US Democracy Hits 50-Year Low Amid Trump-Era Erosion, Report Says

Democratic standards in the United States have deteriorated to their lowest level in five decades, with the administration of President Donald Trump increasingly undermining the rule of law at home and abroad, according to a new report by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). The Global State of Democracy report, cited by The Guardian, has classified the United States as a “backsliding” democracy since 2021, while noting that a visible deterioration began in 2019.

The report said Trump had rapidly expanded executive power and used it to pursue a narrow set of personal objectives and retaliate against perceived political opponents. It warned that the consequences had been far-reaching, weakening the rule of law, testing longstanding alliances and undermining multilateral cooperation. The assessment covers 174 countries and tracks democratic performance since 1975.

International IDEA said the US decline was part of a broader global deterioration in democratic governance. Judicial independence, credible elections, freedom of expression, press freedom and access to justice have all reached their lowest global levels in at least three decades, according to the report. It added that 2025 marked the 11th consecutive year in which more countries experienced democratic declines than improvements, representing the longest sustained global downturn since the organization began tracking the trend.