Democratic backsliding has been identified as a trend in the United States at the state and national levels in various indices and analyses, primarily during theJim Crow era and in the 21st century, particularly underDonald Trump.[1] It is "a process ofregime change towardsautocracy that makes the exercise of political power more arbitrary andrepressive and that restricts the space forpublic contestation andpolitical participation in the process of government selection".[2][3]
The Jim Crow era is among the most-cited historical examples of democratic backsliding, withBlack Americans in particular seeing their rights eroded dramatically, especially in the southern United States. Backsliding in the 21st century has been discussed as largely aRepublican-led phenomenon, with particular emphasis placed on the administrations ofDonald Trump. Frequently cited drivers include decisions made by theSupreme Court (especially those regardingmoney in politics andgerrymandering), attempts atelection subversion, the concentration of political power, a growing interest inpolitical violence andwhite identity politics.
Thefirst andsecond presidencies of Donald Trump accelerated the undermining of democratic norms.[4][5] A paper published inThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science said, "Trump undermined faith in elections, encouraged political violence, vilified themainstream media, [and] positioned himself as a law-and-order strongman challenging immigrants and suppressing protests."[4] This has resulted in the downgrading of US democracy by a number of indices and experts.
The first reconstruction started with the Emancipation proclamation in 1863.[6] In the immediate aftermath of theAmerican Civil War, thefederal government of the United States initially took an active role in reducingracial discrimination.[7] Between 1865 and 1870,three amendments to theConstitution were passed to addressracial inequality inthe South: theThirteenth (which abolished most forms ofslavery), theFourteenth (which addressedCitizenship Rights andequal protection under the law) and theFifteenth (which made it illegal to deny theright to vote on the basis of "race,color, or previous condition of servitude").[8][9] With this, the number ofAfrican American men who could vote went from 0.5% in 1866 to 70% in 1872.[10] These amendments would have offered more sweeping protections but some Republican lawmakers wanted to limit their impact so that they would not apply to immigrants or poorer people in their districts.[11]
By the late 1870s, however,white backlash against the social, economic and political gains of Black people (exemplified by the violence and persecution they faced fromterrorist groups like theKu Klux Klan)[6] contributed to theCompromise of 1877, wherein the Democratic Party (then-dominated by Southernwhite supremacists)[12] agreed to let Republicans win the1876 presidential election, in exchange for removing federal troops in the South and, in the words of historianJames M. McPherson, "the abandonment of the black man to his fate."[7] Former supporters ofReconstruction era policies began to argue that the government had made "too many changes too fast", and aWhite conservative movement within the Republican Party also started to gain influence.[13][14]
The Jim Crow Era saw an erosion of political and civil rights that would span decades; between the 1890s and 1910s, Southern governments passedJim Crow laws, which institutedpoll taxes,literacy tests and other discriminatory systems, barring many Black andimpoverished White Americans from voting. By 1913, thisdisenfranchisement extended into the federal government, as theWilson Administration introducedsegregation there as well. Jim Crow policies have been described as a democratic breakdown (or backsliding).[15][16][3][17]
The 21st century saw the erosion of voting rights and the rise of partisangerrymandering by state legislatures.[4] Thefirst presidency of Donald Trump accelerated the undermining of democratic norms.[4][5] A paper published inThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science said, "Trump undermined faith in elections, encouraged political violence, vilified themainstream media, [and] positioned himself as a law-and-order strongman challenging immigrants and suppressing protests."[4]
In 2019, political scientists Robert R. Kaufman andStephan Haggard saw "striking parallels in terms of democratic dysfunction,polarization, the nature of autocratic appeals, and the processes through which autocratic incumbents sought to exploit elected office" in the United States under Trump compared to other backsliding countries (Venezuela, Turkey, and Hungary).[19] They argued that a transition tocompetitive authoritarianism is possible but unlikely.[19] In 2020, Kurt Weyland presented a qualitative model for assessing democratic continuity and reversal using historical data from the experience of other countries. His study concluded that the United States is immune to democratic reversal.[20] In 2021, political scientists Matias López and Juan Pablo Luna criticized his methodology and selection of parameters and argued that both democratic continuity and reversal are possible. With regard to the state of scholarly research on the subject, they wrote that "the probability of observing democratic backsliding in the United States remains an open and important question".[21] According to some Canadian security experts, Canada may reevaluate historically closeCanada–United States relations in response to democratic backsliding in the U.S, which could bring instability to the region and compromise Canada's greatest source ofintelligence, and Canadian Prime MinisterMark Carney has openly said that U.S.-Canadian relations have entered a new chapter wherein the United States will no longer be seen as a trustworthy partner.[22][23][citation needed]
Quickly after resuming office for his second term in 2025, Trump became increasingly criticized by political scientists, scholars, and other significant figures for the threat he poses to American democracy. Early on, many cited the expansion of executive power and the reduction of agency workforces and regulations by theDepartment of Government Efficiency as an example of such threats.[24]Freedom House described thepardon of January 6 United States Capitol attack defendants as an attempt to "excuse a violent assault on a key element of democracy".[25]Steven Levitsky found the first two months of thesecond Trump administration to be the most aggressively and openly authoritarian case of democratic backsliding that he has seen, expressing particular concern about attacks on the courts.[26] In September 2025Ray Dalio the founder ofBridgewater Associates, has warned that the United States was heading towards 1930s-style authoritarian policies.[27]
Some have linked thewar on terror and theIraq War, started during the presidency ofGeorge W. Bush, as enabling later democratic backsliding under thefirst Trump administration.[28][29]
A resurgence of authoritarian, white-ethnicidentity politics has been cited as well.[30] Some have linked that rise tosocial media, Google, YouTube and other algorithms of theattention economy that prioritize moresensational content.[31][32][33][34][35][36] The changing media landscape has also resulted in a loss of journalists, withlocal journalism[37][38][39] being offered as a partial solution forpolitical polarization.
Political scientists includingWendy Brown and H.A. Giroux argued that the United States has been de-democratizing since the 1980s because ofneoconservatism andneoliberalism.[40][41]Aziz Huq and Behrouz Alikhani cited the growing political influence of the wealthy and global corporations with the loosening ofcampaign finance laws, especially theCitizens United Supreme Court decision.[42][30]
Huq also cited the inadequate democratization of national institutions since 1787.[30] Levitsky and Ziblatt agree, finding 2016–2021 to be a period of democratic backsliding[43] due largely to the inability to reform minoritarian institutions like theElectoral College andSenate that enabled reactionaryxenophobic candidates to win office much more easily than in other democracies that had successfully reformed their institutions in the 20th century to be more representative.[44] Tom Ginsburg and Bridgette Baldwin made similar arguments, citing the Supreme Court's role in shifting political power enough to enable authoritarianism.[45][46]The Economist argues that the American constitution is more vulnerable to backsliding thanparliamentary democracies, pointing to examples throughout history of backsliding to countries that copied the American model.[47]
Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the US Constitution is the most difficult in the world to amend "by a lot" and that this helps explain why the US still has so many undemocratic institutions that most or all other democracies have reformed.[48]Ari Berman criticizedArticle Five of the constitution, citing how as of 2024, 7% of US citizens in the 13 least populous states can block any constitutional amendment.[49] Richard Albert says amending the US Constitution is virtually impossible, that it consistently ranks among the most difficult to amend.[50] He cites partisan division as an explanation for how it was able to be amended at certain times and not others.[50] He argues that instead of constitutional amendments, judges, legislatures and the executive have all taken new powers to implement changes they want to see made. He also wishes that the founders had opted for a different path during their discussions on Article V.[50] Dan Balz and Clara Ence Morse criticized Article Five as having 'proved to be virtually impossible to change' despite being designed to be updated.Jill Lepore says that amending the constitution is a form of peaceful revolution, but when a constitution becomes so brittle and fixed, it could lead to an insurrection.[51]
The Republicans took initiative in pushing state redistricting in their favor using the results of the2010 United States census. They implemented the Redistricting Majority Project, orREDMAP, which was aimed to redistrict states where Republicans were in control of the district maps to push for stronger Republican representation, typically through partisangerrymandering. This was a contributing factor to the Republicans gaining control of the U.S. House by winning over 33 seats in the2012 United States House of Representatives elections.[52]
These new Republican-drawn district maps were met by several lawsuits challenging their validity. TheRoberts Court has never struck down an election law for infringingsuffrage orEqual Protection rights. On the other hand, it struck down theVoting Rights Act pre-clearance regime inShelby County v. Holder (2013), which existed to prevent disenfranchisement by states.[53] It has also not acted on partisan gerrymandering. As a whole, according to Huq, these changes shift the institutional equilibrium to "enable the replication of the system ofone-party dominance akin to one that characterized the American South for much of the twentieth century".[53] However, this has not always been the norm. In June 2023, the court ruled 5–4 to uphold rulings of the lower court which usedVoting Rights Act of 1965 to instruct the state of Alabama to draw a second majority-black congressional district, which was hailed as a win for voting rights advocates.[54] The court ruled 6–3 that state courts can adjudicate matters related to federal elections held in their state and theNorth Carolina Supreme Court was allowed to adjudicate whether the congressional map drawn by theNorth Carolina Legislature complied with the state constitution, because theUnited States Constitution "does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review". The court rejected theindependent state legislature theory, which contended that state legislatures have "effectively unchecked authority" to draw maps according to their wishes.[55]
During his second term, Trump has openly encouraged Republican-led states to redistrict to gain more Republican seats in the House, igniting a nationwide mid-decade gerrymandering push. In August, theTexas Senate approved a new map aiming to add five Republican seats. This led GovernorGavin Newsom of California to redistrict the state in a way that would directly counter the new Texas map.[56] In late September, Missouri Gov.Mike Kehoe signed a new map into law.[57]
In addition to decisions on gerrymandering,[58][53] Thomas Keck argues that because the Court has historically not served as a strong bulwark for democracy, the Roberts Court has the opportunity to go down in history as a defender of democracy. However, he believes that if the court shields Trump from criminal prosecution (after ensuring his access to the ballot), then the risks that come with an anti-democratic status-quo of the current court will outweigh the dangers that come from court reform (including court packing).[59]Aziz Z. Huq points to the blocking progress of democratizing institutions,increasing the disparity in wealth and power, and empowering an authoritarian white nationalist movement, as evidence that the Supreme Court has created a "permanent minority" incapable of democratic defeat.[60]
In a 2024Vox article, Ian Millhiser describes the court as having become a partisan institution, giving itself more and more power to decide political questions. He worries that the court, especially if it adds more Republican appointees, could permanently entrench Republican rule.[61]
The Supreme Court has increased its power over the bureaucracy through themajor questions doctrine andoverruling the Chevron doctrine as well as over lower courts withTrump v. CASA and its expanded use of theshadow docket. The Supreme Court under Roberts has also made a number of decisions that support theunitary executive theory, that the President has sole power over the executive branch, allowing Trump to fire commissioners on several independent agencies.[62]
By 2020, moststate legislatures were controlled by the Republican Party, though some of those states had Democratic governors.[63] As part ofattempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, many Republican legislators in sevenbattleground states won byJoe Biden created fraudulentcertificates of ascertainment composed of "alternate electors" to declare Donald Trump had actually won their states, thereby overruling the will of voters. They hoped to pass these fraudulent certificates to vice presidentMike Pence on January 6, 2021, so he would reverse Biden's election and certify Trump as the winner, a scheme which became known as thePence Card. Pence instead counted the authentic slates of electors and properly declared Biden the victor. By June 2022, participants in the alternate electors scheme began receiving subpoenas from theHouse Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack and theUnited States Department of Justice.[64][65] Investigations into aTrump fake electors plot ensued.
Despite extensive research over decades finding that voting fraud is extremely rare, many Republicans assert it is widespread and that actions must be taken to prevent it.[66][67] Amidpersistent false allegations that widespread fraud had led to Trump's 2020 election loss, in 2021 Republicans in multiple states began taking actions to gain control of state and county election apparatuses, limit ballot access and challenge votes. By June, Republicans had introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over elections officials. Republican lawmakers had stripped authority fromsecretaries of state, who oversee state elections. In Georgia, Republicans removed black Democrats from county election boards.[68] In Arkansas, they stripped election control from county authorities.[69]
Wisconsin Republicans, led by senatorRon Johnson, sought to dismantle the bipartisanWisconsin Elections Commission, which the party had created five years earlier. InMichigan and otherswing states, Republicans sought to create an "army" of poll workers and attorneys who could refer what they deemed questionable ballots to a network of friendly district attorneys to challenge. Through May 2022, Republican voters had nominated at least 108 candidates, in some 170 midterm races, who had repeated Trump's stolen election claims; at least 149 had campaigned on tightening voting procedures, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud. Dozens of these nominees sought offices to oversee the administration and certification of elections.[69]
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act was first introduced into Congress by the Republicans in July 2024. Among its provisions would require that a voter demonstrate proof of American citizenship prior to federal elections, based on claims of non-citizen voting fraud in recent elections which have been disproven. Such identification can be through a US passport, aReal ID state driver's license that indicates citizenship, or other federal identification. A major complaint on these requirements is that for people that have moved across state lines, or for married persons that have changed their last names on marriage, obtaining such documentation based on other forms of identification like birth certificates can be difficult to complete, and sets up the ability to deny voting to individuals that have these difficulties to demonstrate citizen, particularly married women. While the first SAVE act expired with the end of the 2024 congressional session, it was reintroduced in 2025, and passed the House of Representatives along party lines in April 2025; due to the limited majority that the Republicans hold in the Senate, the bill is not expected to pass there unless the Senate votes to eliminate thefilibuster rule.[70]
Steven Levitsky andDaniel Ziblatt in their 2018 bookHow Democracies Die analyze major modern presidential candidates against four key indicators of authoritarian behavior and found thatRichard Nixon met one,George Wallace one, and Donald Trump all four.[71] The four indicators the authors use are 1) rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game, 2) denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, 3) toleration or encouragement of violence, and 4) readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents (including the media).[71] In their 2023 book,Tyranny of the Minority, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the decision by partisans when faced with an authoritarian faction on whether to stay loyal to democracy by breaking with that faction has determined the fate of a number of democracies.[72] They cite theRepublican Accountability Project, which in 2021 estimated that 6% of national Republicans politicians consistently stood-up for democracy, with many of those who did losing reelection or retiring.[73]
By 2021, polling and research indicated a significant shift against democracy among Republican voters, both in terms of rhetoric and acceptance of potential political violence. The shift was most pronounced among Republicans who trustedFox News, and more soNewsmax andOne America News (OAN), who were more inclined to believe the disproven assertion that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump. A November 2021Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll found that two-thirds of Republicans believed the election had been stolen, as did 82 percent of those who trusted Fox News more than any other media outlet. Ninety-seven percent of those who trusted Newsmax and OAN believed the election was stolen. Thirty percent of Republicans agreed with the statement, "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country," rising to 40 percent among those who trust Newsmax and OAN; eleven percent of Democrats agreed.[74] Robert Jones, CEO of PRRI, said he was deeply concerned about the poll findings and "we really have to take them seriously as a threat to democracy." Political scientistJohn Pitney, who was previously a domestic policy and legislative aide for congressional Republicans, remarked, "Back in the 1980s, Republicans aspired to be the party of hope and opportunity. Now it is the party ofblood and soil. The culture war is front and center, and for many Republicans, it is close to being a literal war, not just a metaphorical one." Political scientistLarry Bartels, a co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions atVanderbilt University, wrote in August 2020 that "substantial numbers of Republicans endorse statements contemplating violations of key democratic norms, including respect for the law and for the outcomes of elections and eschewing the use of force in pursuit of political ends." He ascribed the primary cause to "ethnic antagonism" among Republicans toward immigrants and minorities seeking political power and claims on government resources.[74]
A survey between 2017 and 2019 found a third of Americans want a "strong leader who doesn't have to bother with Congress or elections", and one-quarter had a favorable view ofmilitary rule.[75] A research study administered in 2019 found Trump supporters were more likely to condoneexecutive aggrandizement, while Republicans were more likely to support a candidate who suspends Congress or ignores court verdicts.[76] The January 6 Capitol attack has been described as an example of de-democratization and democratic backsliding.[77] It has also been described as acoup d'état[78][79][80] orself-coup.[81][82][77] Zack Beauchamp describedDonald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign as another step on the road of democratic backsliding, wondering whether American democracy could survive a second Trump presidency.[83]
In March 2025,ICE detained Mahmoud Khalil without charging him with any crime, and reportedly threatened his wife with arrest.[84] Donna Lieberman, director of theNew York Civil Liberties Union, condemned the detention and said it is a "targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on hisFirst Amendment rights" and "reeks ofMcCarthyism."[85][86][87] Later that same month, the administration revoked the student visa ofRanjani Srinivasan, one of several Columbia university students targeted by immigration officials.[88]
During the Trump era, afar-right, populist movement based onChristian nationalism surged, gaining a significant degree of mainstream acceptance, typified by the once-fringeNew Apostolic Reformation.[89] The ideology ofTrumpism broadly adheres to adeeply-held belief that America was founded as a Christian nation.Philip Gorski, a Yale professor of thesociology of religion, calls this "a mythological version of American history." Movement adherents believe their Christian dominance has been usurped by other races and faiths, which Gorski characterizes as a form of racial tribalism: "a 'we don't like people who are trying to change [our country] or people who are different' form of nationalism."[90] Multiple studies have found that support for democracy amongwhite Americans is negatively correlated with their level of racial prejudice,resentment, and desire to maintain white power and status.[75][91]
Researchers have observed that many in the movement seek to reduce or eliminate theseparation of church and state found in the Constitution.[90] Some Christian nationalists also believe Trump was divinely chosen to save white Christian America. In their 2022 book,The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, Gorski and co-authorSamuel Perry, a professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma, wrote that white Christian nationalists share a set of common anti-democratic beliefs and principles that "add up to a political vision that privileges the tribe. And they seek to put other tribes in their proper place." Some believe in a "Warrior Christ" they will follow with the use of righteous violence.[90]
During aSeptember 2020 presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would condemnwhite supremacists and militia groups that had appeared at some protests that year. After his opponent Joe Biden mentionedProud Boys, Trump stated, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," adding "somebody's got to do something aboutantifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem." After Trump and his allies exhausted legal avenues tooverturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, several leaders of Proud Boys andOath Keepers were indicted and convicted on federalseditious conspiracy charges for their roles in theJanuary 6 United States Capitol attack as Congress assembled to certify Biden's election. TheDepartment of Homeland Security (DHS) stated in October 2020 that white supremacists posed the topdomestic terrorism threat, whichFBI directorChristopher Wray confirmed in March 2021, noting that the bureau had elevated the threat to the same level asISIS. The release of the DHS findings had been delayed for months, which a whistleblower, the department's acting intelligence chiefBrian Murphy, attributed to reluctance of DHS leaders to release information that would reflect poorly on the president in an election year.[92]
Every Republican voted against a July 2022House measure requiring Homeland Security, the FBI and theDefense Department to "publish a report that analyzes and sets out strategies to combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity" in their ranks. A 2019 survey of active service members found that about one third had "personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism within the ranks in recent months." About one fifth of those who were charged for participating in the January 6 attack were veterans, with some on active service.[93][94]
Rachel Kleinfeld, a scholar of global political violence and democracy at theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace, found in July 2022 that Trump's affinity forfar-right militia groups dated to his 2016 campaign and such groups had since become increasingly mainstreamed in the Republican Party. She argued the militia influence had spread since the January 6 attack among Republican leaders at the national, state, and local level. Political scientistBarbara Walter, who has studied political violence leading tocivil war, commented in March 2022 that "There are definitely lots of groups on thefar right who want war. They are preparing for war ... We know the warning signs. And we know that if we strengthen our democracy, and if the Republican Party decides it's no longer going to be an ethnic faction that's trying to exclude everybody else, then our risk of civil war will disappear."[95][96]
In March 2025, historianChristopher R. Browning found 'considerable' democratic backsliding.[97]Adrienne LaFrance wrote in April 2025 that 'backsliding' may not be a strong enough word given the speed with which she believes U.S. democracy is declining under the second Trump administration.[98] National security researcherTom Nichols argued in October 2025 that Trump has taken control of the country's intelligence and judicial systems and is now testing the independence of the military.[99]
In September 2023, thirteenpresidential centers dating fromHerbert Hoover toBarack Obama released an unprecedented joint message warning of the fragile state of American democracy. The statement called for a recommitment to therule of law and civility in political discourse, as well as respect for democratic institutions and secure and accessible elections.[100]
President Joe Biden warned of threats to democracy during addresses in 2022 and 2023.[101][102] At a fundraiser in August 2022, Biden said Donald Trump'sMAGA philosophy was "like semi-fascism."[103] In September 2023, weeks after Trump had been indicted on federal and state charges related to hisattempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, and asmost Republicans still refused to accept Trump's 2020 election loss, Biden said:
There's something dangerous happening in America now. There's an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: The MAGA movement. There's no question that today's Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.[104][105]
Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in 2016, said in October 2023 that Trump was likely to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and if elected "will wreck our democracy," likening his MAGA supporters to a "cult."[106]
Despite the importance of congress outlined inArticle One, congress has lost power to the executive and judiciary both intentionally and unintentionally.[107][108][109][110][111]
.jpg)
.jpg)
During the second presidency, Trump has appointed personal lawyers and loyalists to positions includingPam Bondi,Matt Gaetz,Emil Bove,Todd Blanche,Stanley Woodward,D. John Sauer.[112]
.jpg)
In 2025, duringDonald Trump'ssecond presidency,federal government forces, primarilyNational Guard troops, have been deployed in select US cities. Trump has given multiple explanations for the deployments, saying they are officially part of crackdowns on protests,crime,homelessness, andillegal immigration. The actions targetedDemocratic Party-led cities and sparked significant controversy, with critics labeling them asabuses of power and potential violations of laws like thePosse Comitatus Act, which limits military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Deployments began inLos Angeles in June 2025 and expanded toWashington, D.C. in August 2025, before presidential authorizations were issued to expand toMemphis, Tennessee, andPortland, Oregon in September 2025. Federal forces arrived in Memphis in October 2025.[113] Plans were underway forChicago and potentially other cities likeNew York,Baltimore,San Francisco, andOakland, California.[114][115][116][117] The moves came amidst broader expansions of the military's domestic use during the second Trump administration,[118] and Trump's prior comments during his presidential campaign to use the military to end protests without consent from state governors and target "the enemy within".[119][120] In September 2025, Trump told military leaders to view the deployments as "training grounds for our military" and described America as under "invasion" and waging "a war from within".[121] In October 2025, Trump authorized federal troop deployments in Chicago.[122]
On September 2, federal courts ruled that the administration had illegally sent troops into Los Angeles in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, a development described as potentially complicating Trump's threats for further military deployment.[123]While the scope of the theory is disputed around the powers of the president, it has grown in prominence since the Reagan administration and has been cited as justification for many of the increases in presidential power since. Donald Trump embraced the theory when in office and plans to use it more aggressively following his reelection to a second term. Presidents of both parties tend to view the idea that they should have increased power more favorably when in office.[124]
In April 2023,the Heritage Foundation, a conservativethink tank, unveiledProject 2025, a political initiative which details comprehensive plans for the next Republican president to consolidate control over the executive branch. Over 100 conservative organizations contributed to the project. Project 2025 proposes sweeping changes in the federal government relating to social and economic issues by cutting funding for, dismantling, or abolishing altogether major Cabinet departments and agencies, with the objective of placing their functions under the full and direct control of the president to impose an array of conservative policies on a national scale. The proposal includes replacing thousands of career federalcivil servants with Trump loyalists to implement the plan, and includes the deployment of military forces for domestic law enforcement, pursuing Trump's political adversaries, and infusing government policies with Christian beliefs.[125][126]
Critics of Project 2025 have described it as an authoritarianChristian nationalist movement and a path for the United States to become anautocracy. Several experts in law have indicated that it would undermine therule of law and theseparation of powers.Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar of fascism and authoritarian leaders atNew York University, wrote in May 2024 that Project 2025 "is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States that goes by a deceptively neutral name," characterizing participants in the project as "American incarnations of fascism." Announcing in June 2024 the formation of a task force to address Project 2025, Democratic congressmanJared Huffman characterized it as "an unprecedented embrace of extremism, fascism, and religious nationalism, orchestrated by the radical right and its dark money backers."[127][128][129][130][131][132] Some academics worry Project 2025 represents significant executive aggrandizement, a type of democratic backsliding.[133][134]
Bright Line Watch polls political scientists more regularly than some other indices and has shown a significant decrease in democracy in the US at the start of Trump's first and second terms.[135][136]Brendan Nyhan andNPR interpreted 2025 survey results as showing significant consensus among political scientists around concerns for further democratic backsliding at the start of the second Trump administration.[137][138] While not a representative sample, it is a large sample that has been used since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 to gauge shifts in how experts and the public perceive the health of American democracy.[139][140]
As part of theirFreedom in the World survey series,Freedom House downgraded the United States's score significantly in their civil rights and political liberties index between 2010 (94) and 2020 (83), including an accelerated 6-point loss during the first presidency ofDonald Trump alone, citing the need for 3 main reforms: removing barriers to voting, limiting the influence of money in politics, and establishing independent redistricting commissions.[141][142][44]
International IDEA labeled the US a "backsliding democracy" after evaluating 2020 and 2021 events, includingJanuary 6 and a poorly functioning legislature.[143] IDEA's democracy scores started sliding for the United States in 2016.[144]
Jacob Grumbach published the State Democracy Index which evaluates states between 2000 and 2018 on the strength of their electoral democracy. While starting in 2002 and accelerating after the 2010 elections and redistricting, Grumbach found that almost all democratic backsliding inAmerican states occurred under unifiedRepublican Party control, whileDemocratic Party-controlled anddivided states have become more democratic.[145][146][147][148] Grumbach found Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina were the worst performers (with Wisconsin and North Carolina previously ranking at the top), and suggested a sense of racial threat was one of the main drivers in these states with larger black populations becoming more anti-democratic.[149] Grumbach also cites economic inequality, the nationalization of state politics through declining journalism and an increase in national donors as contributors of backsliding.[86] While he notes it would be difficult to compare across eras, he believes that the slavery and Jim Crow eras in particular had far greater gaps in the quality of democracy between states than the present day gaps he analyzes and notes that the US, in the eyes of some, was not a democracy until 1964.[86]Vox describes this index as the first attempt to quantify democracy between U.S. states and as being widely praised.[150] 2018–2024 resulted in slight improvements overall thanks to the expansion of mail-in voting during COVID-19 and a couple states restricting gerrymandering.[151]
The Economist Democracy Index started the U.S. at the index's launch in 2006 at an 8.22/10 (full democracy) though the rating started declining in 2010 and dropped to its lowest rating yet of 7.85 in 2021 (flawed democracy).[152][153]The Economist cited functioning of government and political culture (both related to polarization) as major reasons for the lower score.[154][155]
TheV-Dem Democracy indices show significant declines from 2016 to 2020.[156][157] In March 2025, its director said the US was on track to lose its democracy status in six months.[158] V-Dem has measures on democracy starting in 1789, providing rare historical data to compare backsliding events, though comparing across centuries has challenges.[86] V-Dem also scores political parties in an annual illiberalism score, and ranked the Republican Party more similar to authoritarian parties than typical center-right governing parties.[159]
Bright Line surveys from the University of Chicago have taken frequent measurements on attitudes around democracy in the US from political scientists and a representative sample of the public, and have shown democratic decline consistent with V-Dem and the Economist Democracy Index.[160][86]
Heading toward the 2024 elections, polls indicated that Democrats and Republicans alike had serious concerns about democratic backsliding, though often for starkly different reasons.FiveThirtyEight analysis of polls found most Democrats were concerned about the implications for democracy of a second Donald Trump presidency, while most Republicans were concerned aboutelection integrity, as most Republicanscontinued to incorrectly believe that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020.[161]
Backsliding entails a deterioration of qualities associated with democratic governance, within any regime. In democratic regimes, it is a decline in the quality of democracy; in autocracies, it is a decline in democratic qualities of governance.
What the United States went through on January 6th was an attempt at a self-coup, where Trump would use force to stay as head of state even if abandoning democratic practices in the U.S. Some advised Trump to declare martial law to create a state of emergency and use that as an excuse to stay in power.
[Trump] tried to delegitimize the election results by disseminating a series of far fetched and evidence-free claims of fraud. Meanwhile, with a ring of close confidants, Trump conceived and implemented unprecedented schemes to – in his own words – "overturn" the election outcome. Among the results of this "Big Lie" campaign were the terrible events of January 6, 2021 – an inflection point in what we now understand was nothing less than an attempted coup.
A good case can be made that the storming of the Capitol qualifies as a coup. It's especially so because the rioters entered at precisely the moment when the incumbent's loss was to be formally sealed, and they succeeded in stopping the count.
Because its object was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attack was widely regarded as an insurrection or attempted coup d'état.
As with the Beer Hall Putsch, a would-be leader tried to take advantage of an already scheduled event (in Hitler's case, Kahr's speech; in Trump's, Congress's tallying of the electoral votes) to create a dramatic moment with himself at the center of attention, calling for bold action to upend the political order. Unlike Hitler's coup attempt, Trump already held top of office, so he was attempting to hold onto power, not seize it (the precise term for Trump's intended action is a 'self-coup' or 'autogolpe'). Thus, Trump was able to plan for the event well in advance, and with much greater control, including developing the legal arguments that could be used to justify rejecting the election's results. (p3)
Sheets is a leading figure among a faction of once-fringe Christian evangelical and Pentecostal leaders affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, an ideology that has existed for decades on the fringes of the religious right. Adherents of this ideology have risen in prominence and power since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, in which he became an unlikely hero of the Christian right and cultivated relationships with leaders in the NAR movement.
While people are still debating whether to call it authoritarianism or fascism, Trump is seizing control of one independent agency after another. (And for what it's worth, the smartest scholars I know have told me that what Trump is trying to do in America is now textbook fascism—beyond the authoritarian impulses of his first term. Take, for example, his administration's rigid ideological purity tests, or the extreme overreach of government into freedom of scientific and academic inquiry.)...People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a "slide," but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country's democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.
US President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 US troops to Chicago, to address what he said was out-of-control crime.
Project 2025's blueprint envisions dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI; disarming the Environmental Protection Agency by loosening or eliminating emissions and climate-change regulations; eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce in their entirety.
This is an unprecedented embrace of extremism, fascism, and religious nationalism, orchestrated by the radical right and its dark money backers.
Cornell University political scientist Rachel Beatty Riedl says Project 2025 is emblematic of a broader global trend in which threats to democracy are emerging not just from coups, military aggression or civil war, but also from autocratic leaders using democratic institutions to consolidate executive power. This type of backsliding, known as 'executive aggrandisement', has taken place in countries such as Hungary, Nicaragua and Turkey but is new to America, says Beatty Riedl, who runs the university's Centre for International Studies and is the co-author of the book Democratic Backsliding, Resilience and Resistance. 'It's a very concerning sign,' she says. 'If Project 2025 is implemented, what it means is a dramatic decrease in American citizens' ability to engage in public life based on the kind of principles of liberty, freedom and representation that are accorded in a democracy.'
It's not that the federal service isn't in need of reforms, says Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. But she says Trump wants to create a class of federal workers who will do whatever the president wants — and if they don't, they can be easily fired. 'It's just a dangerous sign,' she says. 'It really suggests that a president wants to aggrandize more authority and more power. And that should make everybody nervous.'
In fact, a survey in February found that hundreds of U.S.-based scholars think the United States is moving swiftly from a liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.
