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State of American democracy [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-06-19
This report, by brightlinewatch.org is so meticulous and also so replete with data — and SO ALARMING — that I urge you to check it out, because I am just going to cherry-pick a few items here that really stood out, to me.
Key findings:
Overall ratings of American democracy dropped significantly among every group surveyed — academic experts, the public overall, and Republican and Democratic members of the public.
Public ratings of democratic performance dropped below the scale’s midpoint, reaching 49 in April. Ratings dropped even among Republicans, decreasing from 59 in February to 56 in April.
Across 31 democratic principles, experts perceive the largest declines since Trump returned to the presidency in protections for unpopular speech or expression, government agencies not being used to punish political opponents, freedom of the press, the impartiality of criminal investigations, and judicial independence.
Ratings of US democracy
In the two months since our last survey, ratings of U.S. democracy declined among all groups — the public overall, Democrats, Republicans, and our academic experts. The shifts are statistically significant in every case.
* * * * *
The United States’ current democracy rating of 53 places it just above Israel (49) and below Mexico (60) and Poland (63). Canada (88) and Great Britain (83) are rated well above the United States by experts, while Hungary (30), Turkey (28), and Russia (11) still rate well below.
These findings also indicate that U.S. democracy has declined relative to other countries. We last asked experts to rate democracy elsewhere in July 2023. At the time, our rating of 70 trailed Great Britain (77) by much less and we were well ahead of Israel (55), Poland (54), and Mexico (53)
The most dramatic shifts are in expert evaluations of protection of individuals’ right to engage in unpopular speech or expression (denoted as “Free speech” in the figure), which dropped from 61% to 23%. The widely publicized arrests and moves to deport students who had protested and published criticisms of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza likely contributed to this dramatic change. The experts also sharply downgraded ratings of judicial independence (from 45% to 17%) and of the ability of universities, businesses, and professional organizations to operate independently of government pressure (from 26% to 10%).
There is so much more in the report — please, check it out!
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/19/2329010/-State-of-American-democracy?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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