The Long Build: How Authoritarian Infrastructure Took Root in America

I have been watching and documenting this for more than twenty years. The turning point for me was 2001, when the Patriot Act passed. It was sold as a temporary measure, a necessary sacrifice in a time of crisis. But “temporary” in the language of power almost never means what it says.

This didn’t begin with 9/11. That day accelerated something much older, an architecture of control that has been built, piece by piece, over the last century. It has changed faces, enemies, and justifications, but the machinery has remained the same.

A Note on Fairness

Both major political parties in the United States have engaged in gerrymandering, surveillance, and other methods of consolidating power. Democrats have redrawn maps to their advantage in states like Maryland, Illinois, and New York. But beginning in the 1970s, the Republican Party adopted a coordinated, long-term gerrymandering strategy culminating in the 2010 REDMAP project, paired with voter suppression measures and federal legal insulation through key Supreme Court decisions.
The result has been a systemic, multi-decade plan to secure structural minority rule, not an ad hoc, state-by-state maneuver, but a national strategy.

Pre-2001 Foundations of Control

First Red Scare (1917–1920)

Triggered by the Russian Revolution, anarchist bombings, and major labor strikes.
Led to mass arrests, deportations (Palmer Raids), and widespread surveillance of immigrant and labor groups.

Second Red Scare (late 1940s–1950s)

Fueled by Cold War tensions and political opportunism.
Loyalty oaths, blacklists, public hearings.
J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI expands domestic surveillance to a permanent national program.

Jim Crow Era (late 19th century–1965)

State and local laws enforce racial segregation and disenfranchise Black Americans.
Poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation suppress voting for generations.
The architecture of disenfranchisement would inspire later, subtler methods of voter suppression long after formal Jim Crow ended.

COINTELPRO (1956–1971)

FBI program targeting civil rights leaders, anti-war activists, and political dissidents.
Used infiltration, disinformation, and harassment to disrupt movements.

War on Drugs & Militarized Policing (1980s)

Expanded SWAT deployment into routine policing.
Civil asset forfeiture allows police to seize property without due process.

Pre-9/11 “Anti-Terror” Legislation

1995 Oklahoma City bombing → Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act limits habeas corpus and expands surveillance powers.

Gerrymandering as a Long Game

Post–Civil Rights GOP begins long-term focus on redistricting as a control mechanism.
1990 and 2000 cycles lay groundwork for 2010’s REDMAP, an unprecedented, data-driven partisan map overhaul.

Authoritarian Timeline: 2001–2025

2001 – The Spark

September 11: Terrorist attacks kill nearly 3,000.
October 26: USA PATRIOT Act passes in 45 days.
- Expands surveillance, wiretaps, secret searches, indefinite detention.

2002 – Foundations of Control

Homeland Security Act creates DHS, merging 22 agencies into one executive power hub.
Authority reaches beyond terrorism to immigration, protest, and “domestic extremism.”

2002-2008 – Protest Containment

“Free Speech Zones” at presidential appearances keep protestors far from public view.
National Special Security Events protocols allow citywide lockdowns with military-style enforcement.
Fusion centers begin cataloguing protest groups as potential threats.

2003 – ICE Rises

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement established.
Operation Endgame launched: 10-year plan to remove all “removable aliens.”

2005-2006 – Detention Infrastructure & Academic Suppression

KBR awarded $385M DHS contract to build detention centers for “mass migration” or “emergencies.”
Hurricane Katrina response sees enforced containment, confiscation of communications, FEMA camps under lockdown.
Steven E. Jones, BYU physics professor, publishes findings suggesting possible use of thermite in WTC collapse. Placed on leave and eventually forced to resign, an early post-9/11 example of dissent silenced through professional removal rather than open debate.

2006-2008 – Quiet Expansion

Growth of fusion centers, private detention contracts, and border militarization.

2009-2016 – Obama’s Paradox

Record deportations despite DACA protections.
Drone program and surveillance expanded.
Occupy and Standing Rock protests monitored, infiltrated, and flagged as extremist risks.

2010 – REDMAP Execution

GOP wins key state legislatures before census, draws hyper-partisan maps locking in control for a decade.

2013 – Shelby County v. Holder & The Voter Suppression Wave

Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act preclearance, removing federal oversight of election laws in historically discriminatory states.
Within months, multiple states pass strict voter ID laws, close polling places in minority-heavy districts, limit early voting, and conduct mass voter roll purges, suppressing turnout while maps remain skewed.

2016-2020 – Trump’s Weaponization

ICE made highly visible; family separation policy enacted.
DHS memo redefines “domestic extremism” to include anti-fascists, anarchists, and protest movements.
2020 BLM protests met with unmarked federal agents and “snatch-and-grab” arrests.

2019 – Rucho v. Common Cause

Supreme Court rules partisan gerrymandering is a “political question,” beyond federal court review.

2021-2023 – Legal Shifts

SCOTUS limits EPA, weakens agency oversight, narrows protest protections.
State “anti-protest” laws passed, in some cases granting immunity to drivers who strike protestors.

2024-2025 – Crackdown Sharpens

Trump regains political momentum; ICE raids intensify.
Social media rhetoric authorizes protestor arrests “by any means necessary.”
Reports of militarized enforcement, mass arrests, media suppression, and rising death tolls.

You Are Here – 2025

The pattern is no longer hidden. The architecture of control, legal, political, and physical, has been in place for decades. The targets shift: anarchists, communists, immigrants, environmentalists, journalists. The methods evolve, but the machine remains.

History shows us that once this machinery is running at full speed, it does not stop on its own.

The Long Build: How Authoritarian Infrastructure Took Root in America