America’s Boiling Frog

The myth goes that a frog sitting in slowly heating water won’t notice until it boils alive. Americans know better—or we should. A recent Pew poll found that 72% of us already believe the U.S. is no longer a good example of democracy. We see the heat. The question is whether we’ll jump.

If you’re like most people, the thought of boiling a live frog seems cruel and purposeless. Even if you happen to enjoy frog legs—cuisses de grenouilles, as the French call them—it’s still a gruesome image. What’s more, the myth that frogs won’t notice a gradual rise in temperature isn’t even true. If given the chance, frogs will jump out, as proven decades ago by Dr. Victor Hutchison, a professor of zoology at the University of Oklahoma.

So yes—frogs will jump if they can. But will we?

I, for one, lose sleep over the fact that Americans may be sitting in a pot of our own making—and the water’s getting dangerously hot.

Instead of leaping out, we’re lounging like it’s a spa. Except this isn’t relaxation—it’s collapse. Our government has been cranking up the temperature a little more each day—by attacking individuals and institutions—whether attempting to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, or firing inspectors general who expose fraud, threatening judges who rule against the administration, or pressuring universities to silence dissent. Each step is justified as routine. Each step raises the heat.

And this didn’t start yesterday. The warming began years ago—with the normalization of lies about election fraud, the erosion of the rule of law through defiance of congressional subpoenas, and the resurrection of racial and gender hate in official rhetoric and policy. We tolerated the rising temperature, from denial to dissonance to disinterest. From “this can’t be happening” to “meh, it could be worse.” Some take it even a step further, decrying "you're overreacting" when someone draws attention to the gradual but steady march towards tyranny. This is what historian Timothy Snyder calls obeying in advance—the habit of accommodating power before we’re forced to, normalizing each new abuse by treating it as inevitable.

Today, corporations and public institutions are paying settlements, networks are canceling shows that challenge the administration, and a country once proud of its moral values now shrugs at open dehumanization based on a person’s (perceived) country of origin. Snyder reminds us: institutions “do not protect themselves.” Courts, universities, and the press only hold if people actively defend them.

We don’t have to look far—Russia, Hungary, Turkey—to see how rational people accepted slow decay: courts packed with loyalists, independent media shuttered, opposition candidates banned from ballots. Step by step, the abnormal became the new normal. Snyder cautions us to beware the one-party state. It rarely arrives in one sweep—it’s built election by election, map by map, until competition itself seems obsolete.

And it’s not just laws or maps—it’s symbols, slogans, and the face of the world. Snyder urges us to take responsibility for the public space around us. Every poster, meme, and chant that goes unchallenged becomes the new vocabulary of tolerance.

At the same time, truth itself is under siege. Leaders and their allies repeat lies until they no longer shock, teaching us to treat facts as subjective. Snyder warns that once citizens stop believing in truth, they stop believing they can resist at all.

Listen closely, too, for the dangerous words. “Emergency.” “Exception.” “Enemy within.” They may sound like common sense, but they’re the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook—framing the expansion of extraordinary power as ordinary necessity.

History has already shown us what is to come. What once felt unimaginable is now routine—tossed from the Overton Window like yesterday’s news.

But here’s the good news: we can still jump. The choice is ours—to defend institutions, to refuse to obey in advance, to believe in truth, and to stop treating each new degree of heat as normal.

The time to leap is now.

Craig Robinson is an experienced business leader and advisor, currently serving on multiple boards and providing strategic counsel to private investment firms, with a focus on commercial real estate, technology, and leadership. As a founding member of the Leadership Now Project, he brings a unique perspective to discussions on the positive role of business in society and democracy.