If the protests erupting across Los Angeles seem like fiction turning into fact, it is because they expose the collapse of a political system no longer able to uphold its legitimacy.
What is unfolding in Donald Trump’s United States is not simply civil unrest, but the signs of a deeper historical shift – one that makes traditional democratic frameworks appear increasingly outdated in light of changing patterns of political behaviour and civic imagination.
The clashes in the streets, the federal use of force without local approval, and the staged spectacle of State violence are not exceptions. Rather, they represent the consolidation of a new logic – a developing political formation that challenges inherited categories.
Trump’s unilateral deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, without the Governor’s consent, marks another step in the weakening of the federal compact. Unlike President Lyndon B. Johnson’s intervention in Watts in 1965 – which, as Ian Bremmer highlighted, aimed to defend the right to protest – this moment reflects a rupture: Executive power is now detached from the rhythms of popular representation and the pluralist ideals that once underpinned democratic governance.
What takes its place is a show of power no longer grounded in procedural legitimacy, bolstered by the erosion of democratic norms and the slow collapse of civic trust – a style of rule based not on consent but on coercive visibility.
This crisis cannot be blamed on a single administration. It reveals a deeper problem within the structure of liberal democracy itself – a crisis rooted not only in flawed elections but in the cultural and ethical foundations of modern political life.
The rise of populist leaders across long-established democracies, driven by algorithmic propaganda and emotional manipulation, is not a random event but the outcome of long-standing systemic issues. What remains of democratic life increasingly appears hollow – a ritualised echo of institutions whose meaning has been emptied by cynicism, inertia, and strategic misdirection.
Democracy rendered hollow
Classical thinkers understood democracy’s vulnerability more clearly than many modern observers. Aristotle’s warning against mob rule – governance driven by impulse rather than reason – still resonates.
Yet what we face today goes beyond that; it is the collapse of democracy through its own theatrical excess and instrumental use. It no longer functions as a space for shared self-governance but has become a stage where division is endlessly performed under the appearance of debate. As Rousseau observed in ‘The Social Contract’ (1762), “The people of England think they are free; but they are grossly mistaken. They are free only during the election of Members of Parliament.”
This transformation is not a sudden disaster, but the slow result of moral, intellectual, and institutional neglect. The refusal to sustain a shared reality, the abandonment of reasoned debate in favour of tribal grievance, and the normalisation of mistrust as a political tool have all weakened democracy’s foundations. A system based on rational dialogue cannot survive the steady replacement of discourse with spectacle, or withstand a political culture where loyalty is fragmented and conditional.
Yet this collapse may also signal a beginning. What we are witnessing is not just the end of a certain democratic model, but the rise of a new political order – neither fully liberal nor overtly authoritarian – shaped by crisis management, fear control, and the ongoing production of legitimacy through spectacle.
As Tacitus wrote of imperial Rome, “The more corrupt the State, the more numerous the laws.” In our time, more laws do not protect liberty; they validate its erosion.
This spectacle is not merely a distraction; it reshapes how we understand truth itself. The shared narratives that once grounded public knowledge are fracturing under the strain of information overload, algorithmic distortion, and the retreat from mediated reality. The state no longer acts as a neutral source of truth but becomes a battleground of conflicting realities, where legitimacy is manufactured, filtered through media theatrics and populist displays.
This type of governance does not win loyalty through persuasion but through exhaustion. It maintains order not through shared beliefs but by managing instability – keeping different groups either appeased or agitated to preserve a controlled form of disorder. In this setting, democracy is not dismantled outright, but rendered hollow – kept as appearance while stripped of deliberative content.
Entry point into a post-democratic era
In this light, the protests in Los Angeles should be seen not merely as conflicts over policy but as symptoms of a deeper transformation in political culture.
The immigrant becomes a symbol – both threat and victim, disruption and scapegoat – while the protest itself becomes a dual spectacle: one of dissent and of control, played out against a backdrop of a state struggling with its own self-image. The contradiction of repression dressed in democratic language is not incidental; it is the core logic of this moment.
And yet, this emerging order does not necessarily mark the final chapter. It also carries the seeds of new beginnings – a call to rethink sovereignty, legitimacy, and political belonging. The task is not to revive Enlightenment ideals unchanged, but to recognise that their past power depended on conditions that may no longer exist.
As Walter Benjamin once noted, “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.” The challenge now is to see beyond the illusion of normality and confront what is truly forming.
This calls for a break with nostalgia. Democracy is not a self-correcting balance but a historical experiment whose terms must be constantly redefined. The future may not lie in a return to republican virtue or in a slide into open tyranny, but in a hybrid form of politics: fluid, theatrical, and maintained through new techniques of control. In such a world, power is less about institutions than about navigating fragmented loyalties and symbolic influence.
In this context, the use of military force against domestic protest is not a departure from the norm; it is becoming standard, a way of establishing authority through fear and visibility. The rituals of democracy continue, but only as surface forms, emptied of their capacity to reconcile or renew. Power functions through paradox: order via disruption, unity through division, consent by fatigue.
This moment will not be remembered as a temporary crisis but as the entry point into a post-democratic era whose permanence is still uncertain. The rupture is not just political but civilisational. What is needed is neither despair nor naïve reform, but a clear engagement with the present – a willingness to create political forms that reflect the fragmented, unstable realities shaping our lives today.
As this drama unfolds, old divisions – democracy versus tyranny, consent versus coercion, order versus chaos – begin to dissolve. We are entering a more tangled and unsettling political landscape. The stakes are immense. What is required now is not just criticism but creativity: new visions, new solidarities, and a new political language capable of expressing ways of living fit for this uncertain age.
(The writer is a Senior Manager at the Sri Lanka Ports Authority [SLPA]. The views expressed are personal)