Trump Is Dismantling Democracy at 'Unprecedented' Speed, Global Report Finds, 3 Maj Reports This Month: NPR

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- Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds, NPR,
March 20, 2026.
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Three major reports out this month say President Trump has done serious damage to American democracy at remarkable speed since his return to the White House.
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An annual report from V-Dem, an institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, concluded democracy had deteriorated so much in the U.S. that it lowered the country's democracy ranking from 20th to 51st out of 179 countries. The U.S. landed between Slovakia and Greece.

Meanwhile, Bright Line Watch, which surveys more than 500 U.S. scholars, concluded that the U.S. system now falls nearly midway between liberal democracy and dictatorship. The newest survey comes out next week. Bright Line Watch's co-directors spoke to NPR exclusively ahead of publication. Yet another report out Thursday from Freedom House, a Washington, D.C.-based democracy think-tank, said that among free countries, the U.S. joined Bulgaria and Italy in registering the largest declines in political rights and civil liberties last year.

"The developments in the United States are moving towards dictatorship, what the founders wanted to avoid," said Staffan Lindberg, the V-Dem Institute's founding director, who spent seven years in the U.S. "It's the most rapid decline ever in the history of the United States and one of the most rapid in the world."

V-Dem stands for Varieties of Democracy. More than 4,000 scholars contributed data to the report, which is the largest of its kind. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales dismissed V-Dem's analysis as "a ridiculous claim made by an irrelevant, blatantly biased organization." She called Trump a champion for freedom and democracy and the most transparent and accessible president ever...

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/20/nx-s1-5754021/trump-democracy-autocracy-dictatorship-reports

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1. Trump Is Dismantling US Democracy at a Speed 'Unprecedented in Modern History': Watchdog

Trump Is Dismantling US Democracy at a Speed ‘Unprecedented in Modern History’: Watchdog, Common Dreams, March 16, 2026. Edit.

Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever in the country.”
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A report released on Tuesday by the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden has found that President Donald Trump and his administration are dismantling democracy in the US at a speed that “is unprecedented in modern history.” In its report, V-Dem categorizes the first year of Trump’s second term as “a rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.”

That the Trump administration has accomplished in just one year what most budding autocracies take a decade to achieve, adding that “the speed of decline is comparable to some coups d´état.” Of particular concern is the failure of the legislative branch of the US government to apply any kind of oversight or check upon the executive branch, the report explains.

“The Republican-controlled Congress seems to have abdicated its constitutional role in favor of the executive branch, ceding significant legislative, fiscal, and oversight powers during 2025,” the report says. “The Trump administration has de facto repeatedly taken over the Congressional ‘power of the purse’—enshrined in the Constitution and in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act—unilaterally cancelling or reallocating federal funding.”

The report also points fingers at the US Senate for repeatedly rolling over and confirming unqualified Trump nominees, which it says is tantamount to letting the White House “sideline” the upper chamber’s authority altogether. V-Dem goes on to document the administration’s repeated assaults on the judicial branch and the rule of law in general during his second term, starting when Trump issued a mass pardon to more than 1,500 alleged or convicted criminals who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021... The lone bright spot in US democracy, says V-Dem, is that the administration has not yet been able to attack states’ powers to administer their own elections, although not for lack of effort. - More, https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-democracy-backsliding-trump