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Everyone knows Donald Trump is the winningest president, the likes of which this world has never seen before. He is the mostest president we’ve ever had: The most wealth, the most orange, the most felonies. So it comes as no surprise that he is Number One in another area. Trump has destroyed democracy faster than any other autocrat.
That is according to a report from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University in Sweden, one of the leading credible organizations that studies the health of democracy across the globe. Its latest Democracy Report found that “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.”
That’s right, baby! The US is the fastest! No one destroys democracy as fast as we do! Fuck yeah!
“For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years, for Vučić in Serbia, it took eight years, and for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, it took about 10 years to accomplish the suppression of democratic institutions that Trump has achieved in only one year,” Staffan Lindberg, founder of the institute, told The Guardian.
What losers, taking years (plural!) to destroy it all. We did it in one! Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet, but Trump’s destruction of democracy has been faster than most coups d’état. Since the French Revolution in 1789, there are only 35 instances (0.14%) of larger one-year drops.
According to the report, US democracy is at the worst recorded level since 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, making universal suffrage a reality. All progress made since then has been erased.
Of course, no superstar can do it all alone. It takes a team. Lindberg noted that much of the destruction of US democracy has been helped along by the “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency,” which was possible thanks to a Congress and a Supreme Court that have abdicated their powers. Checks and balances are for losers! Executive power for the win!
Even when Congress and the Supreme Court do act to rein Trump in, Lindberg said, he simply ignores them. Can’t stop, won’t stop!
As The Guardian summarizes:
The researchers use 48 different metrics to assess democratic health, such as the freedom of expression and the media, the quality of elections and the observance of the rule of law. The resulting “liberal democracy index” shows that the speed with which US democracy is being dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.
“Trump has fired inspector generals and higher levels of civil servants across departments, and replaced them with loyalists,” Lindberg told The Guardian. “This is exactly what Orbán and Erdoğan did. They removed the constraints on power. It should be obvious by now that Trump is aiming for dictatorship.”
The V-Dem report notes, however, that Trump has one more check on his power to dismantle. The US still has a stable electoral system, “for now.” But Trump is working on that! “We’ve seen media reports that 40% of election/poll workers have quit since 2020,” Lindberg said. “And Trump never accepted his defeat then. Why would he accept a defeat now? If we see a denial of the election results in 2026, then it’s a complete democratic breakdown.”
Indeed, Trump has been working to gather voter data and limit who can vote. The FBI raid of Fulton County’s voter rolls, with help from Tulsi Gabbard, is also part of this, very likely a stepping stone on the way to declaring some kind of conspiracy in a bid to rip control of elections from the states, as is clearly outlined in the Constitution, and hand it to Trump. Will states go the way of Congress and the Supreme Court?
Trump is leading the way for other countries to ditch their democracies, too. According to the report, a record 41% (3.4 billion) of the world’s population currently resides in countries where democracy is deteriorating. Seven EU nations—Hungary, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Italy and Romania—are “affected by autocratisation”, clamping down on the free press and upping repression of civil society.
If you’ve taken my Foreign Influence Operations course, you already know that democracy anywhere is a threat to autocrats everywhere, because their people might see democracy and demand that for themselves. Which would be bad for the autocrat. (If you haven’t taken my course yet, why not??)
That’s why so many autocratic countries, including Russia, China, and Iran, run influence operations to help push this democratic backsliding. Trump’s America is doing this now, too. As I wrote last month, the US has made clear its plans to finance and support conspiracy-addled right-wing think tanks in Europe and is sanctioning individuals who aim to counter information operations designed to destabilize democracies.
I think most people currently living in democracies can’t imagine not having democracy simply because it’s always been there in their lifetimes. Sure, there are history books, but autocrats have worked to destroy and revise much of that history. Hence the moves in the US, for example, to run MAGA candidates for school boards, change public school curricula, and remove historical plaques and statues. In Russia, too, we see myriad examples of revisionist history to make the population pliant.
One aspect of this that is not discussed enough (in my opinion) is the role of corruption in destabilizing democracy. Dark money in politics launched our trajectory. But Trump has gone further, making the US government a vehicle to fill his wallet. Trump has added $3 billion to his net worth since returning to the Oval Office last year. Donald Trump Jr.’s net worth increased sixfold in 2025. Eric Trump increased his wealth by a multiple of ten. Barron Trump, a college sophomore, is worth $150 million. The first lady has cashed in; among her deals was $40 million to make a vanity documentary and keep Jeff Bezos on Trump’s good side. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has been soliciting investments for his private firm while acting in an official capacity as peace envoy. The grift list is long.
This is Robert Mugabe-level corruption we are seeing. But because it is happening in the United States, people remain in denial that that is what it really is. If you’re interested, take a look at an essay I wrote several years ago about dictators, and compare their actions to what we see in the US today. State contracts feeding the wallets of family members and friends? Check! Vanity real estate projects? Check! Violently driving out entire groups of people for political purposes? Check!
The good news is: Trump’s approval ratings are low. His actions are not popular. And the growing oligarchy and inequality, fueled by Trump’s corruption, are making the people angrier. High gas prices and the cascading effects of the war in Iran are bound to make this anger worse. Trump has led one of the fastest declines in democracy since 1789. Perhaps, as Trump and Melania and all the kids nibble on cake in the new golden ballroom, we’ll see a repeat of some other events that took place that year.
A roundup of things you should be reading
War reporter says Polymarket bettors pressured him to change article (Washington Post)
Russia’s newest spy may be someone you know (Politico)
Russia Plans an Invasion of the Body Snatchers (CEPA)
Just Security has launched WHAT JUST HAPPENED? as well as a litigation tracker to help readers keep up with the chaos
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
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