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.
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.:
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
> 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).
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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-...
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.
Living in one of the alleged backsliders, the UK, I can't say things seem much different.
Did you submit any ID for the numerous services that now require it? Regardless of your answer, the fact they’re now asking for it is a problem.
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.
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.
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> 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)
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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)
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.
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.
> 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).
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.
How telling that in your version of events, "massive democratic backsliding" happened right after the conclusion of WW2. Yikes.
He's referring to FDR, who was inaugurated well before the end of WWII.
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?
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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.
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-...
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.
Has this elected person said or done anything that specifically endangers voting rights? Or, say, federalizes voting?
Are you opposed to the Voting Rights Act?
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.