians, including kids and caged immigrant children under Obama.
*Witnessing live the Congressional reaction to every State of the Union address was disturbingly reminiscent of the PCR Congress secretary speeches: lots of interruptions due to standing ovations (apparently a mainstay since Reagan), which for me hints of a groupthink cancer and increasing polarization at the highest levels.
*US continuous and mostly unwavering normalized relations with the most egregious human rights violators: China and Saudi Arabia (despite performative skirmishes to save face; the first one due to pure greed [which (un)intentionally is sucking out US blue collar jobs en masse] and the second due to propping up the odious regime as a counterweight to Iran).
*Experiencing the election of Dubya (a bigger puppet than Reagan was), his reelection (which triggered our moving to Canada), and then the election of DJT, which sadly has a good chance of repeat in 2024.
*SCOTUS meddling in the 2000 election and tipping the balance on pure partisan lines, torpedoing the future of democracy in Citizens United v FEC in 2010, endorsing waves of voting rights restrictions and culminating with overturning Roe v Wade and curtailing basic human rights in 2022 (with the majority opinion boldly stating "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start").