With the release of the most recent V-Dem report on world democracy, the US has reached a 60-year low dropping all the way back to levels before the civil rights era.
This has been labeled as the single most dramatic decline of democracy in the world. The rate at which President Trump has managed to consolidate executive power is unlike any other modern autocratic regime. Even faster than Putin managed in Russia.
The most significant reason for this is Congress completely abdicating all its power and responsibility under the Republican-controlled legislature, a breakdown of what political scientists call horizontal accountability, the system by which branches of government check one another’s power.
Congress is supposed to act as the guardrails to executive overreach and ensure that all members of the executive branch live up to their oath of office. When Congress surrenders that role, horizontal accountability collapses, and power concentrates in the executive with no meaningful constraint.
Consequently, as republicans in congress have bended the knee President Trump in turn they have also given him free rein to enact his agenda without any oversight.
However, there is still hope for the future of American democracy.
With Trumps exceedingly fast consolidation of executive power has also come an equally fast plummeting of his approval rating, which has fallen from 50% approval down to 41% approval.
This is potentially a glimmer of hope as the 2026 midterms are coming up fast. Elections are democracy’s most essential tool of vertical accountability, the mechanism by which citizens hold hopeful authoritarian leaders responsible by throwing them out of office. If voters turn out in force, we may get a Congress that is willing to take back its constitutional powers and restore the checks that have gone missing.
Trump is also having a difficult time passing his voter identification law (the SAVE Act), which according to the Center for American Progress would disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans who lack the required documentation. If Congress is unable to pass this bill, it may just protect a core democratic institution and allow the people to respond to this historic consolidation of power.
At the end of the day, it is easy to fall into a pessimistic mindset and believe that all is lost, except that is exactly what autocrats feed off of. Democratic backsliding does not happen overnight it happens gradually, through small surrenders of oversight, one unchecked action at a time. And the consequences are concrete: when accountability disappears, so does the protection of the programs and rights that everyday Americans rely on. Cuts to Medicaid hit families who cannot afford private insurance. Attacks on an independent judiciary mean fewer protections for workers, immigrants, and minority groups. A compromised free press means citizens have less information to make informed decisions at the ballot box. These are not abstract political concepts — they are the lived reality of what democracy declining actually looks like.
We all may complain about the inefficiencies of democracy but are millions of Americans really willing to give up their control and their freedom of choice. I doubt it. If we choose now to fight for democracy we can set an example for the rest of the world, that democracy is here to stay.
Overall this post does a good job of highlighting how the United States rapid democratic erosion could potentially be saved/slowed down. The use of statistics like the V-Dem report and approval ratings are very helpful to legitimatize a) the severity of our democratic decline and b) Americans response. It definitely is a good sign that many voters do not just passively agree with the current government.
I do think that explaining why President Trump wants to pass the SAVE act and why it would benefit his reelection/party support would be helpful. Also the conclusion claim about Americans complaining about the inefficiencies of democracy is understandable, but I think that it could use more explanation as it comes on kind of suddenly.