Benton Harbor is a small, low-income and predominantly African American town in western Michigan. Although you may not know anyone from there or even heard of the town before now, its current situation could affect the lives of all Americans.

Earlier this year, the new state law, Public Act 4—the Emergency Manager Law, allowed for the intervention from “emergency financial managers” in the event that the city experiences an unmanageable fiscal crisis.

While recruiting an experienced cabinet of financial advisors is a good idea (especially for a low-income town like Benton Harbor), granting them sovereignty over elected officials is just plain un-American. Once implemented, the first act from the financial managers was firing all elected officials, including the mayor. These czars were no joke; they even called to eliminate existing union contracts. In their defense though, the new financial managers did give the now-jobless local officials the power to call meetings, adjourn them and approve the minutes. How considerate.

Their second act was a proposal to turn popular local park district, Jean Klock Park, into Harbor Shores Golf Club. This does not mean locals can’t be a part of this once-public-but-now-private establishment. In fact, Benton Harbor’s financial managers believe this will be a very popular attraction for locals. Seeing as the town has a per capita income of about $10,000 a year, the new emergency financial managers will only charge families a $5,000 membership fee, because charging them more than half of their income to play at a place that was once free would just be wrong. Once again, how considerate.

I don’t know what’s scarier: the fact that these citizens are no longer living in a democracy, or the fact that this autocratic law was approved by the state of Michigan. “Benton Harbor’s residents now live in a dictatorship imposed by a Republican governor famous for his belief that the poor should be punished and the rich rewarded,” wrote Rev. Jesse Jackson in an article for the Chicago Sun-Times.

So what happens now? Should the Benton Harbor public school system change its social studies curriculum? Should children learn about the three branches of government and the fourth branch that comes and goes when you run out of money? Can you imagine a teacher saying, “OK class, turn your textbooks to the chapter on voting…now rip out that page because it means nothing.”

What’s even more shocking is the fact that this isn’t mainstream news. Besides leftist spiels from Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show and coverage from local Michigan news outlets, of course, there seems to be no interest in our eminent dictatorship future. Considering Walmart is almost as rich as China, it’s only a matter of time before they buy the U.S. I can see it now: their first act would be to change the national symbol from the bald eagle to the rollback smiley and the closing line of the “Star-Spangled Banner” to “for the land of the free and the home of the lowest prices.”