The United States is no longer a democracy, according to one of the world’s most credible sources on the health of democratic nations. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg reaches this alarming conclusion in its annual report, stating that the U.S. is sliding toward autocracy faster than Hungary and Turkey.
“Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe democratic backsliding ever recorded in the country,” says Staffan Lindberg, the institute’s founder.
Since 2012, Lindberg has led his small team of researchers in Sweden to become the world’s leading source for analyzing the state of global democracy. In their latest report, published on Tuesday, they conclude that the U.S. has lost its long-term status as a liberal democracy for the first time in over half a century. The country is now undergoing a rapid process of what the report calls “autocratization.”
“For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years; for Vučić in Serbia, eight years; and for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, around ten years to achieve the level of suppression of democratic institutions that Trump accomplished in just one year,” Lindberg says.
U.S. democracy has now fallen back to its worst level since 1965, when civil rights laws first established de facto universal suffrage. According to the report, all progress made since then has been erased.
Globally, democracy has declined to its lowest point since the mid-1970s. “The world has never before seen as many countries turning autocratic at the same time,” Lindberg notes.
The report claims that a record 41% (3.4 billion) of the world’s population now lives in countries where democracy is deteriorating, adding that Washington is leading this global shift away from democracy.
The researchers use 48 different metrics to assess democratic health, including freedom of expression and the media, the quality of elections, and adherence to the rule of law. The resulting “liberal democracy index” shows that the speed at which U.S. democracy is being dismantled is unprecedented in modern history. Lindberg identifies the main factor as a “rapid and aggressive concentration of power in the presidency.” Congress has been sidelined, undermining the “checks and balances” essential to U.S. democracy. At the same time, civil rights have declined sharply, and freedom of expression is now at its lowest level since the 1940s.
The V-Dem report highlights Trump’s pardon of 1,500 people convicted in the Capitol Hill assault, which it says “undermined the legitimacy of the courts.”
“We’ve seen a very fast concentration of power in the executive branch. The legislative branch has practically given up its powers to the president. It no longer serves as a check on executive power,” Lindberg explains.
In Donald Trump’s first year as president, he signed 225 executive orders, while the Republican-controlled Congress passed only 49 new laws. “Most of Trump’s executive orders were significant. He shut down entire government departments, firing hundreds of thousands of employees. The bills passed by Congress were mostly minor adjustments to existing laws. So, we no longer have a meaningful separation between the legislative and executive branches,” Lindberg says.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also largely relinquished its power, and even when it does overturn Trump’s executive orders, he finds ways to bypass it, Lindberg notes. He points out that there are over 600 ongoing legal cases against the Trump administration in the courts.
Another aspect of America’s rapidly deteriorating democracy, according to the report, is the removal of internal guardrails.Guardrails that protect the federal government from abuse of power are being dismantled. When I ask Lindberg how to interpret the findings, his response is emphatic. “Trump has fired inspectors general and senior civil servants across departments, replacing them with loyalists. This is exactly what Orbán and Erdoğan did—they removed constraints on power. It should be obvious by now that Trump is aiming for dictatorship.”
So how did a small research institute in Gothenburg become such a credible source on the decline of democracy in Washington? When Lindberg, a soft-spoken political scientist, founded the V-Dem Institute in 2012, global democracy was near its historic peak.
“Back then, we were all researching democratization, but we were frustrated that the metrics weren’t good enough. We wanted to create a credible global index for the entire community of democracy researchers,” he says.
Five years later, when the institute published its first global democracy dataset, its experts realized things were rapidly moving in the wrong direction. “Now, all of us studying democratization have become researchers of autocratization,” Lindberg says.
At the time, their reports were criticized for “exaggerating” the risks to global democratic stability. “We were called alarmists. But now our warnings seem justified,” he adds.
The core group of a dozen researchers in Gothenburg works with 4,200 researchers across 180 countries, using what they describe as the largest global dataset on democracy. It includes more than 32 million data points for 202 countries and territories, spanning from 1789 to 2025. “We have universal standards, but also local experts to tell us what’s actually happening. Our reports are entirely scientific and research-driven, free from bias, state influence, punditry, or political considerations,” Lindberg explains.
V-Dem’s report, titled Unravelling the Democratic Era?, should be essential reading for Europe, where seven EU member states—Hungary, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Italy, and Romania—are “affected by autocratization.” Governments in these countries show signs of using media censorship, restricting freedom of expression, and repressing civil society. Portugal and Bulgaria have been added to the institute’s “watchlist.”
The report identifies the UK as a “new autocratizer,” driven by a “substantial decline” in freedom of expression and media freedom. “In the UK, it began before Keir Starmer, with the Elections Act 2022, which expanded government power over electoral commissions,” Lindberg says. “The Policing Act 2022 reduced civil rights and free speech. The Online Safety Act 2023 was used to penalize online speech and silence journalists through lawsuits. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 increased pressure on universities to monitor protests and police speech. What’s worrying is that once democratic backsliding begins, it’s often hard to stop.”
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Estonia, and Ireland top V-Dem’s global democracy index for 2025. Others, including Poland, are praised for attempting to “U-turn” away from autocracy. However, only 18 countries worldwide are democratizing—a historic low.
A single bright spot in the assessment of the U.S. is that free and open elections are still being held, and the electoral system “remains stable for now.” But executive orders since Trump returned to power point to new risks for the electoral system.
Threats to bureaucrats and poll workers administering elections are already alarming, Lindberg says. “We’ve seen media reports that 40% of election workers have quit since 2020. And Trump never accepted his defeat then. Why would he now?”Will he accept defeat now? If we see a denial of the election results in 2026, it would signal a complete democratic breakdown.
A potential source of cautious optimism is that Trump’s authoritarian shift is growing increasingly unpopular. His approval rating has now fallen below 40%. Many Trump voters are deeply disappointed with the new war in Iran and with steadily rising living costs. Several liberal states targeted by Trump, such as Minnesota and California, have successfully pushed back against threats to civil rights and local communities.
“We’re also seeing more criticism from within the Maga movement,” says Lindberg.
It would be naive, as the report warns, to think European countries are immune to democratic decline, regardless of what happens in Washington. “It’s a global trend,” Lindberg notes, “so it’s not just America driving this. Research clearly shows that once the far right gains power, there is a high probability they will dismantle democratic institutions.” Across Europe, voters are mobilizing to elect their own versions of Trump, despite the administration’s open threats to the continent and its persistent support for extremist parties that undermine European stability. Establishment conservatives are going along, hoping against reason that things will turn out better this time than in past eras of authoritarian rule. With stark numbers and clear language, the V-Dem report underscores the risks of this path.
Martin Gelin writes for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. He is the author of Rules of Attraction: Why Soft Power Matters in Hard Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs based on the claim that Trump is aiming for a dictatorship sourced from the referenced watchdog report
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 Who said Trump is aiming for a dictatorship and why should I trust them
The report comes from the VDem Institute a highly respected nonpartisan academic research organization based in Sweden Its considered one of the worlds most trusted sources for democracy data Journalist Martin Gelin was reporting on their findings
2 What exactly is a dictatorship in this context
It doesnt necessarily mean a classic military regime Experts refer to autocratization or authoritarian rule where a leader systematically weakens democratic checks and balanceslike the courts free press and independent government agenciesto consolidate personal power and make it harder to be removed from office
3 What specific things is Trump accused of planning
The report and experts point to his own statements and past actions including pledges to
Use the Justice Department to prosecute political opponents
Purge the federal civil service to install loyalists
Invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day to use the military for domestic purposes
Undermine the independence of the courts
4 Didnt we have checks and balances when he was president before
Yes and they were heavily strained The concern is that a second term with learned experience and a more prepared network of loyalists would involve a more systematic effort to bypass or neutralize those remaining checks from the start
5 Is it legal for a president to do these things
Many proposed actions would test the limits of law and the Constitution They often rely on expansive interpretations of presidential power Their legality would likely be challenged in courts but if those courts are filled with loyalists or undermined the checks may fail
AdvancedLevel Questions
6 How does VDem measure autocratization and what did their data show about Trumps first term
VDem uses hundreds of indicators to create democracy indices Their data showed the US experienced one of the most dramatic declines in liberal democracy scores during Trumps term citing erosion of media freedom attacks on credible election processes and efforts to politicize independent institutions
