Background
Democratic backsliding is often portrayed as being the result of solely or primarily an executive using their executive power and influence to consolidate power and weaken institutions as a factor, while this is in fact the case in many instances, technological innovation in advanced societies and economies can play a role, through the rapid spread of misinformation to persuade and confuse voters, more specifically in the United States leading up to the midterm elections this fall–technofeudalism has played a role thus far in expediting democratic erosion in the United States. For context, within one year, scores on the V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index for the United States have decreased dramatically–24%, as well as the U.S’s world ranking dropping from 20th to 51st out of 179 nations. This is accompanied with the Trump administration’s measures to weaken institutions that previously were independent from executive control such as the bureaucracy as well as by algorithms on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) pushing content that serve as echo chambers for ones already held beliefs leading to extreme polarization– a result of two-party presidentialism and spread of misinformation. Technofeudalism a term coined by Greek economist & politician Yanis Farouvakis who argues that large monopolies such as those mentioned previously such as Facebook, X (Twitter) and other monopolies such as Amazon act similar to that of feudal lords extracting information and data from users and business & are rent seeking.

In other words, the U.S is facing democratic backsliding due to a combination of factors such as technofeudalism enabled by executive aggrandizement by the Trump Administration as coined by Juan Linz. Many scholars have noted that the upcoming midterm election offers a chance for the restoring of democracy in the United States due to rapid changes and weakening of democratic institutions in the United States, which can aid in changing tides of democratic backsliding.

The Surveillance State

In 2025, following an increase in funding, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dramatically increased investment in and usage of surveillance technology such as mobile phone databases to track location such as ClearviewAI , facial recognition technology via app Mobile Fortify, license plate readers, as well as monitoring programs for social media, which directly follows the Trump Administration’s strict crackdown on immigration with the many encounters with protestors and activists in Minnesota being a prime example, and I.C.E agents heavy reliance on such technology, with many being shown to racially profile Additionally, according to the groundbreaking Carpenter vs. United States ruling, obtaining and conducting a search on one’s mobile phone requires a warrant under the 4th amendment, although government agencies can bypass this ruling via the purchase of location data.
This occurrence has not gone without major scrutiny, following this occurrence Congress introduced the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), to effectively close this loophole but presently the Senate has not yet passed this act though it passed the House in a bipartisan effort.

In Application

The Trump Administration’s “cloaking of repressive measures” is a prime example of Ozan Varol’s “Stealth Authoritarianism” which has six mechanisms: judicial review to consolidate power, libel lawsuits, electoral laws to disenfranchise the opposition, non-political crimes, surveillance laws and institutions, as well as the enacting of reforms appearing to be democratic for both domestic and global legitimacy, of which the administration has intentionally enacted surveillance laws and gave ICE additional funding to enact said duties for their agenda. This allows for the Trump Administration to play “constitutional hardball” via violating established norms to identify and target vulnerable populations. According to Acemaglu and Robinson, who argue politics is simply conflict over policies more specifically redistribution separated between the masses and elites and successful democracies persist via inclusive institutions, which the United States lacks due to extractive institutions such as ICE since the technology directly targets protesters and activists. Additionally, data mining by large corporations such as Facebook & X (Twitter) can aid in the increase of polarization among voters, given tailored ads. The usage of ICE as a tool to separate what the Trump Administration considers “the people” as defined by Jan-Werner Müller in her definition of populism as an anti-pluralist force, which in this case would be deeming those that ICE targets–immigrants and allies as “enemies of the people”, this framing & rhetoric allows the Trump administration to further consolidate power and aid in the occurrence of democratic backsliding.

What’s next?

The case of the United States reveals that with the upcoming midterm elections it is vitally important for voters to to be aware of the importance of the ballot, and highlight how the risks surveillance technology and abandonment of forbearance by federal immigration agents with the direction by the Trump administration allow for the creation of what we know as a for profit surveillance state further accelerating the process of democratic erosion in the United States.