Two leading democracy watchdog organizations are releasing studies this week that evaluate the state of American democracy after President Trump’s first year.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
With the midterms less than seven months away, what is the state of American democracy? Well, major reports out this month say that President Trump has done serious damage at remarkable speed since his return to the White House. But as NPR’s Frank Langfitt reports, scholars say that Trump has yet to permanently change how America is governed.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Every year, V-Dem, an institute at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, measures democracy in countries around the globe. Its new report says American democracy is being dismantled at unprecedented speed. Staffan Lindberg is the institute’s founding director.
STAFFAN LINDBERG: It’s a very rapid and aggressive concentration on power in the presidency, encroaching and taking powers from the legislature, along with attacks on media freedom and freedom of speech.
LANGFITT: More than 4,000 scholars contributed data to the report, the largest of its kind in the world. The report found that America’s democracy ranking plunged last year, tumbling from 20th to 51st out of 179 countries. The United States landed between Slovakia and Greece. Lindberg says Trump is eroding democracy quickly.
LINDBERG: Under the Trump administration, democracy has been rolled back as much during just one year as it took Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey 10 years to accomplish, and Orban in Hungary four years.
LANGFITT: Lindberg’s referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. All three leaders came to power through democratic elections. But scholars say they have since undermined checks and balances to try to ensure they remain in office. Lindberg says the U.S. is on a similar path.
LINDBERG: Developments in the United States are moving towards dictatorship – what the founders wanted to avoid. And it’s going very fast. And if one wants to avoid that, pro-democratic action is needed urgently.
LANGFITT: White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales dismissed V-Dem’s analysis as, quote, “a ridiculous claim made by an irrelevant, blatantly biased organization.” President Trump has heard these claims before and rejected them, as he did speaking with reporters last August.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator. A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator. I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.
LANGFITT: But another report surveying more than 500 U.S. scholars finds that the U.S. now falls nearly midway between liberal democracy and dictatorship. The survey is called Bright Line Watch. Dartmouth’s John Carey is one of its codirectors. He says the U.S.’s rating might have slid even further towards dictatorship in recent months if not for the courts pushing back. Carey says autocrats try to co-op or pressure government institutions that serve as referees, but that strategy doesn’t always work. Carey cites last month’s Supreme Court ruling against the president on tariffs.
JOHN CAREY: One of the things that the tariff decision suggested anyway is that he has not fully captured that set of referees, and that’s the most important set.
LANGFITT: Brendan Nyhan is a fellow Dartmouth professor and a Bright Line codirector. He says just because Trump has undermined democracy does not mean the effects are permanent.
BRENDAN NYHAN: There’s just no question that what we’re seeing is the authoritarian playbook. But there’s no guarantee that Trump will be able to operate this way after the midterms, let alone a successor after 2028.
LANGFITT: Trump has already claimed without evidence that Democrats will cheat in the midterms. The State Department often used to call out election fraud overseas. But under Trump, it told NPR that it will only comment on foreign elections when the U.S. has a clear and compelling interest.
YANA GOROKHOVSKAIA: Not commenting on foreign elections is a major departure from U.S. foreign policy and marks just a big change in our approach to the world.
LANGFITT: Yana Gorokhovskaia is director for strategy and design for Freedom House. It’s a D.C.-based think tank that focuses on freedom around the world. Freedom House put out its annual report today. It also downgraded its rating of the United States. Gorokhovskaia cited increased use of executive power and the administration taking gifts from foreign governments, such as a 747 from Qatar. She also said the U.S. shift away from calling out election fraud overseas hurts America’s international relationships.
GOROKHOVSKAIA: What we’re losing is democratic solidarity globally, where we’re no longer emphasizing, as the United States, a distinction between democracies and autocracies in the world.
LANGFITT: That doesn’t mean the U.S. doesn’t take sides in foreign elections. Just last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly endorsed Hungary’s autocratic leader Viktor Orban for a fifth term. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Washington.
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