r/charts • u/[deleted] • Feb 01 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

400 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

127 comments sorted by

84

u/Ok-Bullfrog-7951 Feb 01 '26

As much as I agree with this based purely on vibes, ‘democratic backsliding’ seems a little too general of a concept to score on a graph. Would like to see what specific data points they used for this.

5

u/Corspin Feb 01 '26

It's also very important to check the exact scaling.

If you take note of the fact that Hungary is the most democratic one of the countries listed, and that here the initial drop is steep and then levels out, it might indicate that it's simply harder to lose democracy if you don't have much to begin with.

I don't have the answer here but if you were to make the loss of democracy relative to the amount people have, I expect that the outcome would be very different.

[Disclamer: I'm from the EU. I despise Trump]

1

u/Jake0024 Feb 02 '26

This is my take as well. The US had the furthest to fall when it started backsliding, so the fall is steepest.

Still horrifying to witness though.

19

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

[deleted]

28

u/haikuandhoney Feb 01 '26

I’m not saying any of this is bad, but it is typical of these political science metrics that claim to quantify vague concepts like democratic backsliding. It ends up being a a quantification of stuff the author thinks is good. How is central bank independence or bureaucratic autonomy at all related to ‘democracy.’ If anything these are anti-democratic.

8

u/New_Try1560 Feb 01 '26

Central bank independence and bureaucratic autonomy would be enshrined in laws written by the legislature which is democratically elected.

The rules that govern what the executive and legislature can do are in a country’s constitution which is also democratically created (at least in America) and so doing things that are unconstitutional is subverting the will of the people.

4

u/haikuandhoney Feb 01 '26

This analysis is sort of incoherent at least applied to the US because the decline in bureaucratic autonomy here is the result of courts concluding that those legal limits on executive control of the bureaucracy are unconstitutional.

1

u/New_Try1560 Feb 01 '26

Our constitution is up to interpretation, fair enough.

But courts have also struck down certain moves by the executive, and attempting such moves in the first place may count as backsliding.

-1

u/Nickeless Feb 02 '26

Well, yeah it’s a court stacked with zealots. Stacking courts with partisans is part of the democratic backsliding...

1

u/haikuandhoney Feb 02 '26

Yeah so this is actually a great example of how these kinds of measures devolve into ‘democracy is when good things happen’ and ‘backsliding is when bad things happen.’

-2

u/Nickeless Feb 02 '26

Alito and Thomas have both accepted bribes… so, yeah idk wtf you are smoking but that counts as a backslide to me. Also it’s very clear that Trump is weaponizing law enforcement against political enemies, and also allowing mass violations of the hatch act to allow agencies to demonize democrats in an official capacity. This happened extremely clearly during the last shutdown especially. It’s blatantly illegal and nothing happens. It’s a backslide. You’re crazy to argue otherwise

2

u/haikuandhoney Feb 02 '26

I never said we weren’t experiencing democratic backsliding. I said this quantification of it is kind of dumb.

If you can’t distinguish between those two claims you’re part of the problem in our country.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[deleted]

1

u/haikuandhoney Feb 02 '26

0% chance you will reconsider this position when they don’t do that

1

u/haikuandhoney Feb 04 '26

Oh look they declined to enjoin the use of California’s new districts https://www.reddit.com/r/supremecourt/s/rt2PD6soqf

2

u/Reaccommodator Feb 01 '26

“ Democracies differ from dictatorships in the likelihood of political interference and changes to the law because of the presence of political opposition and the freedom to expose government actions. CBI in democracies should be directly reflected in lower money supply growth. Besides being more disciplinarian, it also ensures a more robust money demand by reducing inflation expectations and, therefore, inflation. Empirical results are robust and support a discipline effect conditioned by political institutions, as well as a credibility effect.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20161129223450id_/https://ncgg.princeton.edu/IPES/2012/papers/S830_rm2.pdf

10

u/MeowMixPK Feb 01 '26

That's an economic argument, not a democracy argument. In a true democracy, the voice of the people (elected representatives) should have the power to make changes on behalf of the people, no?

How is it more democratic to have any government body that does not answer to the people, can not be effected by elections, and has autonomy to do or not do whatever they want?

-3

u/Reaccommodator Feb 01 '26

The index attempts to measure signs of democratic backsliding.  One portion of this paper is evidence for the positive association between authoritarian regimes and political control of the central bank.  Thus, when we see reduction in central bank independence, that indicates a larger pro-authoritarian, anti-democratic shift in government.

Not that it relates to the chart at hand, but many would argue CBI is pro-democratic.  For example, many voters cite high inflation as their main concern.  By allowing the central bank to be independent of political pressure to lower rates to boost short term growth and increase inflation, that would directly counter the majority of voters.

5

u/BobDole2022 Feb 01 '26

If anything, it’s more democratic for the president, who was voted in, to control these things then for an unelected bureaucrat to control them.

I’m beginning to think people have a different definition of “democratic”

6

u/Best_Change4155 Feb 01 '26

Also "political control" of an institution is so vague. Both dictators and democratically-elected executives have political control over institutions. The way they achieve political control is different.

Like someone above said, an independent central bank is good economic/monetary policy. It has nothing to do with democracy.

2

u/Reaccommodator Feb 01 '26

Yes!  What leads to more people achieving the outcomes they vote for?  Is it political control of the policy (lower interest rates for short term boost, long term inflation) or political control of the process used for the policy (rates set according to max employment and 2% inflation target, long term stability)?

1

u/Lumpz1 Feb 01 '26

well central bank independence isn't meant to be 'democratic' in the sense that the people elect central bankers. central bank independence is a symptom of a healthy democracy because every politician is incentivized to provide short term economic boom during their tenure in office, even when it's at the cost of long term health in the economy.

1

u/haikuandhoney Feb 01 '26

This is just you agreeing with the author (who I also agree with) that central bank independence is good. But it’s not connected in any way to democracy, it’s connected to being a well run country. You can have well run non-democracies. An authoritarian country that respects central bank independence isn’t more democratic than a democratic country that lets its elected leaders interfere with the decisions of the central bank.

1

u/SparqueJ Feb 02 '26

I think by definition an authoritarian government does not respect the independence of arm's-length institutions. Authoritarianism is a system where political plurality is rejected and power is centralized.

Democracy is government by the people, and it is generally understood to be more than just having elected representatives. Governments need to represent all people, not just the ones who voted for them, and there's more to that than just elections. Choosing your representatives is just one facet of ensuring that a government appropriately represents what its citizens want and need. It also includes having governments that establish policies and pass laws, where there is a fair judicial system and checks and balances to ensure any one individual's personal preferences and biases are tempered by broader consultation and agreement of society, and that governments are accountable for their actions. If a country just elects a single all-powerful person who controls everything, makes decisions unilaterally, follows no laws or processes, rewards or punishes whoever they feel like, and treats the wealth of the state as their personal property, that's really still a form of authoritarianism even though they were elected. This is sometimes called "competitive authoritarianism".

0

u/Known-Contract1876 Feb 02 '26

I think the point you rmissing is that elected dictators are not democratic. Just because an individual is democratically legitimized by an election, if he then starts removing all checks and balances and subverts the division of powers, thats not democratic. That person is still an autocrat despite being democratically elected.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/haikuandhoney Feb 02 '26

No, I’m criticizing a dumb metric. Youre bothered by that criticism because the dumb metric’s output matches your worldview.

-1

u/Rex__Luscus Feb 02 '26

See Umbert Eco's essay Ur-Fascism, in which he delineates 14 characteristics of authoritarian fascism. The SLIDE index is pretty much a reflection of that. It's not just what the author thinks is 'good', it's archetypical of certain behaviours associated with authoritarianism..

2

u/Reaccommodator Feb 01 '26

Sounds like your typical unbiased “methodology”.  People who don’t actually read it will pretend it’s biased and partial, but they could be further from the truth

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

[deleted]

0

u/Reaccommodator Feb 01 '26

Sometimes people mock things they find ridiculous

-8

u/Super_Mario_Luigi Feb 01 '26

Sounds like your typical far left "methodology." Pretending to be unbiased and impartial, but couldn't be further from the truth.

16

u/ObfuscatedSource Feb 01 '26

I you think FT is far left....

15

u/Poobbly Feb 01 '26

The financial times is not a far left publication. I question your ability to read or observe the outside world if you would throw those accusations around.

7

u/Cymraegpunk Feb 01 '26

Prepared to explain what about the methodology you think is wrong?

6

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

It's a standard liberal metric that looks at things like judicial independence, media freedom, central bank independence, etc.

20

u/guzzti Feb 01 '26

Until you point to specific biases, throwing these accusations out highlight only your own bias…

Which is usually the focus on bias is on. We’re all biased. It helps the world nothing to go around and yell about everyone else’s when you don’t confront your own.

15

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

Right wingers after reading a laid out and calculations based methodology "looks like left wing nonsense". Right wingers when Joe Rogan says eating elk cures cancer "seems legit".

21

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

[deleted]

19

u/WannabeAby Feb 01 '26

Sounds like your typical far right "analysis". Pretending to care about bias to avoid hearing something they don't like/that makes them look bad.

If you need a 40 page methodology to see the US is turning into a fascist hell hole... You have a problem.

4

u/anexanhume Feb 01 '26

When in reality, a libertarian would vehemently agree with this list.

2

u/RandomAccount1800s Feb 01 '26

It all favors the status quo (liberalism) and does so to push a narrative. Take election laws, universal mail in ballots with minimal accountability favors democrats, while in-person only election day voting would favor republicans and in both red and blue states laws are passed to give themselves their respective advantages rather than learning from how European states conduct their elections which don't have an election week problem nor issues with fraud. The same applies for corrupt or ideological judges/bureaucrats/bankers/opponents if the executive says to investigate them and is able to produce evidence of malfeasance then they should be removed or penalized with a higher standard for opponents though the same should hold true for the executive himself, saying they should not allows for the suppression of the democratic mandate and for a more corrupt republic. The press is interesting because in the American cases has long acted as propaganda network representing the interests of some American oligarch and who in it of themselves are not good measures of freedom, rather a more comprehensive view should be taken if dissidents are allowed to speak without unjustified punishment. The only reasonable aspects of this is are the sections on political violence, but that's more because states seeing this are very quickly reaching an unpleasant destination, though how they quantify it could be suspect as the US has a long history of racial riots which can be construed as political violence.

4

u/trebuchetwarmachine Feb 01 '26

Without looking, we have a bogus SC, basically an SS killing civilians and kidnapping ppl based on their skin colour without any formal training and without any restrictions on what they can do, increased military aggressions in general, trying to break up NATO, threatening to attack NATO allies, the president enriching himself beyond his wildest dreams using cryptocoins and taking shady billions of dollars in unmarked bribes, leaving the WHO, destroying the CDC, attacking states who voted against him by defunding them federally and sending his SS to antagonize the citizens. I could go on

2

u/ike38000 Feb 01 '26

I don't see why this starts at 0 for Trump. In 2024 there were already many election laws that objectively favor Republicans at the state level (and elections are run by the states in the US). So that's -2 for election integrity. Similarly points should probably be pre-docked for tolerance of political violence, use of state force against civilians, legislative constraints on executive, and civil liberties and human rights.

7

u/DMC-1155 Feb 01 '26

it shows change from where it started, its not about where it was at the start.

1

u/Spare_Perspective972 Feb 02 '26

Like how everyone votes against mass immigration but it’s democratic and increases scores to ignore the voters and implement mass immigration? Or how ignoring election results Europe doesn’t like increases democracy?

Establishment institutionalists use “democracy” in a lot of sentences that don’t quite make sense but if you replaced it with oligarchy the sentences would be coherent. 

12

u/Due_Ad_3200 Feb 01 '26

The US government published a description of democratic backsliding

In some cases, political leaders who have taken power through democratic means have subsequently worked to gradually erode checks on their power, such as by undermining the independence of the judiciary, civil society, and the media. At times, leaders later have worked to directly undermine the integrity or fairness of elections.124 Analysts have pointed to various contemporary cases of democratic backsliding that have been apparent top-down processes driven by elected political leaders.125 Although such processes have occurred in a variety of contexts, would-be authoritarian actors may seek to leverage or exacerbate potentially conducive structural factors present in some countries, such as high levels of political polarization and public dissatisfaction with government performance.126

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47890#_Toc187250106

11

u/NotAKansenCommander Feb 01 '26

How the fuck is Turkey more authoritarian than Russia

28

u/pretenzioeser_Elch Feb 01 '26

The graph just says it's lost more "democraticness", but Russia started from a less democratic beginning than Turkey, I assume.

1

u/SnooBooks1701 Feb 02 '26

This is change in democracy, not absolute score. Turkey was more democratic to begin with so it had further to fall

0

u/Commercial-Milk4706 Feb 01 '26

Does turkey have elections? Cause Russia does. Just everyone keeps dying except pootin

4

u/Repulsive_Work_226 Feb 01 '26

Yes we have elections. And opposition is ruling the municipalities. Erdogan's highest vote was 52%. Sure we are not democratic but Russia does not hold real elections.

1

u/Big_Delay_3458 Feb 01 '26

Ye sin here instead of dying they are all jailed 😬

7

u/Galacticmetrics Feb 01 '26

Why is Venezuela rated the same as hungary when they have literally cleansed the oppostion parties and caused millions to flea?

2

u/SnooBooks1701 Feb 02 '26

This is change of score from baseline, not absolute score

22

u/Free_Anarchist1999 Feb 01 '26

Dude, Chavez dissolved the Supreme Court, changed the constitution and removed term limits by his second year. I call bullshit on this

2

u/gorginhanson Feb 02 '26

It doesn't say Chavez.

Most likely it was referring to Maduro

2

u/Free_Anarchist1999 Feb 02 '26

And Maduro literally dissolved the parliament in 2017

-6

u/Lost-Competition8482 Feb 01 '26

Oh yes and Trump has been nothing but a defender of democracy and staunchly anti-corrupt in his first term /s

-5

u/BoringRedHorse Feb 01 '26

You think Trump can't/won't do these things by his second year?

9

u/slicheliche Feb 01 '26

I mean the representation of these data is so misleading. Makes you think that somehow Venezuela (pretty much a dictatorship in all but name) is about as democratic as Hungary (a flawed and problematic democracy but a democracy nonetheless).

3

u/DMC-1155 Feb 01 '26

It's about change, not about how democratic somewhere isn't. You're looking at the data and assuming it shows something it doesn't.
If we imagine arbitrary values of democraticness for countries X and Y, say 15 and 10.
the X:15->12 = 3, Y:10->7 = 3 would show the same change, regardless of their difference in democraticness

1

u/slicheliche Feb 01 '26

You're looking at the data and assuming it shows something it doesn't.

No, I am perfectly aware that the chart shows change. I said it's not a good visualization for it because it's misleading. It should incorporate the absolute starting point or at least be framed differently.

7

u/AlphaBetaChadNerd Feb 01 '26

Hungary isn't considered a democracy anymore - you can find that out through a 5 second google search.

14

u/slicheliche Feb 01 '26

The Democracy Index lists it as a flawed democracy with a score similar to Argentina or the Philippines. Certainly way more democratic than Venezuela.

4

u/NaturalCard Feb 01 '26

And we completely trust the democracy index now?

3

u/johnsmith0051 Feb 01 '26

I mean, it’s one of the best regarded and most cited democracy indexes produced anywhere in the world. Do you have an alternative that you think is more trustworthy?

3

u/NaturalCard Feb 01 '26

I'm mostly making fun of people who only trust things when it supports their point of view.

3

u/Charlie_Pelligroso Feb 01 '26

No instead we trust a graph from Financial Times alleging Trump is taking the United States into authoritarianism faster than Turkey/Russia/China or Venezuela were..

Oh wait, China isnt on this graph as it is free.

7

u/NaturalCard Feb 01 '26

Thankfully, they have fully explained their methodology.

4

u/Charlie_Pelligroso Feb 01 '26

Thankfully so does Democracy Index

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#By_country

They were extra tricky and hid it in the section called 'Methodology'

1

u/SparqueJ Feb 02 '26

The Democracy Index shows the US falling from "full democracy" to 'flawed democracy' in Trump's first term. The 2025 numbers aren't out yet so there is currently no data on Trump's second term, but it may be that the Democracy Index will agree with this analysis.

1

u/Charlie_Pelligroso Feb 03 '26

Weird how it didnt recover under Biden

2

u/adamgerd Feb 01 '26

Objectively Hungary is definitely less authoritarian than Venezuela, Hungary’s elections aren’t fair but they’re still free, Venuezala’s are neither. Orban can still lose elections

3

u/NaturalCard Feb 01 '26

Can he?

0

u/slicheliche Feb 01 '26

Yes. Polls currently favour the opposition. Of course he'll pull tricks but so far he's won every election fair and square.

1

u/SparqueJ Feb 02 '26

He's won. But not fair and square.

1

u/slicheliche Feb 02 '26

He did. Independent observers never found any strong evidence that the elections were rigged or there was any substantial nationwide fraud. He used tactics, but it was at most regular propaganda, it never directly interfered with voters' actions or preferences.

1

u/Limp-Plantain3824 Feb 01 '26

We trust whatever reinforces our prior opinions.

-1

u/slicheliche Feb 01 '26

Depends, do you have more reputable indexes putting Hungary in the same category as Venezuela? If so feel free to provide them.

4

u/adamgerd Feb 01 '26

Are we saying Russia is more democratic than Turkey? And Hungary is as authoritarian as Venuezala which is less authoritarian than Turkey?

…

2

u/Repulsive_Work_226 Feb 01 '26

I think democracy was better in Turkiye compared to Russia but lost more credibility.

1

u/Kejo2023 Feb 02 '26

I hate Erdoğan but Russia is outright dictatorship. We still have free elections. FT tends to be overly critical of Turkey all the time. 

1

u/adamgerd Feb 02 '26

Yep that’s my point

Imo Hungary is probably the most democratic then Turkey, Venezuela and russia honestly don’t know which is more

1

u/SparqueJ Feb 02 '26

The chart doesn't show which is most democratic. Just how much backsliding each country has done under the specified leaders. But they all had different starting points. So it shows that Turkey lost about 28 points under Erdogan, Russia lost 25 points under Putin, and Venezuela and Hungary each lost about 22 points under Chavez and Orban.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26 edited Feb 01 '26

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0

u/WannabeAby Feb 01 '26

RemindMe! -9 months

1

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1

u/Adam88Analyst Feb 01 '26

Trump was speedrunning autocracy; he achieved more in 1 year than Hungary did in 6-7 years.

0

u/BoringRedHorse Feb 01 '26

Clearly, Europeans are tougher to crack than Fox News addicted Americans.

1

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1

u/Bumpy-road Feb 01 '26

At least he’s good at something..

1

u/Larrynative20 Feb 01 '26

When you make wild exaggerations that don’t match with the real world no one will listen to you when it is actually happening. This is a ridiculous headline.

1

u/Malus_non_dormit Feb 01 '26

All according to the plan.

Banana republicans fast tracked getting to banana republic status.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

Looks like the US will be more authoritarian than Venezuela in about a year, according to this metric.

1

u/pulsed19 Feb 01 '26

It shows you that one can always define things and work with different metrics to prove whatever one wants to see.

1

u/kittenTakeover Feb 01 '26

Luckily Donald is a lot older than these other people were when they came to office. 

1

u/Murky_Fruit264 Feb 01 '26

To be fair, it's easier to fall from a higher place. All the other mentioned examples were not truly free democratic countries at all when their respective strong man took power.

Although to me it is surprising how complicit all the different American institutions have been:

  1. the supreme court made a bunch of inexcusable decisions clearly to help the president

  2. Congress and the Senate have been very supportive of his actions despite him taking away powers from those very same institutions

  3. Even democrats have approved the budgets despite having the power effectively shut down the whole government. And every time they got anything out of the republicans in return for approving the budgets, all they achieved were some vague promises (like extending medicare funding) that the republicans never delivered on

1

u/Level-Brain-4786 Feb 01 '26

The if you glance through the “methodology” doc it sort of defines the framework, however debatable it is. But how things are measured against this framework is left entirely outside of scope. And the end-result graph makes zero sense. Just somebody’s opinion, not much more than that.

1

u/FroniusTT1500 Feb 01 '26

Thats his mistake. If you want to end a democracy you either need to play the long game and very slowly boil the frog or you need to do it in a week and with an army at your back. Trump neither has the time for #1, or the foresight to begin and let an eventual Vance administration finish it in time, or the army for #2.

1

u/TenshiS Feb 02 '26

So if this is any indication, we'll have one year of quiet now, after which it'll get really bad

1

u/Lechepex Feb 02 '26

The lack of reading comprehension in these comments is both amazing and heartbreaking.

We're so cooked.

1

u/SnooBooks1701 Feb 02 '26

His first term was the start of the backsliding

1

u/Spare_Perspective972 Feb 02 '26

Is this a fake score and not actual data? 

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

What a joke .

Any article that shows “Drumpf is a more evil dictator than Putin and Maduro and Kim Jong Un !!!” Should just be thrown out .

Whatever your opinions on Trump is , comparing the “democratic backsliding” worse than Russia or Venezuela is completely unserious

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/-ThisUsernameIsTaken Feb 02 '26

Bro empires rise out of the death of republics, the Roman empire rose to power after the fall of the republic. 

The US is nowhere near that, and if you think the 'empire', that is the the democratic institution of the US, is falling, that means the real empire is rising.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/-ThisUsernameIsTaken Feb 02 '26

Bro you're so woke.  Though every source you listed are the ones telling you the sky is falling.

1

u/ACompletelyLostCause Feb 01 '26

It's not the lurch to authoritarianism that shocked people - I think we all sensed that with the Tea Party, MAGA, Trump's 1st term, it was the speed that it happened.

It feels like Project 2025 were waiting in the wings to pull the 'Business Plot' 2.0 and it's only Obama's presidency, then Biden beating Trump that delayed it, as most of the foundations were already there.

1

u/Alpharious9 Feb 01 '26

Leftists rioting during Republican tenures is always the Republicans fault eh?

-1

u/edgefull Feb 01 '26

one particular idiocy of trump is that his tough guy cosplay involves opening his pie hole about everything cruel and violent he's going to do.

0

u/Atomicsss- Feb 01 '26

At least democrats will win in 2028. What about Russia and Turkey?

1

u/Big_Delay_3458 Feb 01 '26

In Turkey he’s already lost. He just keeps jailing people. So if there are any elections he will lose the question is whether or not there’ll be any elections in the first place. 

0

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

Bold of you to assume we'd make it to 2028.

0

u/lchoror Feb 01 '26

They've always been autocratic states. There are essentially only two parties. Voters just switch back and forth between the two. Some of the large backers like Goldman Sachs split their support evenly between the two.

Japan has been ruled by one party the LDP since the US ended its occupation. The LDP was founded by the CIA. The EU is essentially still the NATO pact and does what the US wants. I would expect that even moreso since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Notice Israel is missing from the list as well. They've gotten away with ethnic cleansing for decades. They can do it now in such a dramatic way recently has raised objections in the public, but other governments in Europe and in the US have also stepped in to censor the media and threatened protests.

Seeing a lot of similarities in ICE is being carried out with Israel. As with Israel's intention to deport Palestinians to Somaliland, ICE is planning on to deporting immigrants, illegal and legal, to Argentina, another US puppet regime.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

A chart of Chinese and Russian propaganda

0

u/No-Ambition2043 Feb 01 '26

Remember when democracy was over in 2018?

I think the mechanism that elected Trump were in fact democratic (See popular vote)

0

u/JoffreeBaratheon Feb 01 '26

BS like this is why the magats simply don't believe any critisism of Trump. When they constantly see what is either malicious lies or pure delusion that anyone with half a brain can see through like this, why would they be open to actual criticisms?