Democratic backsliding in the United States has been identified as a trend at the state and national levels in various indices and analyses. Democratic backsliding is "a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power more arbitrary and repressive and that restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection".[1] [2]
The Jim Crow era is among the most-cited historical examples of democratic backsliding, with Black Americans in particular seeing their rights eroded dramatically, especially in the southern United States. Backsliding in the 21st century has been discussed as a largely Republican-led phenomenon, with particular emphasis placed on the administration of Donald Trump. Frequently cited possible drivers include decisions made by the Supreme Court (especially those regarding money in politics and gerrymandering), attempts at election subversion, the concentration of political power, a growing interest in political violence and White identity politics.
See main article: Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era, Nadir of American race relations and Jim Crow laws.
The first reconstruction started with the Emancipation proclamation in 1863. In the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, the federal government of the United States initially took an active role in reducing racial discrimination. Between 1865 and 1870, three amendments to the Constitution were passed to address racial inequality in the South: the Thirteenth (which abolished most forms of slavery), the Fourteenth (which addressed Citizenship Rights and equal protection under the law) and the Fifteenth (which made it illegal to deny the right to vote on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude").[3] [4] With this, the number of African American men who could vote went from 0.5% in 1866 to 70% in 1872. These amendments would have offered more sweeping protections but some Republican lawmakers wanted to limit their impact so that they would not apply to immigrants or poorer people in their districts.[5]
By the late 1870s, however, white backlash against the social, economic and political gains of Black people (exemplified by the violence and persecution they faced from terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan) contributed to the Compromise of 1877, wherein the Democratic Party (then-dominated by Southern white supremacists) agreed to let Republicans win the 1876 presidential election, in exchange for removing federal troops in the South and, in the words of historian James M. McPherson, "the abandonment of the black man to his fate." Former supporters of Reconstruction era policies began to argue that the government had made "too many changes too fast", and a White conservative movement within the Republican Party also started to gain influence.[6]
The Jim Crow Era saw an erosion of political and civil rights that would span decades; between the 1890s and 1910s, Southern governments passed Jim Crow laws, which instituted poll taxes, literacy tests and other discriminatory systems, barring many Black and impoverished White Americans from voting. By 1913, this disenfranchisement extended into the federal government, as the Wilson Administration introduced segregation there as well. Jim Crow policies have been described as a democratic breakdown (or backsliding).[7] [8] [9]
See also: Election denial movement in the United States. The twenty-first century saw the erosion of voting rights and the rise of partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures. The 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, positioned himself as a law-and-order strongman challenging immigrants and suppressing protests, and refused to denounce support from far-right groups."
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 commentators, Canada may reevaluate historically close Canada–United States relations in response to democratic backsliding in the U.S.[10]
Some have linked the war on terror and the Iraq War as enabling later democratic backsliding under the Trump administration.[11]
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.[12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] The changing media landscape has also resulted in a loss of journalists, with local journalism[18] [19] [20] being offered as a partial solution for political polarization.
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 wealthy and global corporations with the loosening of campaign finance laws, especially the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
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[21] 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. Tom Ginsburg and Bridgette Baldwin made similar arguments, citing the Supreme Court's role in shifting political power enough to enable authoritarianism.[22] [23] 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.[24]
Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the US Constitution is the most difficult in the world to amend "by a lot" and that this helps explain why the US still has so many undemocratic institutions that most or all other democracies have reformed.[25]
The Republicans took initiative in pushing state redistricting in their favor 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 led to the Republicans gaining control of the U.S. House by winning over 33 seats in the 2012 United States House of Representatives elections.[26]
These new Republican-drawn district maps were met by several lawsuits challenging their validity. The Roberts Court has never struck down an election law for infringing suffrage or Equal Protection rights. On the other hand, it struck down the Voting Rights Act pre-clearance regime in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which existed to prevent disenfranchisement by states. It has also not acted on partisan gerrymandering. As a whole, according to Huq, these changes shift the institutional equilibrium to "enable the replication of the system of one-party dominance akin to one that characterized the American South for much of the twentieth century". However, this has not always been the norm. In June 2023, the court ruled 5–4 to uphold rulings of the lower court which used Voting Rights Act of 1965 to instruct the state of Alabama to draw a second majority-black congressional district, which was hailed as a win for voting rights advocates.[27] 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.[28]
In addition to decisions on gerrymandering,[29] Thomas 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).[30] 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.[31]
See main article: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election and Election subversion.
By 2020, most state legislatures were controlled by the Republican Party, though some of those states had Democratic governors.[32] 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.[33] [34] Investigations into a Trump fake electors plot ensued.
Leonard Leo is also involved with the Honest Elections Project (HEP), a major proponent of the independent state legislature theory (ISL), which asserts that a textualist or originalist reading of the Constitution grants state legislatures exclusive authority to establish and enforce state election rules for federal elections, unfettered by oversight from state courts or governors. This interpretation was contrary to previous interpretations of the Constitution, which held that legislatures, courts and governors shared that authority. Critics said that if the ISL was adopted, it would be possible for state legislatures controlled by one party to establish and enforce election rules to suit their partisan objectives, including rejecting certain ballots or procedures to overrule the voting majority in federal elections and declare their party candidates the winners. The only restriction of this authority would be the Electoral Count Act, which requires governors to certify their states' election results; after the 2020 presidential election, the Act was found to have a flaw that Trump attorney John Eastman sought to exploit to advance his Pence Card scheme.[35] [36]
HEP had for years submitted amicus briefs to the Supreme Court advocating the ISL. In June 2022, the Court agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, a case brought by the North Carolina Republican Party, during its next term beginning October 2022. At least four justices had previously signaled support for using the case to rule in favor of the ISL. J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge who is highly regarded in conservative legal circles, remarked, "Trump and the Republicans can only be stopped from stealing the 2024 election at this point if the Supreme Court rejects the independent state legislature doctrine ... and Congress amends the Electoral Count Act to constrain Congress' own power to reject state electoral votes and decide the presidency." He testified weeks later during a January 6 committee hearing that "Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy."[37] [38] The Supreme Court rejected the ISL in a 6–3 decision in June 2023.[39]
See main article: Voter suppression in the United States and Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election.
See also: Cost of Voting Index.
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.[40] [41] Amid persistent false allegations that widespread fraud had led to Trump's 2020 election loss, in 2021 Republicans in multiple states began taking actions 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 Democrats of color from local election boards. In Arkansas, they stripped election control from county authorities.[42]
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 lies; 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.[42]
See also: January 6 United States Capitol attack.
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.[43] 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). In their 2023 book, Tyranny of the Minority, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the decision by partisans when faced with an authoritarian faction on whether to stay loyal to democracy by breaking with that faction has determined the fate of a number of democracies.[44] 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.[45]
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.[46]
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.[46]
A survey between 2017 and 2019 found a third of Americans want a "strong leader who doesn't have to bother with Congress or elections", and one-quarter had a favorable view of military rule. A research study administered in 2019 found Trump supporters were more likely to condone executive aggrandizement, while Republicans were more likely to support a candidate who suspends Congress or ignores court verdicts. The January 6 Capitol attack has been described as an example of de-democratization and democratic backsliding.[47] It has also been described as a coup d'état[48] [49] [50] or self-coup.[51] [52] [47]
See also: Great Replacement conspiracy theory in the United States and New Apostolic Reformation.
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.[53] 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."[54] 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. Some also believe Trump was divinely chosen to save white Christian America. In their 2022 book, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, Gorski and co-author Samuel Perry, a professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, wrote that white Christian nationalists share a set of common anti-democratic beliefs and principles that "add up to a political vision that privileges the tribe. And they seek to put other tribes in their proper place." Some believe in a "Warrior Christ" they will follow with the use of righteous violence.[54]
During a September 2020 presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremacists and militia groups that had appeared at some protests that year. After his opponent Joe Biden mentioned Proud Boys, Trump stated, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," adding "somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem." After Trump and his allies exhausted legal avenues to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, several leaders of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were indicted and convicted on federal seditious conspiracy charges for their roles in the January 6 United States Capitol attack as Congress assembled to certify Biden's election. The Department of Homeland Security stated in October 2020 that white supremacists posed the top domestic terrorism threat, which FBI director Christopher Wray confirmed in March 2021, noting that the bureau had elevated the threat to the same level as ISIS. The release of the DHS findings had been delayed for months, which a whistleblower, the department's acting intelligence chief Brian Murphy, attributed to reluctance of DHS leaders to release information that would reflect poorly on the president in an election year.[55]
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.[56] [57]
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."[58] [59]
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.[60]
President Joe Biden warned of threats to democracy during addresses in 2022 and 2023.[61] [62] At a fundraiser in August 2022, Biden said Donald Trump's MAGA philosophy was "like semi-fascism."[63] 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."[64]
See main article: Unitary executive theory.
While the theory remains well outside of mainstream thinking around the powers of the president, it has grown in prominence on the right since the Reagan administation 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 if reelected.
In April 2023 as part of its Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation released its 920-page "Mandate for Leadership" that 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 Trumpism 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.[65] [66]
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."[67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] Some academics worry Project 2025 represents significant executive aggrandizement, a type of democratic backsliding.[73] [74]
See also: Democracy indices.
As part of their Freedom in the World survey series, Freedom House downgraded the United States's score significantly in their civil rights and political liberties index between 2010 (94) and 2020 (83), citing the need for 3 main reforms: removing barriers to voting, limiting the influence of money in politics, and establishing independent redistricting commissions.[75] [76] [77]
The Economist Democracy Index started the U.S. at the index's launch in 2006 at an 8.22/10 (full democracy) though the rating started declining in 2010 and dropped to its lowest rating yet of 7.85 in 2021 (flawed democracy[78]).[79] The Economist cited functioning of government and political culture (both related to polarization) as major reasons for the lower score.[80] [81]
The V-Dem Democracy indices show significant declines from 2016 to 2020.[82] V-Dem has measures on democracy starting in 1789, providing rare historical data to compare backsliding events, though comparing across centuries has challenges. V-Dem also scores political parties in an annual illiberalism score, and ranked the Republican Party more similar to authoritarian parties than typical center-right governing parties.[83]
International IDEA labeled the US a "backsliding democracy" after evaluating 2020 and 2021 events, including January 6 and a poorly functioning legislature.[84] IDEA's democracy scores started sliding for the United States in 2016.[85]
Jacob Grumbach published the State Democracy Index which evaluates states between 2000 and 2018 on the strength of their electoral democracy. While starting in 2002 and accelerating after the 2010 elections and redistricting, Grumbach finds American states under unified Republican Party control began significant backsliding, while Democratic Party-controlled and divided states have become more democratic.[86] [87] [88] Grumbach found Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina were the worst performers (with Wisconsin and North Carolina previously ranking at the top), and suggested a sense of racial threat was one of the main drivers in these states with larger black populations becoming more anti-democratic.[89] Grumbach also cites economic inequality, the nationalization of state politics through declining journalism and an increase in national donors as contributors of backsliding.[90] While he notes it would be difficult to compare across eras, he believes that the slavery and Jim Crow eras in particular had far greater gaps in the quality of democracy between states than the present day gaps he analyzes and notes that the US, in the eyes of some, was not a democracy until 1964.
Bright Line surveys from the University of Chicago have taken frequent measurements on attitudes around democracy in the US from political scientists and a representative sample of the public, and have shown democratic decline consistent with V-Dem and the Economist Democracy Index.[91]
A 2022 Quinnipiac University poll found that 69 percent of Democrats and Republicans and 66 percent of Independents think American democracy is "in danger of collapse".[92]
Heading toward the 2024 elections, polls indicated that Democrats and Republicans alike had serious concerns about democratic backsliding, though for starkly different reasons. FiveThirtyEight analysis of polls found most Democrats were concerned about the implications for democracy of a second Donald Trump presidency, while most Republicans were concerned about election integrity, as most Republicans continued to incorrectly believe that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020.[93] A June 2024 Fox News poll of registered voters found the "future of democracy" was the top issue.[94]