US ‘on a trajectory’ toward authoritarian rule, ex-officials warn | Trump administration
The United States is “on a trajectory” toward authoritarian rule, according to a stark new intelligence-style assessment from former U.S. intelligence and national security officials who warn that democratic decline is accelerating under the Trump administration and could soon take hold without organized resistance.
The report, titled Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessing Democratic Decline, was released Thursday by Steady State, a network of more than 340 former officials from the CIA, NSA, state department and other national security agencies.
The authors conclude “moderate to high confidence” that the United States is moving toward what scholars call “competitive authoritarianism,” a system in which elections and courts continue to function but are “systematically manipulated” to consolidate executive power and weaken the separation of powers. These trends are becoming increasingly visible in the United States as part of a broader effort to “ensure loyalty and ideological cohesion” across the federal government during Donald Trump’s second term, according to the assessment.
To conduct the assessment, the authors applied the same analytical methods that U.S. intelligence agencies use to assess the fragility of democracies abroad, but turned them inward for what the group calls a “first-of-its-kind” analysis of democratic backsliding at home.
“We wrote this because the same tools we once used to assess external risks now show clear warning signs at home,” the authors said in a statement.
Since returning to the White House, the president has pardoned rioters who attacked police on Jan. 6, fired independent monitors, purged career officials viewed as disloyal, called on his attorney general to prosecute his political opponents, sent troops into U.S. cities, attacked judges who ruled against him, threatened universities and restricted press freedom; All while testing the limits of executive power in ways that federal courts have repeatedly accepted. is unlawful and unconstitutional.
Just last week, Trump’s justice department indicted Letitia James, the New York attorney general who successfully prosecuted him for fraud, and separately indicted his longtime political opponent, former FBI director James Comey. He also called for the jailing of Illinois governor JB Pritzker and Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats who oppose the deployment of federal troops there.
While the report reflects the “complete intelligence” model used by the U.S. intelligence community, the authors emphasize that this analysis was conducted entirely by private citizens and relied solely on open source materials such as news reports, public statements, and independent observer analyzes as opposed to classified intelligence.
Key indicators of democratic decline identified in the report include: expansion of executive power through unilateral decrees and emergency powers; politicization of the civil service and federal law enforcement; attempts to erode judicial independence through strategic appointments and “non-compliance” with court decisions or investigations; a weakened and increasingly ineffective Congress; partisan manipulation of election systems and administration; and the deliberate undermining of civil society, press and public trust.
“We judge that the primary driver of the United States’ growing authoritarianism is the increasing frequency of excessive interference by the Executive Branch,” the assessment states. It also cites a “worrying” shift in public opinion among Americans, with polls showing an increasing proportion of those who think “having a strong leader who doesn’t have to deal with parliament or elections” is a “very good or pretty good system.”
The report’s findings are supported by democracy experts and other analyses. One September Bright Line Watch The survey found that expert and public evaluations of U.S. democracy have fallen to their lowest levels since 2017. On a scale of 0-100, the public rated American democracy at just 49; experts evaluated it as 54.
Political scientists and human rights activists are increasingly drawing comparisons between the United States and countries such as Hungary or Türkiye, where elected leaders hold power by weakening institutional controls while maintaining a democratic façade.
“Absent organized resistance from institutions, civil society, and the public, the United States will likely continue down the path of accelerating democratic erosion,” the Steady State report concludes, and “risk further consolidation of executive dominance and loss of credibility as a model of democracy abroad.”
