We do not live in a liberal democracy. We exist in a carefully orchestrated illusion, where elections occur, but truth is stifled, power is concentrated, and freedom of speech comes with warnings or judicial summons.

Welcome to the era of illiberalism 3.0, now featuring smart censorship, algorithmic blacklists, and bipartisan moral panic.

While the rest of us scroll, sweat, and survive, the elites have turned governance into a competitive bloodsport, and democracy is the ball both sides have kicked out of the stadium.

In the past, blacklists were printed. Now, they are automated, personalized, invisible, and devastating.

It’s no longer necessary to be arrested; it’s enough to say something inconvenient. A wrong phrase, an incorrect topic, an inappropriate audience. BAM:

• Demonetized.

• Deplatformed.

• Disappeared.

And both parties do it, each with their own aesthetic.

Alan Dershowitz (2023) points it out from the right: prosecutorial teams using justice as political vengeance.

Henry Giroux (2025) fires from the left: Elon Musk’s free speech crusade becomes a mirrored blacklist machine.

Let’s be honest: this isn’t about values. It’s about vendettas.

Before, it was the FBI knocking down your door. Now, it’s a platform’s community guidelines, drafted by PR interns and enforced by machine learning.

Julie Cohen (2025) brilliantly parodied it with DOGE, a Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk that “cleans up” democracy through surveillance and content control. But is it satire or simply… ahead of its time?

Let’s dispel the illusion that this is a partisan issue.

• The left cancels speakers, rewrites language, and shames dissenters into silence.

• The right censors libraries, rewrites history, and turns classrooms into battlegrounds.

Both claim they are saving democracy.

Both are actually slowly strangling it while blaming the other team.

Sarah Koh (2022) perfectly maps this trend: we’ve entered a world where public policy and cancel culture have merged, and free speech is negotiated, not guaranteed.

While billionaires fund lawsuits, politicians fundraise off rage, and tech CEOs posture about free speech, the people—the actual citizens—are caught in the crossfire.

We are:

• Labeled as “dangerous.”

• Investigated without warrants.

• Silenced without trial.

• And worst of all, forgotten.

Keleher (2024) calls it “soft censorship with a smiling face”: legal, polite, and utterly ruthless.

This is the era of illiberal democracy:

• Elections still occur.

• Courts still function.

• The press still publishes.

But underneath, the oxygen is thinning.

We no longer debate. We denounce.

We no longer persuade. We purge.

We no longer govern. We grind each other into the feed for content.

Final Thought

“We are not living through a crisis of democracy. We are experiencing its slow and sarcastic obituary.”

And the irony?

Everyone is performing democracy, but no one is practicing it.