The United States experienced an unprecedented democratic decline in 2025 and is on the verge of transforming under the leadership of President Donald Trump into an autocratic regime at a speed much greater than that experienced by repressive countries like Hungary or Turkey.
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At least that is what the most recent report from V-Dem indicates, a respected Swedish institute studying the democratic evolution of countries on the basis of hundreds of indicators taking into account respect for the separation of powers as well as respect for individual freedoms and the solidity of the electoral system.
The liberal democracy index compiled by the organization fell by 24% in 2025 for the United States, dropping it from 20e at 51e place in a total of 179 countries.
“This is the fastest and most spectacular decline in terms of importance that we have recorded in the period for which we have data for the United States which goes back to 1789,” Staffan Lindberg, professor at the University of Gothenburg, which oversees the institute, said in an interview on Tuesday.
Near the threshold
In Turkey, it took nearly 10 years for the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to impose a setback similar to that which the United States has just experienced in one year. In Hungary, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took four years to do the same.
These two countries are considered, according to V-Dem indicators, to be autocracies, unlike the United States, which is now close to the threshold required to no longer be recognized as a democracy.
It is possible that the threshold in question will be crossed in 2026 since the 2025 index for the United States reflects the situation of the electoral system in 2024 and is likely to experience a further decline in light of the pressures that the Trump administration is placing on the electoral system in the run-up to the midterm elections.
Staffan Lindberg notes that the US president returned to power with a clear plan reflecting the provisions of Project 2025, which was, he says, a “road map to establishing an autocratic system” in which power is ultimately concentrated in the hands of a single individual.
The transition in this sense was largely facilitated by the control exercised by the president over the Republican Party and its elected officials, who “abdicated” their constitutional role of counter-power for the benefit of the executive branch.
Congress, notes Mr. Lindberg, allowed the president to multiply decrees without regard for the separation of powers provided for by the Constitution and ratified the appointments to several key positions of candidates without appropriate skills initially chosen for their loyalty.
Multiple efforts have also been made to exclude alleged opponents from the government apparatus, repress demonstrations sparked by an aggressive immigration policy, put pressure on the media and counter the influence of the courts, subject to multiple attacks with each decision contrary to the will of Donald Trump.
The head of V-Dem notes that there is no doubt that the American president wants to continue his momentum and ultimately become an autocrat accountable to no one.
Trump himself recently said that only his morality can constrain his actions. He clearly sees himself as a legitimate dictator who must have the power to decide how he wants to proceed.
Staffan Lindberg, professor at the University of Gothenburg
The evolution of the United States is echoed elsewhere on the planet since V-Dem has identified dozens of cases of democratic regression, both in established democracies and in autocratic countries which are hardening their approach.
At the end of 2025, there were 92 autocracies and 87 democracies, including Canada, among the countries studied. Only 7% of the world’s population, or 600 million people, lived in fully-fledged liberal democracies.
Risks of drift
Mr. Lindberg notes that the rise of disinformation and its use by reactionary far-right groups to fuel the division of the population play an important role in the phenomenon.
Authoritarian countries like Russia and China, which took a dim view of the democratic progress recorded in the 1990s, have stepped up interventions outside their borders to reverse the situation, adds the researcher, who also mentions the role of Saudi Arabia and its active promotion of Salafism in several regions of the planet.
The V-Dem report warns that several countries engaged in an autocratic shift, including the United States, have the weight and influence required to weigh on international institutions and change the world order according to their priorities, which reinforces the risks of drift.
