When “Someone Will Fix It” Becomes a National Illusion

For over thirty years, American historian Heather Cox Richardson (Boston College) has studied how democracies weaken. A professor at Boston College and an expert in nineteenth-century American political history, she does not look for dramatic collapses. Instead, she examines something quieter. Through letters, newspapers, legislative debates, and private correspondence, she traces the thought patterns that emerge long before a crisis becomes unavoidable.

Her core insight is surprisingly simple. Democracies rarely collapse due to a single villain or a single crisis. Instead, they weaken gradually as citizens accept dysfunction and believe institutions will fix themselves. Repeatedly, during times of increasing tension, ordinary people comfort each other with words intended to ease anxiety.

Someone will fix it.

In the United States, that warning echoed in the 1850s as sectional tensions grew before the Civil War. It reemerged during the collapse of Reconstruction and appeared again during times when oligarchic power expanded while democratic rhetoric stayed strong. The warning signs were clear. Many saw them. But reassurance delayed action.

Nepal has its own version of this sentence.

Throughout political periods, we have consistently repeated this pattern. During the Panchayat years under King Mahendra and later King Birendra of Nepal, reform was expected to develop gradually from above. After the 1990 return to multiparty democracy, structural maturity was seen as unavoidable. When the insurgency led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) revealed the fragility of the state, many believed that republican restructuring would automatically lead to accountability. The 2015 constitution was received not only as a legal document but also as a psychological reset.

Each transition brought hope, but it also brought delays.

Someone will fix corruption.
Someone will reform party structures.
Someone will discipline patronage networks.
Someone will generate jobs so that the youth do not have to leave.

Meanwhile, dissatisfaction built up in quieter ways.

Kathmandu’s congestion became a symbol of administrative stagnation. Rural communities shrank as migration shifted from a choice to a necessity—parliamentary coalitions formed and dissolved with mechanical regularity. Corruption investigations flared up and then faded away. Citizens became skilled at critique but hesitant to organize.

This is the phase Richardson describes with clarity. Democratic decline is not sudden at first. It is procedural. It progresses through weariness. Cynicism replaces alertness. Politics becomes a spectacle rather than responsible management.

Then fatigue turns into rupture.

On September 8 and 9, 2026, years of dispersed frustration erupted into a movement primarily led by Generation Z. What had circulated online and simmered in schools, colleges, and universities turned into a physical uprising. Seventy-six people lost their lives. Billions of rupees worth of public infrastructure were destroyed. Singha Durbar (the Kathmandu government complex) was set on fire. The Federal Parliament Building was also burned. The Supreme Court of Nepal and Rastrapati Bhawan (the Kathmandu presidential palace) sustained heavy damage. Ministers and prime ministers had to be rescued by the military. The government ultimately collapsed.

What followed was presented as stabilization. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, who was Nepal’s retired chief justice, took charge of an interim government, promising order and elections soon. The language was familiar. Restoration. Continuity. Constitutionalism.

However, the structural grievances that fueled the uprising mostly remained unaddressed. Issues like unemployment, opaque party funding, bureaucratic patronage, weak service delivery, and mistrust in institutional neutrality were acknowledged verbally but not solved structurally. Elections were seen as a solution rather than a tool.

The symbolism was powerful. While debates about reconstruction continued, the government attended Army Day ceremonies with Nepali forces alongside American, Indian, and British troops. The visual display emphasized discipline and showed alignment with the international community. However, symbolism alone cannot bring about reform. Spectacle cannot fix structural stagnation.

Nepal’s geopolitical sensitivity heightens the stakes. Located between two emerging, competing powers, unrest in Kathmandu is never seen as simple domestic trouble. It is understood strategically.

In New Delhi, Nepal’s volatility is often seen through the perspective of security stability and political predictability. India has traditionally considered Nepal as part of its close strategic neighborhood. Persistent dysfunction, fragile coalitions, and anti-institutional mobilization raise worries about border stability, political alignment, and outside influence. Democratic instability is not romanticized. It is assessed based on governability.

In Beijing, the focus is on maintaining stability along its Himalayan border. Political division and violent unrest are seen as signs of uncertainty. Confidence in infrastructure projects, connectivity routes, and security cooperation depends on steady institutions. While India concerns itself with strategic drift, China fears strategic unpredictability.

For both capitals, internal disorder is more than just a civic event. It serves as a signal. Investment turns more cautious. Diplomatic efforts recalibrate. Influence quietly shifts.

How India and China interpret the September 2026 rupture and the long-term strategic posture they adopt remains uncertain. Major powers rarely announce their recalculations; instead, they implement them gradually. However, one fact is clear: when internal governance weakens, external actors gain relative leverage.

To overlook this geopolitical aspect would be to misjudge the true cost of democratic fatigue. Sovereignty is not maintained through rhetoric alone; it requires institutional competence. A predictably functioning state negotiates with confidence, while a fragile-looking state risks being adjusted by others.

The bigger threat, however, stays internal.

Nepal is not a failed state (a matter of debate). It continues to hold competitive elections, civil society remains active, and courts function effectively. The media maintains relative freedom, which is a notable achievement. However, democratic health is not binary. It gradually erodes through the normalization of small compromises, but it can also be restored through sustained institutional reforms.

The temptation after upheaval is to believe that elections alone restore balance. Yet ballots without internal party democracy reinforce hierarchy. Leadership change without transparency in funding reproduces patronage. Judicial independence without enforcement power remains symbolic.

The question is cultural. Do citizens view democracy as occasional participation or ongoing responsibility?

The youth who mobilized in 2026 face a crucial decision. Rage can spark a moment. Only discipline can maintain a system. If energy shifts back to private life after catharsis, the cycle will repeat. If involvement leads to institutional reform, rupture might eventually become renewal.

History shows that democracies decline not because citizens are unaware, but because they are patient beyond what is wise. The comforting statement seems sensible. Systems have endured before. Leaders have changed course before. Stability feels too deep-rooted to break apart.

But institutions are not self-healing entities. They are collective agreements that require ongoing upkeep. They rely on citizens who scrutinize budgets, demand internal party elections, insist on prosecutorial independence, and refuse to accept bribery as normal or efficient. They depend on leaders who recognize that legitimacy is based not on ceremony, but on real reform.

The events of September 2026 were not inevitable. They were cumulative. Years of reassurance replaced by structural correction. When reassurance finally failed, the cost was paid in lives, infrastructure, and institutional credibility.

Richardson’s insight is not fatalistic. Democracies are not doomed to fail. They fail when citizens mistake endurance for immunity.

Nepal exists in that wavering space between exhaustion and revival.

If we see upheaval only as an anomaly, we will go back to postponement. If we see it as a warning, we might still turn a crisis into rebuilding. The difference is not in words but in steady civic actions.

Someone fixing it is comforting because it absolves. It allows outrage without accountability. It turns democracy into a performance.

But no intangible protector is waiting in the wings. Institutions survive only when citizens refuse to keep passing off responsibility forever.

Inevitability only applies to what has already happened. Everything else depends on whether reassurance yields to responsibility.

The illusion isn’t that someone will fix it; it’s that someone was ever separate from us.