(blue) substantially and significantly (2010–2020) according to the
V-Dem Institute; the remainder are substantially unchanged. The 21st century saw the erosion of voting rights and the rise of partisan
gerrymandering by state legislatures. The
first presidency of Donald Trump accelerated the undermining of democratic norms. A paper published in
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science said, "Trump undermined faith in elections, encouraged political violence, vilified the
mainstream media, [and] positioned himself as a law-and-order strongman challenging immigrants and suppressing protests." In 2019, political scientists Robert R. Kaufman and
Stephan Haggard saw "striking parallels in terms of democratic dysfunction,
polarization, the nature of autocratic appeals, and the processes through which autocratic incumbents sought to exploit elected office" in the United States under Trump compared to other backsliding countries (
Venezuela,
Turkey, and
Hungary). They argued that a transition to
competitive authoritarianism is possible but unlikely. In 2020, Kurt Weyland presented a qualitative model for assessing democratic continuity and reversal using historical data from the experience of other countries. His study concluded that the United States is immune to democratic reversal. In 2021, political scientists Matias López and Juan Pablo Luna criticized his methodology and selection of parameters and argued that both democratic continuity and reversal are possible. With regard to the state of scholarly research on the subject, they wrote that "the probability of observing democratic backsliding in the United States remains an open and important question". According to some Canadian security experts, Canada may reevaluate historically close
Canada–United States relations in response to democratic backsliding in the U.S., which could bring instability to the region and compromise Canada's greatest source of
intelligence, and Canadian Prime Minister
Mark Carney has openly said that U.S.–Canadian relations have entered a new chapter wherein the United States will no longer be seen as a trustworthy partner. account summarizing a
Daily Mail poll of words voters associated with him. Quickly after resuming office for his second term in 2025, Trump became increasingly criticized by political scientists, scholars, and other significant figures for the threat he poses to American democracy. Early on, many cited the expansion of executive power and the reduction of agency workforces and regulations by the
Department of Government Efficiency as an example of such threats.
Freedom House described the
pardon of January 6 United States Capitol attack defendants as an attempt to "excuse a violent assault on a key element of democracy".
Steven Levitsky found the first two months of the
second Trump administration to be the most aggressively and openly authoritarian case of democratic backsliding that he has seen, expressing particular concern about attacks on the courts. In September 2025,
Ray Dalio, the founder of
Bridgewater Associates, has warned that the United States was heading towards 1930s-style authoritarian policies.
Origins Some have linked the
war on terror and the
Iraq War, started during the presidency of
George W. Bush, as enabling later democratic backsliding under the
first Trump administration. A resurgence of authoritarian, white-ethnic
identity politics has been cited as well. Some have linked that rise to
social media,
Google,
YouTube and other
algorithms of the
attention economy that prioritize more
sensational content. The changing media landscape has also resulted in a loss of journalists, with
local journalism being offered as a partial solution for
political polarization.
Inequality and the role of money in politics Political scientists including
Wendy Brown and H.A. Giroux argued that the United States has been de-democratizing since the 1980s because of
neoconservatism and
neoliberalism.
Aziz Huq and Behrouz Alikhani cited the growing political influence of the wealthiest classes and global corporations, related to the loosening of
campaign finance laws, especially the
Citizens United Supreme Court decision that reaffirmed
corporate personhood.
Undemocratic institutions Huq also cited the inadequate democratization of national institutions since 1787. Levitsky and Ziblatt agree, finding 2016–2021 to be a period of democratic backsliding due largely to the inability to reform
minoritarian institutions like the
Electoral College and
Senate that enabled reactionary
xenophobic candidates to win office much more easily than in other democracies that had successfully reformed their institutions in the 20th century to be more representative.
The Economist argues that the American constitution is more vulnerable to backsliding than
parliamentary democracies, pointing to examples throughout history of backsliding to countries that copied the American model. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the
U.S. Constitution is the most difficult in the world to amend "by a lot" and that this helps explain why the U.S. still has so many undemocratic institutions that most or all other democracies have reformed.
Ari Berman criticized
Article Five of the constitution, citing how as of 2024, 7% of U.S. citizens in the 13 least populous states can block any constitutional amendment. Richard Albert says amending the U.S. Constitution is virtually impossible and that it consistently ranks among the most difficult to amend. He cites partisan division as an explanation for how it was able to be amended at certain times and not others.
Redistricting and gerrymandering Gerrymandering, the process of redistricting a state with unusual shapes specifically to give an advantage to one political party over another based on voter preference, has been an issue in American politics since as early as 1789, and impacting the representation of the state at the U.S. House of Representatives. Gerrymandering, whether for partisan purposes or racial discrimination, violates the U.S. Constitution, but the court systems have struggled with how to properly quantify when a constitutional violation has occurred. Because of the difficulty in enforcement, gerrymandering remained an effective tactic for political parties to control their representation in the House for over 200 years, but up through 2012, has typically been a back-and-forth conflict between the Republics and Democrats.
Partisan gerrymandering After winning power in several states in 2010, the Republicans pushed for state redistricting using the results of the
2010 United States census. They implemented the Redistricting Majority Project, or
REDMAP, which was aimed to redistrict states where Republicans were in control of the district maps to push for stronger Republican representation, typically through partisan gerrymandering. This was a contributing factor to the Republicans gaining control of the U.S. House by winning over 33 seats in the
2012 United States House of Representatives elections. These new Republican-drawn district maps were met by several lawsuits challenging their validity, reaching the Supreme Court across multiple cases. The
Roberts Court has never struck down an election law for infringing
suffrage or
Equal Protection rights. Early cases focused on partisan gerrymandering, culminating with
Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) where the Court determined that while partisan gerrymandering was still illegal, determination when this occurred was too difficult to assess, and ruled partisan gerrymandering cases were beyond the justiciability of the federal courts. Following the 2020 Census, following
Rucho, at least 18 Republican controlled states, some that gained an extra seat from the census, made efforts to create partisan gerrymanders, at times, seeking to prevent or eliminate majority-minority districts, to gain more Republican seats and flip the U.S. House with the 2022 general election. Several Democratic states with partisan redistricting committees, including New York, Illinois and Maryland, made their own efforts to create partisan gerrymanders to offset the seats gained by Republicans in other states and maintain Democratic control of the House. The net result was that the Republicans were able to take the majority of the House, but holding only a narrow, single-digit margin following the 2022 election.
Racial gerrymandering Congress passed the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) to coding constitutional voting protections for minority voters and combat institutional racism in state voting laws, primarily for states in the southeastern United States. When the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymanders could not be decided in federal courts in
Rucho, new challenges to these maps arose from claims of racial gerrymandering, where Republcian states often used "cracking and packing" to minimize the influence of minority voters who are more likely to vote Democratic. Chief Justice
John Roberts had been keen on weakening the VRA since his nomination in 2005, saying "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race". In
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), Roberts led the court to determine
affirmative action projects at colleges violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which became a precursor to other devisions to weaken the VRA. The court ruled 6–3 that state courts can adjudicate matters related to federal elections held in their state and the
North Carolina Supreme Court was allowed to adjudicate whether the congressional map drawn by the
North Carolina Legislature complied with the state constitution, because the
United States Constitution "does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review". The court rejected the
independent state legislature theory, which contended that state legislatures have "effectively unchecked authority" to draw maps according to their wishes. During his second term, Trump has openly encouraged Republican-led states to redistrict to gain more Republican seats in the House, igniting a nationwide
mid-decade gerrymandering push. In August, the
Texas Senate approved a new map aiming to add five Republican seats. This led Governor
Gavin Newsom of California to redistrict the state in a way that would directly counter the new Texas map. In late September, Missouri Gov.
Mike Kehoe signed a new map into law. The new map was challenged as being racially driven, which a three-judge panel at the district court decided was the case and had blocked the maps, but the Supreme Court ordered a stay on this in December 2025, allowing these maps to be used in 2026. During this period, the Court heard
Louisiana v. Callais (2026), involving whether a second majority-minority district was required in the state due to the new census data, following Section 2 of the VRA. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that while the VRA was still constitutional, Section 2 could not be used to create districting maps based on race under the 14th and 15th Amendments, limiting the ability to challenge racial gerrymanders. The ruling, which many commentators said effectively ended the VRA, is expected to allow the southern states to eliminate most of the majority-minority districts and swing the states towards more likely complete Republican representation in the House.
Supreme Court In addition to decisions on gerrymandering,
Thomas M. Keck argues that because the Court has historically not served as a strong bulwark for democracy, the Roberts Court has the opportunity to go down in history as a defender of democracy. However, he believes that if the court shields Trump from criminal prosecution (after ensuring his access to the ballot), then the risks that come with an anti-democratic status quo of the current court will outweigh the dangers that come from court reform (including court packing).
Aziz Z. Huq points to the blocking progress of democratizing institutions,
increasing the disparity in wealth and power, and empowering an authoritarian white nationalist movement, as evidence that the Supreme Court has created a "permanent minority" incapable of democratic defeat. In a 2024
Vox article,
Ian Millhiser describes the court as having become a partisan institution, giving itself more and more power to decide political questions. He worries that the court, especially if it adds more Republican appointees, could permanently entrench Republican rule. The Supreme Court has increased its power over the bureaucracy through the
major questions doctrine and
overruling the Chevron doctrine as well as over lower courts with
Trump v. CASA and its expanded use of the
shadow docket. The Supreme Court under Roberts has also made a number of decisions that support the
unitary executive theory, that the President has sole power over the executive branch, allowing Trump to fire commissioners on several independent agencies.
Election subversion By 2020, most
state legislatures were controlled by the Republican Party, though some of those states had Democratic governors. As part of
attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, many Republican legislators in seven
battleground states won by
Joe Biden created fraudulent
certificates of ascertainment composed of "alternate electors" to declare Donald Trump had actually won their states, thereby overruling the will of voters. They hoped to pass these fraudulent certificates to vice president
Mike Pence on January 6, 2021, so he would reverse Biden's election and certify Trump as the winner, a scheme which became known as the
Pence Card. Pence instead counted the authentic slates of electors and properly declared Biden the victor. By June 2022, participants in the alternate electors scheme began receiving subpoenas from the
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack and the
United States Department of Justice. Investigations into a
Trump fake electors plot ensued.
Restrictions on voting Despite extensive research over decades finding that voting fraud is extremely rare, many Republicans assert it is widespread and that actions must be taken to prevent it. Amid
persistent false allegations that widespread fraud had led to Trump's 2020 election loss, Republicans in multiple states began taking actions in 2021 to gain control of state and county election apparatuses, limit ballot access and challenge votes. By June, Republicans had introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over elections officials. Republican lawmakers had stripped authority from
secretaries of state, who oversee state elections. In Georgia, Republicans removed Black Democrats from county election boards. In Arkansas, they stripped election control from county authorities. Wisconsin Republicans, led by senator
Ron Johnson, sought to dismantle the bipartisan
Wisconsin Elections Commission, which the party had created five years earlier. In
Michigan and other
swing states, Republicans sought to create an "army" of poll workers and attorneys who could refer what they deemed questionable ballots to a network of friendly district attorneys to challenge. Through May 2022, Republican voters had nominated at least 108 candidates, in some 170 midterm races, who had repeated Trump's stolen election claims; at least 149 had campaigned on tightening voting procedures, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud. Dozens of these nominees sought offices to oversee the administration and certification of elections. Such identification can be through a U.S. passport, a
Real ID state driver's license that indicates citizenship, or other federal identification. Democratic politicians and voting rights groups like the
Brennan Center for Justice argue these requirements create difficulty for people who have moved across state lines or changed their last names through marriage, as obtaining a birth certificate or other documentation is not always easy. This makes it easier to deny voting rights to these individuals. Republican politicians and groups like the
National Center for Public Policy Research argue the Act is necessary to advance election integrity and advances voter ID policies that are supported by most Americans. While the first SAVE Act expired with the end of the 2024 congressional session, it was reintroduced in 2025, and passed the House of Representatives along party lines in April 2025; due to the limited majority that the Republicans hold in the Senate, the bill is not expected to pass there unless the Senate votes to eliminate the
filibuster rule.
Antidemocratic and authoritarian tendencies Steven Levitsky and
Daniel Ziblatt in their 2018 book
How Democracies Die analyze major modern presidential candidates against four key indicators of authoritarian behavior and found that
Richard Nixon met one,
George Wallace one, and Donald Trump all four. The four indicators the authors use are 1) rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game, 2) denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, 3) toleration or encouragement of violence, and 4) readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents (including the media). They cite the
Republican Accountability Project, which in 2021 estimated that 6% of national Republicans politicians consistently stood up for democracy, with many of those who did losing reelection or retiring. By 2021, polling and research indicated a significant shift against democracy among Republican voters, both in terms of rhetoric and acceptance of potential political violence. The shift was most pronounced among Republicans who trusted
Fox News, and more so
Newsmax and
One America News (OAN), who were more inclined to believe the disproven assertion that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump. A November 2021
Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll found that two-thirds of Republicans believed the election had been stolen, as did 82 percent of those who trusted Fox News more than any other media outlet. Ninety-seven percent of those who trusted Newsmax and OAN believed the election was stolen. Thirty percent of Republicans agreed with the statement, "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country," rising to 40 percent among those who trust Newsmax and OAN; eleven percent of Democrats agreed. Robert Jones, CEO of PRRI, said he was deeply concerned about the poll findings and "we really have to take them seriously as a threat to democracy." Political scientist
John Pitney, who was previously a domestic policy and legislative aide for congressional Republicans, remarked, "Back in the 1980s, Republicans aspired to be the party of hope and opportunity. Now it is the party of
blood and soil. The
culture war is front and center, and for many Republicans, it is close to being a literal war, not just a metaphorical one." Political scientist
Larry Bartels, a co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at
Vanderbilt University, wrote in August 2020 that "substantial numbers of Republicans endorse statements contemplating violations of key democratic norms, including respect for the law and for the outcomes of elections and eschewing the use of force in pursuit of political ends." He ascribed the primary cause to "ethnic antagonism" among Republicans toward immigrants and minorities seeking political power and claims on government resources. It has also been described as a
coup d'état or
self-coup. In March 2025,
ICE detained Mahmoud Khalil without charging him with any crime, and reportedly threatened his wife with arrest. Donna Lieberman, director of the
New York Civil Liberties Union, condemned the detention and said it is a "targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his
First Amendment rights" and "reeks of
McCarthyism." Later that same month, the administration revoked the student visa of
Ranjani Srinivasan, one of several
Columbia University students targeted by immigration officials.
Religious and white nationalism During the Trump era, a
far-right,
populist movement based on
Christian nationalism surged, gaining a significant degree of mainstream acceptance, typified by the once fringe
New Apostolic Reformation. The ideology of
Trumpism broadly adheres to a
deeply held belief that America was founded as a Christian nation.
Philip Gorski, a Yale professor of the
sociology of religion, calls this "a mythological version of American history." Movement adherents believe their Christian dominance has been usurped by other races and faiths, which Gorski characterizes as a form of racial tribalism: "a 'we don't like people who are trying to change [our country] or people who are different' form of nationalism." Multiple studies have found that support for democracy among
white Americans is negatively correlated with their level of racial prejudice,
resentment, and desire to maintain white power and status. Researchers have observed that many in the movement seek to reduce or eliminate the
separation of church and state found in the Constitution. Every Republican voted against a July 2022
House measure requiring Homeland Security, the FBI and the
Defense Department to "publish a report that analyzes and sets out strategies to combat white supremacist and
neo-Nazi activity" in their ranks. A 2019 survey of active service members found that about one third had "personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism within the ranks in recent months." About one-fifth of those who were charged for participating in the January 6 attack were veterans, with some on active service.
Rachel Kleinfeld, a scholar of global political violence and democracy at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, found in July 2022 that Trump's affinity for
far-right militia groups dated to his 2016 campaign and such groups had since become increasingly mainstreamed in the Republican Party. She argued the militia influence had spread since the January 6 attack among Republican leaders at the national, state, and local level. Political scientist
Barbara Walter, who has studied political violence leading to
civil war, commented in March 2022 that "There are definitely lots of groups on the
far right who want war. They are preparing for war ... We know the warning signs. And we know that if we strengthen our democracy, and if the Republican Party decides it's no longer going to be an ethnic faction that's trying to exclude everybody else, then our risk of civil war will disappear."
Reactions In March 2025, historian
Christopher R. Browning found "considerable" democratic backsliding.
Adrienne LaFrance wrote in April 2025 that "backsliding" may not be a strong enough word given the speed with which she believes U.S. democracy is declining under the second Trump administration. National security researcher
Tom Nichols argued in October 2025 that Trump has taken control of the country's intelligence and judicial systems and is now testing the independence of the military. In September 2023, thirteen
presidential centers dating from
Herbert Hoover to
Barack Obama released an unprecedented joint message warning of the fragile state of American democracy. The statement called for a recommitment to the
rule of law and civility in political discourse, as well as respect for democratic institutions and secure and accessible elections. President Joe Biden warned of threats to democracy during addresses in 2022 and 2023. At a fundraiser in August 2022, Biden said Donald Trump's
MAGA philosophy was "like semi-fascism". In September 2023, weeks after Trump had been indicted on federal and state charges related to his
attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, and as
most Republicans still refused to accept Trump's 2020 election loss, Biden said:
Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in 2016, said in October 2023 that Trump was likely to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and if elected "will wreck our democracy", likening his MAGA supporters to a "cult".
Congress Despite the importance of Congress outlined in
Article One, Congress has lost power to the executive and judiciary both intentionally and unintentionally.
Executive Law Kristi Noem, during a March 2025 tour of
CECOT, the Salvadoran prison which holds
extrajudicial prisoners
headquarters with
Pam Bondi, the
Attorney General, previously one of Trump's defense lawyers During the first year of his second presidency, Trump appointed personal lawyers and loyalists to positions including
Pam Bondi,
Emil Bove,
Todd Blanche,
Stanley Woodward, and
D. John Sauer. In February 2026,
Patrick J. Schiltz wrote "The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders".
Unitary executive theory and Project 2025 While the scope of the theory is disputed around the powers of the president, it has grown in prominence since the Reagan administration and has been cited as justification for many of the increases in presidential power since. Donald Trump embraced the theory when in office and plans to use it more aggressively following his reelection to a second term. Presidents of both parties tend to view the idea that they should have increased power more favorably when in office. In April 2023,
the Heritage Foundation, a conservative
think tank, unveiled Project 2025, a political initiative which details comprehensive plans for the next Republican president to consolidate control over the executive branch. Over 100 conservative organizations contributed to the project. Project 2025 proposes sweeping changes in the federal government relating to social and economic issues by cutting funding for, dismantling, or abolishing altogether major Cabinet departments and agencies, with the objective of placing their functions under the full and direct control of the president to impose an array of conservative policies on a national scale. The proposal includes replacing thousands of career federal
civil servants with Trump loyalists to implement the plan, and includes the deployment of military forces for domestic law enforcement, pursuing Trump's political adversaries, and infusing government policies with Christian beliefs. Critics of Project 2025 have described it as an authoritarian
Christian nationalist movement and a path for the United States to become an
autocracy. Several experts in law have indicated that it would undermine the
rule of law and the
separation of powers.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar of fascism and authoritarian leaders at
New York University, wrote in May 2024 that Project 2025 "is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States that goes by a deceptively neutral name," characterizing participants in the project as "American incarnations of fascism." Announcing in June 2024 the formation of a task force to address Project 2025, Democratic congressman
Jared Huffman characterized it as "an unprecedented embrace of extremism, fascism, and religious nationalism, orchestrated by the
radical right and its dark money backers." Some academics worry Project 2025 represents significant executive aggrandizement, a type of democratic backsliding.
Militarism ==Indicators==