What would Franklin say this morning?
The verdict is in: “The USA loses its long-term status as a liberal democracy – for the first time in over 50 years.”
Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, a major democracy monitor, has issued its annual report, this year subtitled “Unraveling The Democratic Era?” “THE WEST IN DECLINE” reads one subsection. “Nearly three quarters of the world population (74%, or 6 billion) live in autocracies.” The United States is on track to join them.
V-Dem’s data on the United States goes back to 1789. The group’s founder, Steffan Lindberg, tells The Guardian, “What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever in the country.”
Since 2012, Lindberg has led his small group of researchers in Sweden to become the world’s leading source for analysis of the health of global democracy. In their latest report, published on Tuesday, they conclude that the US, for the first time in more than half a century, has lost its long-term status as a liberal democracy. The country is now going through a rapid process of what the report’s authors call “autocratisation”.
“For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years, for Vučić in Serbia, it took eight years, and for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, it took about 10 years to accomplish the suppression of democratic institutions that Trump has achieved in only one year,” Lindberg says.
US democracy is now back at the worst recorded level since 1965, when US civil rights laws first introduced de facto universal suffrage. All progress made since then has been erased, according to the report.
“The world has never before seen as many countries autocratising at the same time,” the report concludes. From page 5:
- 5. In Focus: Autocratization in the USA
- Under Trump’s presidency democracy in the USAhas fallen back to the same level as in 1965. Yet the situation is fundamentally different than during the Civil Rights era.
- President Trump’s second term can be summarized as a rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.
- The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.
- Legislative Constraints – the worst affected aspect of democracy – is losing one-third of its value in 2025 and reaching its lowest point in over 100 years.
- Civil Rights & Equality before the Law, and Freedom of Expression & Media are now at their lowest levels in 60 years.
- Electoral components of democracy, however, remain stable – for now
The Guardian continues:
The researchers use 48 different metrics to assess democratic health, such as the freedom of expression and the media, the quality of elections and the observance of the rule of law. The resulting “liberal democracy index” shows that the speed with which US democracy is being dismantled is unprecedented in modern history. The main factor is a “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency”, Lindberg says. Congress has been marginalised, jeopardising the “checks and balances” (judicial and legislative constraints on the executive) so crucial to US democracy. At the same time, civil rights have been rapidly declining and freedom of expression is now at its lowest level since the 1940s.
The United States is still leading Western Europe. Just in the wrong direction (V-Dem):
- The level of democracy for the average citizen in Western Europe and North America is at its lowest level in over 50 years, primarily due to ongoing autocratization in the USA.
- The USA loses its long-term status as a liberal democracy – for the first time in over 50 years.
It’s five o’clock somewhere. Even so (V-Dem):
What would it take to stop autocratization in the USA, and turn it around? Roughly 70% of all “third wave” episodes of autocratization have been reversed, making U-turns. Elections were often pivotal windows of opportunity, and the first electoral cycle was often decisive.
“What are you prepared to do?”
Are we there yet? Do lovers of liberal democracy have what it takes? Or do we roll over at let this country die?
(h/t KY)