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

- 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