Is American democracy doomed?

How to understand the concept of "competitive authoritarianism" and why it's crucial to push back now to avoid it.

Thank you for reading The Garden of Forking Paths. Some of this edition is free and some is for paid subscribers only, so to unlock all of it, get full access to 185+ essays, and support my work so I can keep writing for you, consider upgrading to a paid subscription for the low, low price of just $4/month. I rely exclusively on reader support. You can also support my writing by buying my award-winning book: FLUKE.

---

I: Are the reports of democracy’s death greatly exaggerated?

A few weeks ago, as Donald Trump and Elon Musk ran roughshod over laws and the Constitution in their quest to take a literal chainsaw to the US government, a major political science democracy index was quietly updated.

The “Polity IV” index—which measures levels of democracy and authoritarianism in every country—decided to re-classify the United States as a non-democracy. The official notice read as follows: “The USA is no longer considered a democracy and lies at the cusp of autocracy.”

Around the same time, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, leading scholars of democratic breakdown, wrote a chilling warning in Foreign Affairs, arguing that “democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern US history”; that “the country’s vaunted constitutional checks are failing”; and that “US democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration.”¹

Such discussions are no shock to those who have been paying attention to reality. American politics has, for the past decade, been dominated by a man who attacks the press, incites political violence, hires family members, cronies, and loyalists, scapegoats minorities, threatens to jail his political opponents, lies constantly, engages in blatant corruption, solicits bribery, and openly praises dictators and autocrats.

After he lost the 2020 election, Trump engaged in a systematically authoritarian campaign to stay in power. First, he tried to discredit the election. When Chris Krebs, the top election cybersecurity official pushed back, saying that contest was “the most secure in American history,” Trump fired Krebs; Trump’s lawyer then called for Krebs to be killed.

Second, he tried to order Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” 11,800 additional votes so he could win the state.

Third, Trump tried to pressure state legislatures to overturn the results, or to appoint “fake electors.” And at one point, the White House circulated a draft executive order that would have directed the Secretary of Defense to “seize” America’s voting machines.

When all those machinations failed, Trump incited a violent mob that stormed Congress, which included deranged zealots who sought to take members of Congress hostage until they illegally returned Trump to power.

Trump himself has faced precisely zero lasting consequences for these actions—and many rewards. Since January 6th, 2021, he has gotten substantially richer on a series of grifting schemes, was re-elected president, and, with the help of the United States Supreme Court, made several criminal investigations against himself disappear. (Trump also pardoned 1,500 convicted criminals who stormed the Capitol, including those who violently attacked law enforcement officers, thereby sending a clear signal that perpetrators who conduct political violence on his behalf will be protected from prosecution).

This is just the tip of the authoritarian iceberg. The first six weeks of Trump’s second term have taken a wrecking ball to core principles of democracy, including the notion that presidents can’t just do whatever they want, facilitated by the whims of the world’s richest man and his borderline adolescent tech world cronies. And yet, despite all that, America’s democratic institutions have not completely disappeared, even as they are under sustained attack.

Since 2011, I’ve studied authoritarianism and democratic breakdown across the world, including extensive field research living inside dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. I wrote the first book warning of Trump’s authoritarianism in 2017, The Despot’s Apprentice. Still, many political scientists, including myself, remain conflicted on the question of whether the United States still qualifies as a (admittedly badly broken) democracy. Some will say it has now passed the threshold and should lose the label; others find that declaration premature and overblown.

But most of us agree that the United States is rapidly lurching away from democracy—and toward “competitive authoritarianism,” a dysfunctional, autocratic system of government that lies between democracy and dictatorship.

In this edition, I’ll:

• Draw on 14 years of my research to explain how and why urgent public action matters in resisting democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarianism;

• Explain, in detail, what “competitive authoritarianism” is while arguing that the less precise but more understandable blanket terms of “authoritarianism,” and “despot” are probably better terms for public-facing political messaging;

• Illustrate the difference between “input legitimacy” and “output legitimacy” to resolve a longstanding popular misunderstanding about what is and isn’t accurately classified as an “attack on democracy”;

• Trace the political dynamics that explain why Trump’s first term—as the “despot’s apprentice”—has now morphed into a far more worrying form that more directly threatens American democracy.

II: Don’t Wait for Instructions. Make Ripples Now.

From Madagascar to Thailand and Belarus to Tunisia, I’ve interviewed hundreds of terrible, powerful individuals who have worked to destroy democracy—and countless brave people who stood up to them. From that research, there are several key principles I’ve observed that are most applicable to any country that’s drifting toward the death of democracy—and the rise of authoritarian rule.

First, it’s far easier to save a democracy than to resurrect one. When democracy dies, it becomes much harder to push back against power. Challenging power becomes risky. Protesting becomes dangerous. Running for office may be deadly. It is therefore wiser to stand up for democracy against an autocrat-in-waiting than an autocrat.

Second, successful pro-democracy movements are big tents that transcend traditional political divides. To save institutions, it’s important not to fall into the trap of being divided by policy. Unite with people who disagree with you on everything, so long as they agree with you that democracy is worth saving.

Third, the inverse is true: exploiting latent divisions in the ruling movement can help divide and weaken attacks on democracy. For example, trying to pit Elon Musk against Donald Trump—two massive narcissistic egos—or trying to turn the MAGA nationalists against the Wall Street billionaires, is a viable strategy. Infighting saps political capital and creates unforced errors. Provoke it.

Fourth, democracy takes time to destroy, so slowing down the pace and “running out the clock” can be a viable strategy. In the United States, there are midterm elections coming up in 2026, which could be a chance to more formally constrain Trump. Even if the damage is going to happen, slowing and spreading out the damage can reduce the long-term impact on institutions—buying time until the balance of power shifts. Challenges in the courts are one way to achieve this; creating hesitancy among elected Republicans by making them aware of public discontent is another. It can still be a meaningful victory if damage to democracy happens, but it takes two years rather than two months.

Fifth, shape narratives, don’t just respond to existing ones. This is more a message for elected Democrats and influential pundits than most citizens, but the notion that the way to defeat Trumpism is solely to speak about high egg prices is beyond naive. Sure, discuss bread and butter issues. But political consultants who run focus groups will only tell politicians what voters are already saying.

Real leaders change political narratives, they don’t just chase existing ones. Donald Trump has radically changed political viewpoints precisely because he doesn’t just follow polls and test messages with focus groups. If people currently seem to care more about egg prices than the potential death of democracy, make an effort to persuade them they that they should care. Egg prices go up and down; authoritarianism can be forever.

Sixth, digital activism matters little compared to real-world protests, boycotts, and strikes. Democracy doesn’t get saved one post at a time. Authoritarians are delighted when their opponents only channel their anger into typed outrage that generates dopamine through clicks from like-minded partisans. Elon Musk will be constrained far more by Tesla boycotts and the prospect of plummeting sales figures than by mean memes. Donald Trump hates bad optics—and mass protests are terrible optics for a wannabe despot who (falsely) claims a “landslide” popular mandate.

There’s no magic rabbit about to be pulled out of a hat to push back against powerful anti-democratic forces. Targeted boycotts, consistent mass protests, and, eventually, coordinated general strikes—along with formal political organizing that puts pressure on complicit politicians while laying the groundwork for a future electoral surge—remain the tried and tested tools of effective pro-democracy opposition.

Seventh, nonviolent movements are more effective than violent ones. Nonviolent movements also lead to more democratic outcomes. If you don’t believe me, read the research by the world’s expert on that question, Harvard’s Erica Chenoweth.

Eighth and perhaps most crucially: Don’t wait for instructions. Ripples matter—and you can make some now.

My friends in Britain are baffled: why aren’t Americans in the streets? There is an enormous public appetite for opponents of Trump to feel like someone—a Democratic politician, perhaps—is finally going to stand up, let out a primal scream, and do something.

I feel that frustration. But what I’ve learned from pro-democracy movements around the world is that the most effective opposition often emerges organically from stubborn people who don’t wait for instructions, but instead make their own ripples. We are each one person, but every movement starts with one person—and then grows, one person at a time.

In Tunisia, a single disgruntled vegetable vendor sparked protests that took down a dictatorship and triggered uprisings in several other countries.² Yes, most individual efforts to stand up to power fail. Few catch on. But it’s also a numbers game. If ten people try to galvanize change, that’s a lot less likely to succeed than if millions of people take it upon themselves to try to create a better, more democratic world. Be one of those millions.

You have skills and talents; if you have the time and energy to do so, use them peacefully, non-violently, and passionately—but don’t wait for instructions on how to best do so. Join an existing organization, plan a protest movement, or organize something new. Just remember this: Authoritarians thrive on passivity.

And with that advice, let’s now turn to exploring America’s democratic peril in context; how to understand competitive authoritarianism; and why Trump’s second term is so much more of an existential threat to democracy than his first.

III: From the transition paradigm to competitive authoritarianism

When the Cold War ended, optimism about democracy prevailed. It was to be “the end of history,” as Francis Fukuyama called it, in which democracy had first defeated fascism, then defeated communism, and now there were no ideological rivals for how to legitimately govern a country. Democracy, it seemed, had won.

This gave rise to a viewpoint known as the transition paradigm, in which countries that were somewhere between dictatorship and democracy were simply in a state of transition, moving, slowly but surely, toward becoming free societies.

It is easy to see why this idea was popular in the 1990s. The United States was the sole superpower; democracy was spreading like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa and post-Soviet Europe, and there were no viable alternative models for developing countries to emulate. For the laggards out there, it seemed only a matter of time before they joined the club of democracies.

By the early 2000s, this started to look rather foolish, particularly in the eyes of two influential political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. They coined a new term—competitive authoritarianism—to describe “hybrid regimes” that were somewhere between dictatorship and democracy. The crucial point was that these were not merely transitioning governments, laying the groundwork for a better future. Instead, they were a distinct category, and to understand them, you needed to label them accurately.

The key idea is that competitive authoritarian regimes still look like democracies on the surface. There are elections. Courts exist. Legislatures vote on policy. The press covers politics. Civil society organizations exist. There may be protests and political opposition.

But it’s not a fair fight. Elections are subject to manipulation, or uneven resources, or intimidation and scapegoating of rivals. Courts are politicized, with judges who don’t follow the regime’s whims publicly criticized, targeted, and intimidated. Legislatures may have some independence, but they partly become rubber stamps that simply validate the will of the executive. The press is attacked, bullied, and faces threats of censorship or lost revenue if they challenge the regime. And civil society organizations begin to self-censor, out of fear of reprisals.

By design, in the process, a lot of people connected to the president cash in, as corruption spreads and oligarchs are made.

In short, competitive authoritarian regimes use the trappings of democracy to conceal a partly authoritarian core. This is the nature of politics in places like Hungary, where one of the foreign authoritarians that Trump admires most, Viktor Orban, has largely destroyed democracy and turned the country into a competitive authoritarian hybrid regime. As Levitsky and Way wrote most recently:

“Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category, including Alberto Fujimori’s Peru, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, and contemporary El Salvador, Hungary, India, Tunisia, and Turkey.”

This is one of the key points that is often obscured by some overstated popular discourse around Trump’s autocratic impulses, which sometimes implies the US will become North Korea rather than Hungary. The end game in America, if Trump continues unconstrained, is less likely to be tanks in the streets, elections abolished, and every child reading a little orange book. Instead, it’s a newly created competitive authoritarian regime, where America’s political competition, corruption levels, and institutions are more like Hungary’s or Turkey’s than Britain’s or Japan’s.

Moreover, to understand whether something qualifies as an “attack on democracy,” it’s important to understand two political science concepts—input legitimacy and output legitimacy. The output refers to the policies that governments adopt and their performance. Are voters happy? Did the government reduce unemployment? Is health care working well? By contrast, input legitimacy is about the process. Did the rules get followed? Are institutions being bypassed? Is the behavior of the politicians democratic?

It’s possible to have output legitimacy without input legitimacy (as is the case for many citizens of China, who applaud the government’s record on growth even if is not a democracy). It’s also possible to have input legitimacy without output legitimacy (as was the case for many unpopular democratic governments who instituted austerity while bailing out banks, provoking mass citizen anger even though the democratic i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed).

Obviously, the worst of every world—which the United States appears headed toward—is a system with neither, in which the whims of the president dictate policy with authoritarian flourishes while the economy declines, markets crash, and America becomes an international pariah everywhere but Russia.

Now, with all due respect to Levitsky and Way and my fellow political scientists, I have never heard anyone outside of wonky nerd circles talk about competitive authoritarianism, nor input legitimacy. I don’t think that’s likely to change—and I’m not sure it would be a good thing if it did change.

Political scientists love opaque jargon and they’re certainly not branding or marketing experts. Since I previously worked in campaign politics, I take those communication considerations more seriously, which is why my public writing about the threats from Trump have used the words “authoritarianism” and “despot” most frequently. Most people understand those terms. They’re broadly accurate—even if they don’t have the precisely nuanced terminology of a political science journal. The happy medium, in my view, is to understand competitive authoritarianism, but to describe it as authoritarianism and warn about the threat of Trump becoming a despot.³

IV: From the “despot’s apprentice” to “the despot”

In the first term, Donald Trump acted like a battering ram who tested the guardrails of democracy every day of his presidency. The guardrails were dented, some of them broke, but many survived, damaged, but substantively intact.

By comparison, within six weeks, Trump has broken the guardrails. Elon Musk’s out-of-control DOGE interventions are bypassing the legal and constitutional authority of Congress. Trump has intimidated and fired inspectors general, likely illegally. He has tried to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s plainly enshrined in the 14th Amendment. And the Supreme Court has ruled that Trump can now commit crimes with impunity, so long as he commits them in an official capacity. (Those aren’t just crimes, the Supreme Court decided, but special crimes because they’re committed with a presidential seal).

It feels worse right now because it is worse. Many of the actions Trump has already taken in the beginning of his second term violate norms that he didn’t violate the first time around.

To understand why it’s worse, it’s crucial to understand four key shifts that have emboldened Trump—and cowed his opponents.

First, the Republican party has become Trumpified. In 2017, there was actual opposition to Trump—including from party elites. That’s one reason why several of his signature bills failed, even though Republicans had control of Congress. But those Trump opponents—such as Jeff Flake, John McCain, or Liz Cheney—have either retired, been purged, or died.

The new recruits who were elected since 2016 are true MAGA believers. Everyone else from Marco Rubio to Lindsey Graham has made a Faustian bargain, trading their last, tattered shreds of moral principles for greater longevity as Trump’s remoras, feeding off the flakes of his power. And within Trump’s base, many voter reactions to the immoral and amoral machinations of Trump’s repugnant character have gone from denouncements of his behavior and rhetoric merged with praise for policy to a full-throated embrace of both man and message.

Second, the people around Trump have changed from unusual but reasonably qualified picks to unqualified loyalist zealots. Pete Hegseth would have been treated like a joke in 2017, roundly rejected by many Republicans in the Senate. Now, an unqualified Fox News host who has been credibly accused of rape, reportedly showed up drunk to his previous job, and who doesn’t believe in germs but does believe in defending war criminals, is now in charge of the most powerful killing machine in human history.

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, unabashed loyalists who really get their veins popping when they think about destroying the libs, now run the FBI.

In his first term, Trump floated the idea of using soldiers against American citizens, but was stopped by the sanity of generals and responsible advisers. Are we supposed to gamble the survival of democracy through the preservation of legal restraint on the hope that, when authoritarian push comes to murderous shove, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Don Bongino will follow legal principles rather than blind zealotry? I certainly wouldn’t take that bet.

Third, citizens are worn out and America’s class of billionaire barons has decided they’d rather grow their riches than preserve their reputation. The parade of wealthy elites who lined up to denounce Trump’s divisiveness with boilerplate press releases and expressed their surprised outrage at the “shock” of January 6th (were they living in a cave since 2016?) are the same individuals queuing up to kiss the ring at Mar-a-Lago. Newspaper kingpins are shredding journalistic norms to try to escape Trump’s ire. Sprawling companies are incinerating years of press releases extolling the virtues of diversity by saying “just kidding,” only to find that many consumers actually like corporations that don’t base the racial composition of their workforce on what they think is most likely to please an openly racist bigot.

For everyone else, the relentless pace of insane, bizarre, authoritarian behavior is exhausting. It wore people down. The demoralizing grind of the first term was made possible by the fanciful thought that we just need to endure four years of this insanity and then it’ll be okay.

Now, four years has become eight, and there’s no end in sight. And for some, that has led to a grim acceptance—we’re screwed, it’s inevitable, and we might as well just hunker down and try to weather the authoritarian storm. These are understandable, if self-defeating impulses, but they are also self-fulfilling.

Fourth, and finally, Trump himself is different, an even worse version of himself. Seething, motivated by a false sense of victimhood, and convinced that what went wrong with the first term is that he didn’t go far enough. Now, it’s time, he thinks, to go all in. Half measures won’t cut it. And that’s why he’s moved on from people like Jim Mattis and instead conferred power on people like Pete Hegseth. It’s the unmoored revenge presidency.

Cumulatively, these shifts—if left unchecked—will move Trump from being a despot’s apprentice, a diminished version of an autocrat operating in a broken democracy to a despot who can actually govern like one.

There’s no point sugarcoating it: we’re in trouble.

But I have interviewed enough people who have bravely stood up for democracy in far more dangerous contexts, including some who were jailed, placed in solitary confinement, or tortured. Thankfully, such risks remain low in the United States. There is time to act and still ample political space to save democracy.

It will not be easy and the pushback must be robust to succeed, but there is still hope. And having experienced authoritarian alternatives first hand, there’s no doubt in my mind of a central truth that can sustain motivation even when we’re mired in bizarre, disorienting, dystopian news cycles:

Democracy is worth saving, but time is running out, as it is far harder to resurrect it than to protect it in the first place.

---

Thank you for reading. Most of this edition was for paid subscribers, so thank you for your support. Feel free to forward the un-paywalled version to others if you think they might be interested. And I promise I’ll be back in your inboxes soon with something that isn’t remotely related to Donald Trump.

—Brian

1. All of this is separate from the policy debacles in the first six weeks, which include aligning the United States more closely with Russia, profoundly alienating just about every consequential ally America has, threatening to invade several countries to illegally annexe their territory, proposing ethnic cleansing in order to build a resort, and having the richest man in the world work to cut lifesaving aid from the world’s poorest people while gleefully celebrating cuts to poor and disabled people’s healthcare.

2. Admittedly, he did this by lighting himself on fire. Do not do that.

3. This is also why I don’t use the term “dictator” and don’t draw parallels to Nazi Germany. Partly that’s because I think both terms are inaccurate (the world is rather different than it was in the 1930s and it’s unlikely that Trump will ever have the unbridled power of a full dictator), but it’s also because I think they do not resonate with persuadable voters who could be convinced that democracy is under attack, but recoil at what they see as an overblown comparison that they don’t recognize. The fight against authoritarianism requires persuasion to make the pro-democracy tent ever bigger.