Source-backed institutional damage ledger

Who Damaged What, and How Much

A citizen-first front page for institutional damage: what happened, who did it, who got hurt, how long the harm may last, and what evidence would change the score.

It ranks actions and patterns, not tribes. The model gives every claim a source trail, a counterargument, a confidence band, and a people-first damage score.

Public-domain American eagle drawing from the Library of Congress — Marcus W. Baldwin, American eagle, 1898.

Citizen-first accountability

What The Ledger Says Right Now

Open the model

Cards scored66

Actions, patterns, and policy failures.

Sources linked112

Primary, official, wire, academic, and watchdog sources.

High-confidence cards47

Claims with tighter uncertainty bands.

Damage By Actor Bloc

Right-aligned12 cards - adjusted 70

citizen70Jan. 6 election overturn attempt

Left-aligned15 cards - adjusted 62

citizen68School closures

Nonstate right1 cards - adjusted 89

citizen91Proud Boys violence network

Nonstate left2 cards - adjusted 72

citizen84Black-bloc violence network

Shared or cross-cutting36 cards - adjusted 85

citizen80Secession declarations

Top Citizen-Impact Items

100Secession declarations and constitutional ruptureHigh confidence
98Attempt to overturn the 2020 election / Jan. 6High confidence
98Indian Removal and forced dispossessionHigh confidence
97Dred Scott constitutional collapseHigh confidence
97Plessy and judicial ratification of Jim CrowHigh confidence

Highest-Harm Mechanisms

education97 political-violence91 power-transfer88 public-health86 elections84 civil-liberties83 federalism83 public-order80

Source Mix

primary46

court19

official-data15

academic10

Thesis

America Has Multiple Legitimacy Crises, Not One

Different factions have damaged different systems in different ways. The point is not to make every side look equal. The point is to score the damage by mechanism, evidence, citizen harm, and durability.

Trump's worst actions have threatened constitutional mechanics: elections, peaceful transfer of power, DOJ independence, courts, watchdogs, and the use of state power against enemies.

Democratic and progressive failures have often damaged social trust, public order, education, public health, crime policy, and the credibility of expert and media institutions.

Both sides have contributed to redistricting arms races, donor capture, rhetorical escalation, and permanent emergency politics.

How To Beat A Score

Bring Better Evidence

The site should change when the record changes. The fastest correction is a specific source that moves a subscore, narrows uncertainty, or shows the claimed mechanism did not cause the harm.

Challenge the fact.Show a source that contradicts the event, count, ruling, policy, or time range.
Challenge the mechanism.Show that the harm came from another cause, or that the listed actor had weak control over it.
Challenge the weight.Argue a subscore is too high or too low using citizen harm, duration, reversibility, and precedent.
Challenge the confidence.Replace weak sources with primary documents, official data, court records, or better research.

Long-run benchmark

Rank 2016-2026 Against The Whole American Record

The next version backfills the ledger to the founding and joins political events to unemployment, inflation, wages, markets, volatility, rates, public finance, crime, schools, courts, press archives, NGO indices, and public machine-learning datasets.

Read the expansion plan

Top Citizen Impact

All rankings

Rank	Citizen	Item	Side	Mechanism
1	100	Secession declarations and constitutional rupture Seceding states rejected the 1860 presidential result and left the Union to protect slavery, producing the country's largest constitutional rupture.	Cross-cuttingSeceding slave states / federal union	power-transfer federalism civil-liberties
2	98	Attempt to overturn the 2020 election / Jan. 6 The attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack were the clearest democracy-threatening actions in the period.	RepublicanTrump/GOP/right	elections power-transfer political-violence
3	98	Indian Removal and forced dispossession Federal removal policy and state pressure forced Native nations from homelands and exposed limits in constitutional protection.	Cross-cuttingFederal and state governments	civil-liberties federalism public-order
4	97	Dred Scott constitutional collapse Dred Scott converted the Supreme Court into an accelerant for the slavery crisis.	Cross-cuttingSupreme Court / slave-power coalition	civil-liberties federalism lawfare
5	97	Plessy and judicial ratification of Jim Crow Plessy v. Ferguson gave constitutional cover to segregation and helped entrench Jim Crow.	Cross-cuttingSupreme Court / segregationist governments	civil-liberties federalism lawfare
6	97	Prolonged school closures / learning-loss cohort damage Prolonged closures after evidence shifted toward reopening likely created one of the most durable human-capital harms of the 2020+ period.	DemocraticDemocratic/progressive institutions, bipartisan early	education public-health civil-liberties
7	96	Reconstruction enforcement collapse Reconstruction amended the Constitution, but federal enforcement narrowed while racial violence and state systems rolled back equal citizenship.	Cross-cuttingSupreme Court / states / federal retreat	civil-liberties elections federalism
8	95	Constitutional slavery compromises The Constitution built durable republican machinery while embedding compromises that protected slavery and distorted representation.	Cross-cuttingConstitutional Convention / ratifying states	civil-liberties elections federalism
9	95	Wilmington 1898 coup and local democratic overthrow The Wilmington coup used racial terror and organized force to overthrow a lawful multiracial local government.	Cross-cuttingNorth Carolina white supremacist Democrats / local press and militias	elections political-violence civil-liberties
10	94	Fugitive Slave Act and federal compulsion The strengthened Fugitive Slave Act made federal power enforce slavery across state lines and punished resistance by free-state communities.	Cross-cuttingCongress / federal commissioners / slaveholding interests	civil-liberties federalism lawfare

Top Immediate Damage

Search ledger

Rank	Immediate	Item	Side	Mechanism
1	100	Secession declarations and constitutional rupture Seceding states rejected the 1860 presidential result and left the Union to protect slavery, producing the country's largest constitutional rupture.	Cross-cuttingSeceding slave states / federal union	power-transfer federalism civil-liberties
2	97	Attempt to overturn the 2020 election / Jan. 6 The attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack were the clearest democracy-threatening actions in the period.	RepublicanTrump/GOP/right	elections power-transfer political-violence
3	96	Indian Removal and forced dispossession Federal removal policy and state pressure forced Native nations from homelands and exposed limits in constitutional protection.	Cross-cuttingFederal and state governments	civil-liberties federalism public-order
4	94	Dred Scott constitutional collapse Dred Scott converted the Supreme Court into an accelerant for the slavery crisis.	Cross-cuttingSupreme Court / slave-power coalition	civil-liberties federalism lawfare
5	92	Executive Order 9066 and Japanese American internment Wartime executive power enabled mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.	Cross-cuttingRoosevelt administration / wartime federal government	executive-power civil-liberties public-order
6	92	Wilmington 1898 coup and local democratic overthrow The Wilmington coup used racial terror and organized force to overthrow a lawful multiracial local government.	Cross-cuttingNorth Carolina white supremacist Democrats / local press and militias	elections political-violence civil-liberties
7	90	Prolonged school closures / learning-loss cohort damage Prolonged closures after evidence shifted toward reopening likely created one of the most durable human-capital harms of the 2020+ period.	DemocraticDemocratic/progressive institutions, bipartisan early	education public-health civil-liberties
8	90	Vietnam escalation and Tonkin Gulf legitimacy crisis The Tonkin Gulf Resolution enabled escalation in Vietnam and became a symbol of war-powers and trust failure.	Cross-cuttingJohnson administration / bipartisan Congress	executive-power public-order media-trust
9	89	Plessy and judicial ratification of Jim Crow Plessy v. Ferguson gave constitutional cover to segregation and helped entrench Jim Crow.	Cross-cuttingSupreme Court / segregationist governments	civil-liberties federalism lawfare
10	88	Financial crisis, foreclosure, and trust shock The financial crisis inflicted mass household damage and weakened trust in markets, regulators, and elite accountability.	Cross-cuttingFinancial sector / regulators / elected officials	economic-policy corruption public-order

Scoring Method

Scores are structured judgments, not objective measurements. Disagree by challenging the evidence, the weighting, or the counterargument.

Immediate Damage

Realized harm, institutional damage, human damage, scale/duration, and precedent.

Long-Term Damage

Realized harm, tail risk, institutional damage, human damage, and irreversibility over a 10-30 year horizon.

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Recently Added

LT98Now90

Prolonged school closures / learning-loss cohort damage

Prolonged closures after evidence shifted toward reopening likely created one of the most durable human-capital harms of the 2020+ period.

DemocraticDemocratic/progressive institutions, bipartisan earlyHigh confidence

education public-health civil-liberties

LT96Now97

Attempt to overturn the 2020 election / Jan. 6

The attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack were the clearest democracy-threatening actions in the period.

RepublicanTrump/GOP/rightHigh confidence

elections power-transfer political-violence

LT93Now81

Federal pressure into state election administration

Federal attempts to access voter rolls, voting equipment, and state election processes create a major tail risk for election administration.

RepublicanTrump/GOP/rightHigh confidence

elections executive-power federalism

LT90Now85

Retaliatory use of state power against enemies

Using government power to punish perceived enemies is a central democratic-backsliding risk.

RepublicanTrump/GOP/rightHigh confidence

lawfare executive-power civil-liberties

LT89Now84

Proud Boys / alt-right political-violence network

The Proud Boys / alt-right violence network normalizes street intimidation, political violence, and movement defense of authoritarian politics.

Nonstate rightNonstate rightHigh confidence

political-violence public-order

LT88Now87

Jan. 6 pardons / commutations

Broad Jan. 6 clemency turns an attack on the transfer of power into forgiven movement violence.

RepublicanTrump/GOP/rightHigh confidence

power-transfer political-violence executive-power