Donald Trump’s authoritarian drift in his second term places the country on a par with Hungary or Turkey, according to a ranking by Sweden’s V-Dem Institute
Democratic backsliding is advancing in the developed world. The annual report from Sweden’s V-Dem Institute leaves no room for doubt: almost a quarter of the world experienced democratic backsliding, or a shift towards autocratization, in 2025, and six of the 10 newly regressive countries identified in the research are located in Europe and North America, including G-7 powers such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
But the most unsettling conclusion reached by the Swedish institute is that the United States — once a proud beacon of the more or less free world — is no longer a liberal democracy and is now on a par with countries like Hungary or Turkey, thanks to President Donald Trump. Autocracy is also spreading throughout Europe, but its reach extends far beyond the Old Continent: 41% of the world’s population (3.4 billion people) now live in countries where democracy is eroding.
The institute, which belongs to the University of Gothenburg and uses 48 metrics in its evaluation, is one of the most reliable sources when it comes to rating the state of governments around the world, and the conclusion of its 2026 study confirms the worst fears about the authoritarian drift of the U.S. under Trump’s leadership.
https://blorpblorp.xyz/home/c/politicalvideos@lemmy.world/posts/https%3A%2F%2Flemmy.zip%2Fpost%2F62631154
Let’s be honest, the US was no shining beacon of democracy even before Trump. The system was rotten and everyone knew it. However, those with the power to change it have no incentive to do so. It was basically held up because the poeple in charge had some common decency. At that point it’s just a matter of time before someone came along that didn’t have this basic decency.
I think the people of the UK should take a long, hard look at how the situation has evolved in the US and decide if they want to change their system to avoid having only two parties dominate the political climate. Ironically, being a monarchy means they are probably more resistant to going down the same route, but I suspect the parties are going to get more radical as time goes on and the royals aren’t terribly popular these days.
(Opinion to be taken with a pinch of salt. I am no expert in these things and don’t live in either country; We’ve got our own radicalization and issues with our own democracy.)
deleted by creator
the US was no shining beacon of democracy even before Trump
he didnt create that corrupt system, hes just taking advantage of it…
actually he and the other pedo billionaires did help to create the corrupt system who am I kidding?
WWII changed everything about the USA. Everywhere else in the world, manufacturing was bombed to oblivion, the populace unable to rebuild without a coordinated effort from governments and NGOs.
The US became a hub of manufacturing. We exported our culture, and our products, all over the world. Our currency and our language became the standard in business.
Everything since then has been a slow walk backwards, so that the ultrawealthy could exert more control and line their pockets. A return to the “real” American values of exploitation.
The US became a hub of manufacturing. We exported our culture, and our products, all over the world.
only because the rest of the world was bombed to shit. As soon as they rebuilt, they did everything better.
I think the people of the UK should take a long, hard look at how the situation has evolved in the US and decide if they want to change their system to avoid having only two parties dominate the political climate.
There are currently 5 parties vying for position here, but your point is still generally true. Hopefully with the rise of smaller parties, we might start to see a move towards a more proportional system, but I’m not holding my breath.
I think the people of the UK should take a long, hard look at how the situation has evolved
LOL… the same people who voted Brexit. Sure.
There are currently 5 parties vying for position here
I know you’re not disagreeing, but I find it absolutely hilarious (in a bad way) that UK political parties will put out flyers of who is most likely to win, as a way to convince people to vote for them.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zDLxgEquxA0
All while having rejected bringing in preferential voting at a referendum, not even that long ago.
As an Australian, may I say, you royally fucked up on that one. We have issues in our electoral system too, (mostly around lower house electorates being single-member, and not say 3-member to more accurately represent the electorate), but thank Christ we have preferential voting.
As an Australian, may I say, you royally fucked up on that one.
I take exception to that. The law which allowed for the referendum required Royal Assent, but that is the same law which would have allowed for the implementation of preferential voting. It was the statutory repealing of that law where things really went bad.
I would say we statutorily fucked it up.
Haha nice
the poeple in charge had some common decency.
The people in charge were scared of the public a little bit. It was not their decency that was stopping them, it was the danger of losing next elections if they took it too far. Bush attacked Iraq and he didn’t lie about the WMDs out of decency. He lied to cover his ass. Lindsey Graham was the same guy he is now back then. He didn’t lose his decency along the way. He realized he can be himself and people will still vote for him.
They’re going to let him tear the country apart, and then 25th amendment his ass just after January 20th 2027. That lets Little Smokey take over, and he’s still eligible for 2 full terms. Mark my words…
I think they’re just gonna kill him. Leaving him alive risks the chance of him sending whatever is left of MAGA after them. It also risks splitting their support base.
If they were going to do the smart thing and off him, they would have done so long ago.
Why would republicans have done that? It wasn’t in their interest to kill him while he still had enough sway and the populace still had some power. Now though, they know they can take over without risks since they’ve managed to accumulate so much power in the presidency that, so long as they can hold on to the senate, they can do whatever they want with the judicial having abandoned any semblance of control over the executive.
He’s an obese octogenarian. He’s already on borrowed time.
All the signs are there, he’s suffering acute heart failure likely. Just that he’s likely to get Dick Cheney’d a new heart they rip out of some teenager in China.
Yep, they will prop his rotting corpse up as long as they can, the plan is to having him be the wrecking ball, take all the blame, but by then the fixes are all in for the next one in line.
Not sure if they will foist vance on us, I don’t think they believe he can be the front of a cult but by they maybe the power will be consolidated enough that they don’t care since he’s just a puppet.
Ah yes, President Couch Fucker
The pedofile class doesn’t want democracy
As far as I’m concerned, everyone who is a billionaire has to prove they had nothing to do with Epstein or pedophilia in general.
I feel like that’s reasonable but billionaires should automatically be abolished also
Let them try to get by on $999,999,999.99
If they pinch their pennies, show some restraint on…what was it? Avocado toast, Netflix subscriptions, smart phones, and big screen TVs, they just might get by on a mere penny less than one billion…
Nah, that’s still too much money. I know you’re being sarcastic but realistically it’d be way under 100 million.
I dream of a world where anything above 10 million net worth need to be reinvested or donated. Like, you can gift your kids until you and them and worth ten mil each, and their kids and whatnot, but it would limit wealth accumulation even with a hundred family members. Something like that anyway.
This seems reasonable
That’s more reasonable, they still have a lot of money but cannot just buy politicians left and right.
I mean one problem is that they dont have a lot of cash, its the worth of their companies…theyd just bribe whoever values these companies to make them worth less would be my expectations…
If they had shown some restraint on all the houses that they made too damn expensive in the first place, the avocado toast meme wouldn’t have needed to exist
The cap should be 100 mil or less
I can remember when lots of the reactionary centrists and not a few on the left, oh, and of course, the right wing blow-hards, were playing Tone Police for everyone in 2016, and 2020 and again in 2024: lecturing us all about how uncivil it all was to be talking about fascism in relation to conservatives.
I wonder where all the WELLACKTUALLY guys are now.
not a few on the left,
Nah, was a lot actually. I know a lot of people that were really upset after the election and after the first few months. Then it stopped being a problem. “You’re overreacting.” “Don’t think about it.” “We’ll be fine next election.”
We would have been if we could get rid of the controlled opposition. But you all still trust the establishment democrats somehow.
lecturing us
Also about not understanding the law system, that it takes time and Trump was done. Really condescending shit. I noticed just before I got permabanned from Reddit that they were disappearing or gone.
A lot of the predictions and fears did not come true during Trump‘s first presidency.
Because the fascists didn’t think they would win in 2016 and were unprepared.
In 2025 they had a planThat was because the guard rails were still in place.
Not for lack of trying on the administration’s part.
He’s making moves like he’s expecting to be around another 50 years when he probably has 10 at the most. I’m way more afraid of who he might be paving the way for.
No way he has 10 years in him. Motherfucker is mentally gone as is. Weekend at Bernie’s.
Those red neck scars are an attempt to relieve his dementia with a blood flow stent.
The DNC made damn sure we wouldn’t have one minute at Bernie’s let alone an entire weekend.
I don’t think he is going to last his whole term. He looks like absolute shit, and sounds even worse. Fuck, he makes Biden’s last years look energetic. And Biden was a fucking reanimated corpse.
He could die tomorrow. Pandora’s Box is already open.
For the remainder of our lives we will see copycat politicians who strip more and more of our rights away when they gain power because they all watched and saw and know they can do what Trump did and more without suffering repercussions.
America put up a big sign letting them all know we are too weak to make them pay. They will take advantage. Why wouldn’t they?
Here is a link to the report: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf
It went from being four weapon manufacturing companies pretending to be a democracy to four weapon manufacturing companies pretending to be a dictatorship.
Here’s a press release from the source org about this:
All right, everybody needs pitchforks and torches. And we need four horses with four long ropes
Why do you think almost the entire cabinet lives on military bases.
Or, instead of the horses, and hear me out, we just need some green saplings maybe 20 feet tall and some rope in a sort of circle around a spot…
The Citizens get lazy under a Democracy, because they’re comfortable, but there are always those who want to everyone to do things their way, or else. Lazy Citizens let those people get their way too much, and it gets exploited, and the next thing you know, the Lazy Citizens have to do a lot more work to take control again, than if they had just been vigilant in the first place. It’s important to slap down the dipshits as soon as they get froggy.
many countrys and similar groups brake down solely due to corruption of the systems that got the country to where it was in the first place. many think about building the country but forget to set things in places to preserve the country their after. anti corruption laws need to be overbearing to deal with this upcreep imo.
No one will grow a ball and stop him, so it’s already too late. If you’re an American, your life will never be the same.
It’s not a single person issue. The entire system is broken. Taking out one leader is not going to fix anything.
But will it make things better? Worse?
Who knows? On one hand Trump’s dementia means he’s acting erratically. On the other it means that it’s harder for the Nazis to follow whatever plan they have for the US. The next leader may stabilize things but the fall of democracy may be even faster.
He’s on his way out. And despite the inevitability of the party fixing elections with the controlled opposition we have that these motherfuckers still trust somehow, in time, a true leader will emerge and lay waste to the oligarchy, it’s as certain as spring finally arriving.
Only thing that can stop him is his incompetence.
… Okay no really, who ever in their right mind considered us a “liberal democracy”?
Swedens V-Dem Institute, apparently.
Weird how everyone who was told they were overreacting are not being told that anymore.
In 1963 they murdered the democratically elected president in front of the whole world. Do you really think we’ve been a democracy since then?
