"Competitive Authoritarianism"

From Heather Cox Richardson:

Today, Steady State, a group made up of more than 340 former U.S. intelligence officers from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the State Department, and other intelligence agencies, released a report assessing the state of American democracy. Applying the tools of their craft to the U.S., they assess that the nation is “on a trajectory toward competitive authoritarianism: a system in which elections, courts, and other democratic institutions persist in form but are systematically manipulated to entrench executive control.”

The report, titled Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline, finds that American democracy is weakening as the Executive Branch is consolidating power and “actively weaponizing state institutions to punish perceived opponents and shield allies,” and that Congress is refusing to check the president, “creating openings for authoritarian exploitation.”

“We judge that the primary driver of the U.S.’s increasing authoritarianism is the increased frequency of Executive Branch overreach,” the report says, noting that “President Donald J. Trump has leveraged emergency powers, executive orders, federalized military forces, and bureaucratic politicization to consolidate control and weaken checks and balances.”