 So if you've ever taken a comparative politics course in the field of political science Then you probably already know the democracy itself as a term is very very contested and That's for good reason. It's because democracy is kind of difficult to pin down I think that a lot of people view democracy as a dichotomy, you know a country is either democratic or they're not democratic when in actuality democracy is more of a spectrum and It's difficult to measure. There's a lot of different things that you need to look at now I'll throw out grad school. I really relied on these organizations like polity for and freedom house and what they do is they basically Measure how democratic a democracy is because democracies are not monolithic I mean, there's a certain set of expectations that we have for democracies But really, you know, some are more democratic than others So the United States we're always reliably mediocre We are firmly in the category of democracy in spite of our flaws But of course other countries outperform us But you have to be nuanced you have to look at different factors here because a country might be seemingly Democratic when in actuality, they're not a real democracy. So I mean the easiest example is North Korea They're called the Democratic Republic or Democratic People's Republic They have democracy in the name, but obviously you can't take them at their word. They're not a democracy They might hold elections, but the elections are rigged I mean Kim Jong-un gets like 99% of the vote So even if you have elections just because you have elections That doesn't mean that you're a democracy that doesn't mean that those elections are free and fair And even if you have what is viewed as free and fair elections where you have a multi-party system And you are a political party that can get elected Well, how much power do you have in government? For example, Morocco is a multi-party system Different parties run different parties get elected, but they have a king there so even if you're elected you can't really affect change and Having the ability to have power and change the system. That's part of being a democracy So there's a lot that goes into it and every single year Various organizations like Freedom House and Politi4 will release reports where they'll rank democracies now this new organization it's called The International Institute for Democracy and like toll assistance For the first time they found that the United States is no longer just a reliably mediocre democracy. We're actually backsliding We're moving away from democracy and towards authoritarianism now. It's not a gigantic shift It's not like we're no longer a democracy, but this trend backwards is Very very alarming now our move towards authoritarianism more so it's it's marginal Right, it's a small move, but it's still a move Nonetheless our move is part of a broader global trend because there are more countries globally that are moving more closer to authoritarianism than they are to Democracies now just to clarify something if you're wondering well if you're already a democracy How do you become more of a democracy? Well you expand suffrage you make sure that more people can vote you reduce barriers that make it difficult to vote You have an electoral system that allows people to actually make their voices heard You have a free press that isn't subject to intimidation. You have a lack of political violence There's a lot that goes into it So when I see this organization that monitors democracies around the world say that the US is backsliding That is something to take very very Seriously, so for a summary of the report we go to Julia Conley of common dreams who explains for the first time in its four years of Compiling annual data on the state of democracy around the world an International think tank out of the United States to its list of backsliding democracies in the report It released Monday pointing to factors including politicians continued false claims that the 2020 presidential election results were illegitimate as one Of the key elements weakening the country's democratic system the global state of democracy report released by the International Institute for Democracy and electoral assistance called former president Donald Trump's public questioning of the election results in November of 2020 a Historic turning point both for US democracy and the world pointing to a knock-on effect in several countries the visible deterioration of Democracy in the United States as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results the efforts to suppress participation in elections and the Runaway polarization is one of the most concerning developments international idea Secretary General Kevin Casa Samora told the Guardian now I just want to reiterate that this is not unique to the United States This is part of a global trend, but this is the first time where we've actually been demonstrably moving towards Authoritarianism now the jump again is not huge, but it's a jump nonetheless, and that's something to take very very seriously So, I mean all of the things that they cite I mean we see it happening efforts to suppress participation in elections How many GOP controlled states have enacted reforms that suppress voting? restrict the amount of polling stations in predominantly areas with people of color voter ID laws all of this effort to restrict access to voting that is authoritarianism That's by definition an authoritarian thing to do and the GOP is doing it out in the open on top of that Donald Trump lying about the 2020 election that had lasting consequences. Yes He wasn't able to steal the election yet But the fact that he did that that caused long-term harm because when you delegitimize Electoral system itself people lose faith in democracy and democracy needs legitimacy to be able to function if people don't believe in Democracy if they don't believe democracy is a way that they can actually affect political change if they feel like their voices aren't being heard Then guess what happens democracy declines because people opt for non-democratic ways to affect change politically on top of that You know runaway polarization something that we see here obviously and sure, you know Polarization isn't unique to the United States many countries are polarized here But the reason why we're polarized is let's face it Republicans are going Far and far to the right. They're getting more extreme every single year think back to 20 2008 Sarah Palin was the most extreme Republican And now we have many members elected to Congress in the GOP who are far more insane than Sarah Palin We're seeing runaway radicalization on the right and that is going to drive Polarization and if the Republican Party doesn't moderate anytime soon. This is a trend that will Continue so I want to go to the full report and point out some key findings here that I think that are important So more countries moved in an authoritarian direction in 2020 than in a democratic direction Also, some of the world's largest democracies have been backsliding so that includes us but also Brazil India as well as some EU countries also conspiracy theories about elections is driving the change and Trump's lies about the 2020 election is having spillover effects to other countries. So, you know, that's nice. You're welcome world for you know Electing this strong man that is now hurting your democracy Now as you can see from this figure the overall number of democracies has decreased globally Democracies that saw the biggest decline between 2010 and 2020 include Turkey Brazil and others now Bolivia is on this list as well But I'm assuming that at the time this report was made Bolivia was still under control of fascist autocrats Whereas they've since moved back towards democracy with socialists taking power So that's something to keep in mind So they probably will be out of this category when the next report is released now looking at the overall map of regime types You can see that the United States is now considered a backsliding democracy and then, you know, we're still not as bad as other countries China is just authoritarian Russia is a hybrid regime and In some of these countries it's complicated because parties again can compete like in Russia You can have a party that competes, but that party can't actually affect change in that political system So in a lot of these countries, there's a facade of democracy, but none of the benefits that come with democracy itself There's no real power transitions or civil liberties So that's something that they look at here when they evaluate how democratic a country is now drivers of democratic decline Include the rise of a liberal and populist parties in government not populist in the Bernie sense mind you but populist in the Trump Bolson arrow fascistic sense now They also write democratic backsliding is also linked to increasing levels of societal and political polarization and low levels of support for democracy Economic crises are also tied to declining support for democracy and democratic backsliding mimicking Contributes to the spread of democratic deterioration as countries tend to imitate the anti-democratic behavior of others Donald Trump the struggle to balance freedom of expression Especially through social media with public safety as well as the scourge of disinformation can further democratic declines So basically the takeaway is that this report should be a wake-up call now Thankfully, there's a poll that I went over that showed that at least young Americans know that democracy is in trouble in the United States But the good news is that there's still time to correct this There's still time to change the direction that we're headed in and move in the opposite direction The problem is that we have a party in power who isn't serious about doing just that Democrats can pass electoral reform. They can pass a new voting rights act if they get rid of the filibuster And because of partisan gerrymandering, you know, they have a limited amount of time to act because partisan gerrymandering Also, authoritarian is going to lead to them being out of power So it's kind of like if you don't fix this now, you're not really gonna have the opportunity to fix it So in the short term, we're just gonna continue sliding towards authoritarianism And that's bad because you know, once you get more and more momentum, then it's gonna be harder to reverse that trend So it's worrying, but you know, we still have time to act Democrats still have time to act if they get serious and they stop fucking around and they actually get rid of the filibuster and Biden actually exerts pressure on members of his party that are hindering change obstructing his agenda But they're not serious and you know part of the issue here like with Turkey, for example Turkey saw one of the biggest swings back towards authoritarianism between 2010 and 2020 and that's because of Erdogan President Tayyip Erdogan is an autocrat. I mean he publicly was talking about destroying his political enemies That's not something that's healthy for democracy, right? Now part of the reason why Erdogan was able to be so successful in Turkey is because he weaponized religion When the country was pretty historically secular For the most part, I mean it was a country that was influenced by Ataturk, but you know, Tayyip Erdogan introduced religion back into the mix He Disregarded the systems Lysite form of governments where you can't put religion above government. He shirked all of that and Part of the reason why he was able to be so successful here is because the liberal opposition was weak and didn't fight him hard enough So we saw it happen in Turkey We know why it happened because they saw a charismatic authoritarian strongman take hold and the liberals were too weak to act and We're seeing a similar thing here. I mean Trump isn't in power anymore But he may run again and the Republican Party is still far, right? They're still fascistic. They're mostly Proto fascist but more and more elements of the GOP is just outright fascist at this point American conservatism has morphed into fascism And when you have a weak liberal party in the Democrats who don't actually take this threat seriously and enact change And they just use it to do fundraising and they fear monger about the threat just Aesthetically, but they don't actually try to meaningfully change it. It's it's a disastrous cat, you know Not a disastrous category, but it makes for a dangerous situation where you're disabling disaster and enabling a further deterioration of democracy So, you know, this is something that I hope people take seriously but I don't think that they will at least people in power won't take it seriously enough and They'll say that they will but they still won't do enough. So either way, it's frustrating But this is a really really Chilling thing to see the US is backsliding. We're moving more towards authoritarianism than democracy And it's not surprising but to see it actually show up in one of these reports here. It's Not surprising