Democratic Backsliding Reaches Western Democracies, U.S. Decline "Unprecedented"

3/20/2026 at 12:41:33 AM

At the same time democratic backsliding [1] occurs in cycles. We're probably not at a low point, but that doesn't mean it's permanent.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding

by kelseyfrog

3/20/2026 at 1:12:03 PM

As a citizen of one of these backsliders, in addition to voting in every election I'm allowed to, I am committing to taking additional civic action in the next few months to advocate for free and fair elections. I hope everyone in a similar position joins me in that.

by mpalmer

3/20/2026 at 3:06:21 PM

In the United States, a significant portion of the population is all for that "backsliding". This isn't something imposed by an unconstitutional autocracy. This was something we voted for.

There is an election coming up, and it's possible that the administration will lose enough support to prevent future erosion of democracy. But even without their active interference, they will still have the support of many, many voters. Current forecasts are too close to call, e.g.:

https://www.270towin.com/2026-house-election/consensus-2026-...

by jfengel

3/20/2026 at 4:52:42 PM

I question how much control individuals have over their beliefs. Violence and wars are fought over deeply held religious beliefs yet there can be no doubt that those same beliefs are 100% dependent upon (1) where you are born; and (2) the beliefs of your parents.

That makes one wonder how much we control our own beliefs when the daily messaging is dictated by an elite whose money owns/controls the entirety of mass media and elected government office holders.

by keernan

3/20/2026 at 4:50:45 AM

I don't think Trump is the cause, but he's an opportunist stepping into a vacuum that has developed over a lengthy period of time.

by noshitsherlock

3/20/2026 at 3:48:45 PM

Trump is a puppet. At least since his second term.

Isn’t it funny in this country, how people will shoot at some figurehead of a subsidiary company or a fat geezer with narcissistic tendencies, or a political pundit.

But a whole global elite pedophile cabal was exposed and no one involved in that is getting shot in the streets.

by polothesecond

3/20/2026 at 12:01:16 AM

[flagged]

by alex43578

3/20/2026 at 12:06:44 AM

> an administration deliberately failing to enforce immigration laws

What civil liberties are being eroded there?

(I do agree that poor handling of the pandemic normalised the removal of civil liberties)

by digitalPhonix

3/20/2026 at 12:21:21 AM

[flagged]

by alex43578

3/20/2026 at 7:19:46 AM

Do you think the administration executing this faithfully in general, or just with regard to your one issue?

by cosmicgadget

3/20/2026 at 8:02:12 AM

I don’t think this administration is either, nor did I ever say that it is. I asked why these institutions or organizations have such selective outrage over issues.

If the concentration of power in the presidency, as shown by an erosion of the Take Care Clause, is such a concern, where was the concern about the malfeasance of the last administration?

by alex43578

3/20/2026 at 3:45:30 PM

> I asked why these institutions or organizations have such selective outrage over issues.

Because people have stuff they care about more and stuff they care about less.

> as shown by an erosion of the Take Care Clause

Honestly the only two times I have heard anyone refer to the Take Care clause is the current president during some twitter rant many years ago and yourself right now. There are a few good explanations for this but the most likely one, in my mind, is because the primary function of the executive is to enforce laws in a world with limited. And so no one needs to invoke the Take Care clause unless they're really mad about a single issue.

> where was the concern about the malfeasance of the last administration?

Pretty pervasive, if you hadn't noticed we voted in the guy who turned a mob loose on the counting of votes.

by cosmicgadget

3/20/2026 at 3:09:56 PM

Because the malfeasance of the last administration was orders of magnitude less than the current one.

by e40

3/20/2026 at 1:31:17 AM

What is the correct term for this kind of bad faith attempt at seeming logical while at the same time being utterly and deliberately wrong?

by wredcoll

3/20/2026 at 3:11:36 AM

[flagged]

by alex43578

3/20/2026 at 1:14:32 AM

[flagged]

by rayiner

3/20/2026 at 1:29:38 AM

Nobody thinks that a president type figure appointing someone else to run a part of the government they are responsible for is an erosion of democracy.

What, specifically, is the alternative? The president does literally everything? We have elections for each dmv clerk?

Or maybe we draw some kind of line and say some jobs should have elections and others aren't worth the effort.

(And no, you can't just say "the job of dmv clerk should't exist" because someone has to do it and I'd much rather that person be answerable to an elected government than a corporation or worse)

by wredcoll

3/20/2026 at 1:35:46 AM

What you’re describing is how administrative bureaucracies used to work in the U.S. before the 1920s and in Europe before the E.U. That’s consistent with democracy. The anti-democratic part is when the elected officials began delegating more and more power to those bureaucracies and those bureaucracies became more independent and insulated from elections. That when the backslide happened.

In the U.S. that happened because of legislation and new legal doctrines in the 1930s. In Europe it happened because of increasing delegation of power to the centralized E.U. bureaucracy.

by rayiner

3/20/2026 at 7:26:21 AM

We've seen pretty clearly that the unelected administrative state is totally subject to the policies and whims and terminally-online appointees of the executive.

It's just remained largely intact because the scary deep state is just people with careers who know more about statecraft than Joe Rogan listeners.

by cosmicgadget

3/20/2026 at 5:26:52 AM

How telling that in your version of events, "massive democratic backsliding" happened right after the conclusion of WW2. Yikes.

by waon

3/20/2026 at 11:29:34 AM

As to Europe, yes. What’s inconsistent about the idea that the multi-national infrastructure put into place to reduce the chance of war was also anti-democratic?

by rayiner

3/20/2026 at 5:38:50 AM

He's referring to FDR, who was inaugurated well before the end of WWII.

by hollerith

3/20/2026 at 5:55:27 AM

European integration did not happen before WW2, because you know, Europe was at war.

Moreover, criticizing FDR's response to the great depression while solely condemning Europe for its post-war policies isn't a great counterargument.

by waon

3/20/2026 at 1:41:50 AM

> In Europe, with the advent of the EU, which shifted power away from voters to unelected bureaucracies seated in foreign countries. Removing it would transfer power away from the people to EU's adversaries and large monopolistic entities.

The European parliament is elected. When people don't shoot themselves in the foot and put weird politicians in it, being a bigger group means more power to coerce large companies into behaving better. See: GDPR or small things like removal batteries or removal or roaming fees. So in a sense it allows people to recover some power over large companies.

Generally attacks on the EU sound like they come from other countries or large companies that would benefit from it being split so that individual countries can be better bullied into submission (though the EU has not been very competent at not bullying itself into submission to the recent new American leader).

by Krssst

3/20/2026 at 1:50:33 AM

The European Parliament has little actual power. With 375 million voters that are split by language and culture the electoral power is so diluted that most of the actual authority rests with the EU bureaucracy.

by rayiner

3/20/2026 at 5:45:16 AM

This is an argument I can support. We should definitely increase the number of MEPs and also give the parliament more power.

by jurgenburgen

3/20/2026 at 3:08:38 PM

That's disingenuous.

The European Commission is made up of people nominated by the European Council, which itself is made up of ministers from each EU member (i.e. they are elected). The commissioners have to pass a confidence vote from the European Parliament, which again is elected. They can also be be forced to resign by the parliament with a no-confidence vote.

(Side-note: the EU's sin isn't being anti-democratic. The sin is being so confusing that it's easy to make accusations of being anti-democratic. Because no one really understands it if they aren't paying attention. There's a European Council and a Council of the European Union - wtf)

by triceratops

3/20/2026 at 3:51:56 AM

It votes on all laws so it has a strong power to stop bullshit. I fail to see how the amount of voters would remove that right. The power stands with the people who actually get out to vote.

by Krssst

3/20/2026 at 2:03:34 PM

It approves the laws but can’t originate the laws, which makes it unlike every other democratic legislature. That means that the European Commission actually in charge of steering the government, while the Parliament can only really approve or disapprove. Moreover, the Commission can directly promulgate regulations that have the force of law. So you have a putatively administrative organ that both initiates actual legislation and can itself enact regulations that are effectively laws. I don’t think there is any other democratic system that centralizes that much lawmaking authority in its administrative organ.

Optimally, democracy is participative. People don’t just vote, they govern themselves. Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” does a great job capturing what that looks like. Today, the most democratic systems are what you have in the Scandinavian countries. Small, homogenous electorates can achieve social consensus on what their society should look like. And then they can act through parliament to effectuate changes.

The E.U.-wide electorate is so big and fractious that it has basically zero ability to achieve social consensus. And the E.U. Parliament has no power to initiate legislation anyway. So “democracy” is reduced to rubber stamping the initiatives of the Commission, which are in turn largely decided by the permanent bureaucracy.

by rayiner

3/20/2026 at 3:04:44 AM

[flagged]

by bruceb

3/20/2026 at 4:25:06 PM

It’s a well known benchmark in comparative political science with a specific rubric for how each category is analyzed. It’s imperfect but far more rigorous than dismissing indicators of backsliding as just “not liking Trump” (just one of many examples that together form a concerning trend):

F.C.C. Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over War Coverage

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/world/middleeast/fcc-broa...

FCC boss vows to ‘rebalance’ media, urges more pro-America programming

https://www.foxnews.com/media/fcc-boss-vows-rebalance-media-...

by toraway

3/20/2026 at 3:51:17 AM

What do you mean by “scientific”? These concepts aren’t discoverable in nature. However, they’re transparently defined in the code book and the “opinions” are available for analysis in the expert coder-level dataset.

by rorylawless

3/20/2026 at 9:09:46 AM

Linberg's assumptions are fake. Just look at Germany silencing free speech, and the whole of the EU attempting to control free speech in the digital realm, which the US has.

by DivingForGold

3/20/2026 at 7:31:22 AM

Has this elected person said or done anything that specifically endangers voting rights? Or, say, federalizes voting?

by cosmicgadget

3/20/2026 at 3:50:33 PM

Are you opposed to the Voting Rights Act?

by onetimeusename

3/20/2026 at 6:27:05 AM

What if the things I don't like are anti-democratic? Like masked agents without warrants dragging people out of their homes and cars while ignoring federal court orders about using tear gas and other tactics? Or starting a war in the Middle East without consulting Congress and the American people.

by goatlover