The United States slides towards authoritarianism, hundreds of researchers sayExBulletin

President -elected American Donald Trump examines at the Americafest of Turning Point USA at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 22, 2024, in Phoenix. The four -day annual conference aimed at boosting and connecting young conservatives welcomes some of the country's main politicians and activists in the country. Rebecca noble / Getty images hide the legend

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Washington A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think that the United States quickly goes from liberal democracy to a form of authoritarianism.

In the reference survey, known as Bright Line Watch, American teachers assess the performance of American democracy on a zero scale (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After the election of President Trump in November, the scholars gave a note of American democracy of 67. Several weeks after Trump's second term, this figure dropped to 55.

“It is a hasty drop,” said John Carey, professor of government in Dartmouth and co -director of Bright Line Watch. “There is certainly a consensus: we are going in the wrong direction.”

Carey said that the decline between November and February has been the biggest since Bright Line Watch began to question the scholars about the threats to American democracy in 2017. In the investigation, the respondents consider 30 indicators of democratic performance, especially if the government interferes with the press, punishes political adversaries and if the legislator and the magistrate can verify the executive authorities.

Not all political scientists consider Trump with alarm, but many as Carey who focuses on democracy and authoritarianism are deeply troubled by Trump's attempts to extend the executive power during his first months in power.

“We have slipped into a form of authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, professor of government at Harvard, and co-author of How Democracies Die. “It is relatively soft compared to some others. It is certainly reversible, but we no longer live in a liberal democracy.”

The demonstrators agitate Turkish flags in front of the new mosque in Istanbul. Despite a prohibition of protest by the government, mass demonstrations broke out nationally after the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu on accusations of corruption, with crowds demanding democracy and singing “people, rights, justice”. Democracy researchers consider Turkey as a competitive authoritarian regime in which the ruling party uses institutions such as the courts to attack their political opponents. Su Cassiano / Midede East Images / AFP via Getty Hide Legend

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Kim Lane Scheppele, a sociologist of Princeton who spent years following Hungary, is also deeply concerned: “We are on a very rapid shift in what is called competitive authoritarianism.”

When these researchers use the term “authoritarianism”, they do not speak of a system like that of China, a single party state without significant election. Instead, they refer to something called “competitive authoritarianism”, the kind scholars say they see in countries like Hungary and Turkey.

In a competitive authoritarian system, a leader comes to a democratically power, then erodes the system of checks and counterweights. As a rule, the executive fills the public service and key appointments, including the prosecutor's office and the judiciary with loyalists. He or she then attacks the media, universities and non -governmental organizations to pour out public criticism and tilt the rules of the electoral game in favor of the ruling party.

“The government would always have elections and would be nominally democratic,” said Rory Truex, Princeton's political scientist who focuses on China. “But these elections would no longer be free and fair.”

A man walks next to a graffiti with the image of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chvez in Caracas. The political scientists say that President Trump does not enjoy the enormous popular support that leaders like Chvez have exploited to dominate their nation's political systems. Raul Arboleda / AFP via Getty Images Hide Legend

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While the vast majority of researchers interviewed say that Trump pushes the country to autocracy, other teachers are strongly disagreed. James Campbell, a retired political scientist at the University of Buffalo, Suny, says that Trump uses legitimate presidential powers to solve long -standing problems. Campbell underlines the use of Trump prices to try to push companies to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States. In recent decades, economic globalization has led to catastrophic layoffs of all, manufacturers of furniture in North Carolina, workers of the Midwest automobile assembly line while companies sent work abroad, in particular in China.

“I think they did a great job,” said Campbell about the Trump administration.

Campbell adds that he thinks that many political scientists can see Trump as autocratic because they don't like it or his policy.

“I think most of them come from the political left,” he said. “There is comfort in all networks and saying,” Oh, Trump is a villain. He is authoritarian. “”

NPR contacted the Trump administration, which has not yet responded.

President Trump spoke with admiration of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn. The American academics of democracy say that Orbn has used various tactics, including storage of state agencies with loyalists and the commercial models of the attackers, to transform Hungary into a competitive authoritarian state. Under competitive authoritarianism, there are still elections, but the terrain is tilted in favor of the ruling party. Attila Kisbenedek / AFP via Getty Images Hide Legend

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But many democracy specialists say that Trump administration uses tactics employed by autocrats, and they indicate specific actions. For example, the Federal Commission for Trump Communications (FCC) is investigating all main points of sale at broadcasting, with the exception of Rupert Murdoch's Fox, which has the Fox Pro-Trump news channel.

The FCC wonders how CBS published an interview with Trump's rival in 2024, Kamala Harris, and if NPR and PBS comply with regulations on business subscription places. The FCC can revoke local dissemination licenses, which could harm financially networks.

Scheppele of Princeton says that it reminds Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbn. Orbn targeted the business model of the Hungarian media, which was based strongly on state advertising.

“Overnight, [Orbn] Cut all advertising with independent and opposition media, “says Scheppele.” They all have a hole blown in their budget. “”

In another example, Trump has retained or threatened to retain billions of dollars from universities, notably Harvard, Princeton and Columbia, citing concerns about anti -Semitism. Scheppele says that Orbn has also targeted universities that had criticized his government.

“During the first two years, Orbn reduced university budgets by 40%,” she said.

According to Levitsky, another way of measuring authoritarianism is whether the publicly opposition opposing the government reaches a cost. He says under Trump, that's the case. For example, Trump has made chief decrees prohibited from lawyers for companies, which he does not like to enter into government buildings and represent government entrepreneurs.

The fear of government remuneration is now spreading to society. A scholar who spoke at NPR for this story later asked not to be cited, saying that he feared that the Trump administration could try to punish him by reducing the research subsidies on which he worked. In a recent NPR series on freedom of expression, many people did not want to be identified by their name.

Teachers, students and their sympathizers protest in the center of Budapest following a “smartphone ban” compressed in schools that was signed by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbn. Attila Kisbenedek / AFP via Getty Images Hide Legend

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But even some researchers who say that Trump has autocratic trends thinks that the American system should be able to resist them.

Kurt Weyland, political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin, says that so far, the lower courts check Trump. He also says that Trump does not have the crushing popular support that autocratic leaders such as Hugo Chvez from Venezuela and Nayib Bukele from Salvador appreciated and it was crucial for their ability to change the political systems of their country.

For example, Bukele, who met Trump in the White House last week, saw approval notations of more than 90% and won the re -election last year by a landslide. On the other hand, a recent survey has shown that Trump's approval note falling at 43% and has been re -elected with a little less than half of the popular vote.

“These populist leaders have succeeded in conceiving of new constitutions which seriously concentrated power and which have been the point of rupture which put these countries on the path of competitive authoritarian domination”, explains Weyland, who wrote the resilience of democracy to the threat of populism: countering world alarism. “In the United States, it's out of the question.”

Bright Line Watch conducted his investigation in early February. He plans to put another on the ground soon. Carey, one of the co -directors, expects political scientists to decrease American democracy even more.

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