[Verse 1]
Larry's counting scorecards falling, one by one since two-oh-six,
Freedom's ledger slipping lower, call it a stalling slow eclipse.
Hungary dims its courtrooms, Turkey quiets the morning press,
Is this just a dip we're passing, or a current we can't redress?
Nations that once climbed the ladder watch the rungs give way and crack,
Can a backsliding democracy ever find the way back?
[Chorus]
D for the democracies dimming low,
T for the trap the old powers know,
A for the algorithm shaping what we see,
P for the Paris promise, loose and incomplete,
Four open questions, no answer key,
Just the hush of a piano asking quietly.
[Verse 2]
Graham Allison counted sixteen times a challenger arose,
Twelve times the ruling power and the rising power came to blows.
Sparta watched the walls of Athens climbing higher than its fear,
Now Washington reads Beijing's harbor lights and wonders who steers here.
Trade routes tangle tighter than the wires strung across the strait,
Can the two sit at the table, or is war just running late?
[Chorus]
D for the democracies dimming low,
T for the trap the old powers know,
A for the algorithm shaping what we see,
P for the Paris promise, loose and incomplete,
Four open questions, no answer key,
Just the hush of a piano asking quietly.
[Verse 3]
Eighty-seven million profiles, harvested like silent grain,
Cambridge Analytica mapped the fear inside your scrolling brain.
The scandal broke in twenty-eighteen, trust cracked down to the glass,
Every ad a mirror built to flatter what you half-believe.
Bots repeat a whisper till it's louder than what you'd conceive,
Who's behind the curtain pulling, and who's only hypnotized?
[Verse 4]
Every nation signed at Paris, twenty-fifteen, pledges penned,
Promises stacked up like paper, no referee to help them bend.
No one's forced to hold the target, no court to fine the ones who stall,
Tragedy of shared horizon, carbon doesn't own a wall.
Can the world outgrow its borders fast enough to fix the sky,
Or will every state keep watching, waiting for the rest to try?
[Chorus]
D for the democracies dimming low,
T for the trap the old powers know,
A for the algorithm shaping what we see,
P for the Paris promise, loose and incomplete,
Four open questions, no answer key,
Just the hush of a piano asking quietly.
[Bridge]
Theory asks why power bends the way it bends,
Comparative counts the countries losing where they'd meant to mend,
Relations watch the giants trading stares across the sea,
Methods test if any model holds its honesty.
Four fields leaning on the same unsteady chord,
Searching for an answer that we can't afford to just ignore.
[Outro]
No refrain to close the question, no tidy final rhyme,
Diamond's watching, Allison's counting, data spinning all the time,
Paris waits, the ballot waits, the feed keeps feeding doubt,
The chorus fades but the question stays, propped against the door,
Maybe wisdom isn't answers — it's the asking, carried out.