{"id":249927,"date":"2026-01-21T13:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/249927\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:22:08","slug":"american-democracy-on-the-brink-a-year-after-trumps-election-experts-say-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/249927\/","title":{"rendered":"American democracy on the brink a year after Trump\u2019s election, experts say | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three hundred and sixty five days after Donald Trump<\/a> placed his hand on the Bible and completed an extraordinary return to power, many historians, scholars and experts say his presidency has pushed American democracy to the brink \u2013 or beyond it.<\/p>\n

In the first year of Trump\u2019s second term, the democratically elected US president has moved with startling speed to consolidate authority: dismantling federal agencies<\/a>, purging the civil service<\/a>, firing independent watchdogs<\/a>, sidelining Congress<\/a>, challenging judicial rulings<\/a>, deploying federal force<\/a> in blue cities<\/a>, stifling dissent<\/a>, persecuting political enemies<\/a>, targeting immigrants<\/a>, scapegoating marginalized groups<\/a>, ordering the capture<\/a> of a foreign leader, leveraging<\/a> the presidency for profit<\/a>, trampling academic freedom<\/a> and escalating<\/a> attacks<\/a> on the news media.<\/p>\n

The scale and velocity of what he has been able to accomplish in just a year have stunned even longtime observers of authoritarian regimes, pushing the debate among academics and Americans from whether the world\u2019s oldest continuous democracy is backsliding to whether it can still faithfully claim that distinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2025, the United States ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or even Argentina are democracies,\u201d Steven Levitsky<\/a> and Daniel Ziblatt<\/a>, the prominent Harvard political scientists and authors of How Democracies Die,<\/a> and the University of Toronto professor Lucan Way<\/a>, wrote in Foreign Affairs last month<\/a>. They argued that the US under Trump had \u201cdescended into competitive authoritarianism\u201d, a system in which elections are held but the ruling party abuses power to stifle dissent and tilt the playing field in its favor.<\/p>\n

There is no universally accepted definition of democracy. Some argue the US is a \u201cflawed\u201d or \u201cilliberal\u201d democracy, or a democracy facing substantial \u201cautocratization<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a process that began long before Trump came to power a decade ago but which his presidency has rapidly accelerated. Still, others believe the concerns are overblown, or reflect an intense partisan dislike of the current president.<\/p>\n

Since Trump\u2019s first term, scholars have warned that it can happen here<\/a>. But many now say this moment is different \u2013 not only because Trump\u2019s approach is more methodical and his desire for vengeance more pronounced, but because he now faces far fewer internal constraints.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s Republican critics have mostly been driven from public office and those who remain say they fear retaliation<\/a> for speaking out. Trump has repeatedly circumvented the GOP-controlled Congress<\/a>, on spending, tariffs<\/a> and war powers<\/a>. And the US\u2019s European allies are scrambling to respond to Trump\u2019s threats to acquire Greenland, by force if necessary. In an interview<\/a> with the New York Times earlier this month, Trump declared that the only constraint on his presidential power was \u201cmy own morality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Quantitive assessments of the country\u2019s democratic health point are bleak.<\/p>\n

Ratings of US democracy by scholars \u2013 and Americans overall \u2013 dropped \u201csignificantly<\/a>\u201d after Trump took office last year, according to data from Bright Line Watch,<\/a> a nonpartisan democracy-monitoring initiative that surveys political scientists and the public on potential threats and erosions. In its September survey<\/a>, experts rated US democracy 54 on a 100-point scale, placing the country closer to illiberal or hybrid regimes than to the full democracies of G7 peers such as Canada or the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

An assessment by the Century Foundation\u2019s new democracy indexing project<\/a> found that the US had recorded a staggering 28% \u201ccollapse<\/a>\u201d in democratic health over the past year \u2013 from 79\/100 in 2024 to 57\/100 in 2025, the kind of sudden decline more typically associated with coup or other major shock.<\/p>\n

Nate Schenkkan, the report\u2019s lead author and a former research director at Freedom House<\/a>, hoped to help Americans distinguish between the \u201cpush-pull\u201d of partisan politics and the \u201cauthoritarian behavior\u201d of the current administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a major change happens in a political system, it\u2019s very unevenly distributed,\u201d Schenkkan said. \u201cCertain people will feel it first. Certain communities will feel it harder and faster. And it is really important to recognize that just because it hasn\u2019t come to you doesn\u2019t mean that it won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sense of alarm is especially acute among those who witnessed democratic backsliding elsewhere. Last year, a network of former intelligence and national security professionals applied the same analytical methods they once used to asses the fragility of democracies abroad to the United States. In October, they published an intelligence-style report, concluding with \u201cmoderate to high confidence\u201d that the country was \u201con a trajectory\u201d<\/a> toward authoritarian rule.<\/p>\n

The White House has repeatedly rejected claims that the president\u2019s actions amount to authoritarianism, dismissing such criticism as \u201cdeeply unserious\u201d and rooted in what the president calls \u201cTrump derangement syndrome\u201d. When pressed, the president has said he was handed a broad mandate to restore \u201claw and order,\u201d secure elections and dismantle what he has described as a corrupt federal bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the reality: President Trump was resoundingly reelected by the American people based on his America First agenda,\u201d White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement. \u201cNow, he\u2019s delivering on all his campaign promises \u2013 that\u2019s democracy in action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all scholars agree that American democracy is in imminent peril. Some are wary that democracy indices rely too heavily on subjective indicators, which can amplify pessimism and media alarm over objective markers of democratic breakdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should be a little cautious \u2013 not that the experts are necessarily wrong,\u201d said Andrew Little<\/a>, a political scientist at UC Berkeley, whose research has found<\/a> that scholars who rate democratic threats tend toward pessimism. He favors a \u201cminimalist\u201d approach to measuring the health of a democracy: \u201cIs the country having free elections, and are people following the results of those elections?\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially worrying for scholars of contemporary authoritarianism is the president\u2019s close relationship with tech billionaires, or the so-called \u201cbroligarchy,\u201d many of whom donated to and were front and center at his inauguration ceremony a year ago. At the start of his presidency, Trump appointed Tesla and SpaceX head Elon Musk to lead the \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d, or Doge.<\/p>\n

Oligarchs typically exert influence from the outside, said Ruth Ben-Ghiat<\/a>, a prominent historian and author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present<\/a>. But with Doge, the \u201coligarch of oligarchs was allowed to come inside the government and was basically given the key to access our treasury, the payment systems and data systems of a superpower,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we are innovating the autocratic playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at the White House, Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government, firing thousands of workers in sweeping, indiscriminate cuts that were quickly challenged in court. Estimates suggest more than 300,000 federal workers<\/a> left in the Trump-era exodus, draining the government of top scientists, researchers and analysts.<\/p>\n

Traditionally autocratic regimes expand social services for supporters as a way to buy loyalty, while stripping away their political rights, Ben-Ghiat said: \u201cthat\u2019s how they get so many people to go along and look the other way\u201d. But Trump, she said, has diverged from that model<\/a>: rather than shoring up the social safety net, his administration, abetted by Congressional Republicans, has moved to \u201ckneecap\u201d public health and social programs, including child care benefits \u2013 cuts Democrats plan to foreground<\/a> in this year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Even the most grim assessments stress that democratic decline is not irreversible \u2013 and warn that fatalism itself can accelerate backsliding.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory suggests that it is possible to recover from democratic erosion \u2013 but far from a guarantee,\u201d Brendan Nyhan<\/a>, a political scientist at Dartmouth College and a co-director of Bright Line Watch, said by email.<\/p>\n

Staying engaged, protesting, voting and supporting Republicans who dissent were all ways to contest Trump\u2019s power, he said, adding: \u201cThe survival of democracy depends on people believing in its continued viability and fighting to defend it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, millions joined No Kings rallies <\/a>to denounce a president they say has wielded power like a monarch.<\/p>\n

At the ballot box, Democrats won successive victories<\/a> in the 2025 off-year elections, and are well positioned to retake the House \u2013 and possibly the Senate \u2013 in the 2026 midterms. Trump, meanwhile, remains unpopular<\/a> nationally \u2013 a vulnerability for his party heading into this year\u2019s elections. A CNN poll found<\/a> that a majority of Americans believe Trump\u2019s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country, and 58% call his first year a failure.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s fragile political standing is one indication that the administration\u2019s narrative is increasingly at \u201codds with what people see \u2013 their lived experience,\u201d Ben-Ghiat said. The more that gap widens, she said, \u201cthe more people will wake up\u201d.<\/p>\n

She pointed to Minneapolis, where Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act<\/a> as a response to protests against the killing of a 37-year-old US citizen by a federal immigration officer. Instead of retreating, hundreds of Minnesotans registered for training to become \u201cobservers\u201d of enforcement activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the courts, Trump\u2019s executive actions have been met with robust legal resistance. The ACLU, which has filed over 200 legal challenges against the Trump administration in the past year, touted a nearly 65% success rate<\/a> in \u201cdefeating, delaying, or diluting federal policies\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe judge the moment we\u2019re in not by examining the president\u2019s actions alone, but by evaluating the system\u2019s response to those provocations as well,\u201d Ben Wizner<\/a>, deputy legal director at the ACLU, said.<\/p>\n

Despite the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative supermajority \u2013 cemented by Trump in his first term \u2013 and the president\u2019s sustained campaign to delegitimize judges, Wizner retained a measured optimism: \u201cI am confident that we will emerge from this latest stress test to our democracy with our fundamental rights intact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, many scholars predict Trump\u2019s assault on democratic norms and the rule of law is likely to worsen in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms \u2013 an erosion that could become entrenched if Democrats fail to secure a check on his presidency by winning back a chamber of Congress.<\/p>\n

The most recent Bright Line survey found experts increasingly worried about political violence following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Concerns also focused on the administration\u2019s aggressive response to peaceful protest, the weaponization of government agencies to punish political opponents, and the president\u2019s unprecedented push to gerrymander congressional districts in Republican states.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Democrats and political observers have raised fears that Trump could dispatch the national guard to polling places as an intimidation tactic, while others worry about the expansion of ICE operations in Democratic-run cities.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Reuters last week, Trump mused that he had accomplished so much in 2025, \u201cwe shouldn\u2019t even have an election\u201d in 2026. The White House said he was \u201csimply joking\u201d. Though the federal government cannot unilaterally cancel the midterms, Trump has already taken extraordinary steps<\/a> to try to change how elections are conducted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAutocrats try to convince us that we\u2019re hopeless and helpless. That they\u2019re always going to be there, and there\u2019s no point in resisting,\u201d Ben-Ghiat said. But political dissidents of repressive regimes know better, she said, recalling a conversation with Yulia Navalnaya<\/a>, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny<\/a>, who died in an Arctic penal colony.<\/p>\n

She had asked Navalnaya how she viewed the US after Trump\u2019s return to power. \u201cYou still have elections,\u201d she replied. \u201cAnd you can use them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three hundred and sixty five days after Donald Trump placed his hand on the Bible and completed an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-249927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}