Wrecking Ball Politics: New Global Study Finds Trump Torched Democratic Norms At Record Pace

V-Dem, an institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, has lowered the country's democracy ranking from 20 to 51 out of 179 countries.

Three major reports have found that President Donald Trump has damaged American democracy at a remarkable speed since returning to office.

In a report from V-Dem, an institute at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, researchers concluded that democracy in America has deteriorated so much that it has lowered the country’s democracy ranking from 20 to 51 out of 179 countries. The United States now resides between Slovakia and Greece.

Bright Line Watch’s survey of over 500 U.S. scholars concluded that the U.S. system now falls between a liberal democracy and a dictatorship. In a report from Freedom House, a D.C.-based democracy think tank, researchers said that among free countries, the U.S. joined Bulgaria and Italy in registering the largest declines in political rights and civil liberties last year, according to NPR.

“The developments in the United States are moving towards dictatorship, [which] the founders wanted to avoid,” Staffan Lindberg, founding director of V-Dem, told NPR. “It’s the most rapid decline ever in the history of the United States and one of the most rapid in the world.”

The White House Pushes Back On The Reports

White House Spokeswoman Olivia Wales dismissed V-Dem’s analysis, describing the report as “a ridiculous claim made by an irrelevant, blatantly biased organization.”

V-Dem, which stands for Varieties of Democracy, collected analysis from more than 4,000 scholars, which is the largest of its kind.

Wales added Trump is a champion of freedom and democracy and the most transparent and accessible president ever. “His return to the White House saved the legacy media from going out of business,” Wales told NPR.

According to Lindberg, V-Dem downgraded America’s rating on several factors, including the Trump administration’s prioritization of executive power, overstepping the law, and attacks on the news media and freedom of speech. What’s most striking for the political scientist is the speed at which Trump has implemented the changes.

“Under the Trump administration, democracy has been rolled back as much during just one year as it took Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey 10 years to accomplish, and Orban in Hungary four years,” he added.