About
Who We Are
We are a small family — partners, parents, technologists — who believe that data can empower people to make better decisions about their future. As a queer family living in the U.S., we are personally affected by growing political and cultural instability. We built this site to serve not only ourselves, but anyone asking the same hard question:
“At what point do we need to consider leaving?”
Why We Built TippingPoint.watch
The news cycle is overwhelming, and social media is noisy. It’s hard to tell what is serious and what is just background rhetoric. We wanted a single place to cut through that noise — to track objective signals of democratic backsliding, grounded in data and history.
Our mission is to:
- Ground people in reality — “Is this moment a real tipping point, or just noise?”
- Learn from history — by comparing today’s U.S. trends to past authoritarian regimes worldwide.
- Empower families — with evidence-based insight to plan responsibly, whether that means staying, preparing, or leaving.
Who This Site Serves
- Families and individuals — especially those in vulnerable communities — who want clear, objective signals about risk levels.
- Advocates, journalists, and educators — who need a reference tool with transparent methodology.
- The broader public — anyone who wants to understand how fragile democracy can be, and how to recognize early warning signs.
What the Site Does
- Snapshot Risk Dashboard: Shows current democratic risk vs. cumulative damage, updated daily.
- Objective Indices: Anchors scores in trusted global democracy measures.
- Historical Rubrics: Cross-references today’s events against scholarly frameworks (Snyder, Levitsky & Ziblatt, Eco, Stanton, Dalio).
- Evidence Log: Transparent records of the laws, rulings, and events driving each score.
- Guidance (non-prescriptive): Context to help families plan, without telling anyone what to do.
Our Guiding Principles
- Transparency over opinion.
- Data first, rhetoric second.
- Empathy for those facing difficult decisions.
- Accessibility in both design and language.
TippingPoint.watch is not about fear. It's about clarity, evidence, and informed choices.
Support Our Mission
We are a queer family building this tool to help others navigate a dangerous political climate. Your support helps us in two ways:
- Sustaining our family: We are directly affected by the democratic backsliding we track. Your contributions help us maintain this project and support our own family's safety planning.
- Helping other LGBTQ+ families: We donate 10% of all contributions to Rainbow Railroad, a global nonprofit that helps LGBTQ+ people escape state-sponsored violence and persecution. Since 2006, they have directly assisted over 40,000 LGBTQ+ individuals find safety through emergency relocation and resettlement support.
When you support TippingPoint.watch, you are supporting our queer-led family project and directly aiding other LGBTQ+ families facing life-threatening persecution worldwide. No paywalls. No ads. Just solidarity.
You can support us through Ko-fi or Patreon. Every contribution makes a difference.