In 2025 we must rethink political definitions, because old labels no longer match the coalitions and incentives now acting under them, and the mismatch skews judgment, obscures accountability, and distorts how citizens read conflict. Clear terms enable clear judgment.

The United States put a price on national security and called it a fee. A 15 percent export duty was floated on shipments of technology that had been banned months earlier. At the same time, officials threatened sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, on goods that contain them, and even on the tools that make chips; and they reopened sales of Nvidia’s H20 to China in the midst of tense bargaining over rare earths. Reports that summer described these moves in detail, showing how controls—once insulated from bargaining—were folded into trade talks. In a matter of months, national-security rules had become negotiable.

The news from Washington this week has the texture of something already known to history. A president invoking little-used legal provisions to take control of a city’s police. Federal agents and National Guard troops on urban streets.

Economic statistics appear neutral, offering precise figures whose authority rests on the belief they are consistently produced, free from political influence or short-term pressures.

A police state’s essence is not constant visible repression, but the slow normalization of extraordinary powers until they become routine tools of governance, accepted without question.

The stability of everyday life is often presented as the product of individual responsibility and personal management. Bills are paid, work is attended to, and obligations are met; security is framed as the natural outcome of diligence.

Elon Musk’s ten years of unkept promises illustrate how wealth fuels overconfidence, undermining credibility—offering vital insight for executives and policymakers evaluating assertions from purported visionary leaders.