United States No Longer a Liberal Democracy: Downgraded

US no longer a leading democracy after losing rights and freedoms in 2025.

The US Is No Longer a Liberal Democracy

Over the past year, the United States lost its status as a liberal democracy according to all major measurers of democracy. Approaching its 250th anniversary of independence, the United States is no longer considered a working democracy, let alone a leading democracy.

This sounds dramatic and it is. The rapid movement from liberal democracy towards authoritarianism should have been front page, bold type news. Yet US media and news largely failed to report on countless credible studies documenting the decline of rights and freedoms in the US in 2025.

Nonetheless, Americans of all political or no political beliefs should take note: the country is hovering between democracy and authoritarianism. Approaching July 4, 2026, the US is not in a place to celebrate independence but rather poised to lose it, without noticing.

Under Trump II, the US Quickly Lost Freedoms and Limits to Government and Corruption

V-Dem, the world’s preeminent gauge of democracy, found that the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index score fell by 24 percent in less than a year, a first anywhere. The 2026 report stated:

Democracy in the USA is deteriorating at unprecedented speed, and media and journalists are increasingly targeted across the world. 

Further, the V-Dem global ranking of the US as a democracy plummeted from 20th to 51st place out of 179 countries in the first eleven months of the Trump II administration.

V-Dem is not the only annual gauge of democracy. All the respected and best-known measurers of democracy confirm V-Dem’s findings.

The Freedom House documented a yearly decline in its democracy scale for the United States in 2025. It emphasized changes in freedom of speech, corruption of the government, and removal of protections against corruption:

[A] multiyear rise in threats and reprisals for political speech as well as government efforts to punish nonviolent expression by noncitizens produced a chilling effect on personal expression more broadly. The new presidential administration also disregarded conflicts of interest and weakened both anticorruption safeguards and enforcement practices. As a result of these factors, the country’s score declined by 3 points, for a net loss of 12 points over the last 20 years—more than any other country rated Free during the same period, except for Nauru and Bulgaria.

Similarly, Democracy Matrix’s study of the world’s democracies, the United States ranked the United States as “deficient democracy.” Denmark was the freest country (“working democracy”, and Eritrea the most restricted (“hard autocracy”).

In June 2026, Human Rights Watch published an article entitled “US Democracy in Decline Under Trump”, documenting similar findings:

[S]ince returning to power in 2025, President Donald Trump and his administration have attacked and undermined human rights and fundamental freedoms across the board including many essential to the meaningful exercise of democracy. 

Bright Line Watch surveyed more than 500 U.S. legal scholars from across the political spectrum. It reached a similar conclusion with respect to the rule of law, which prevents tyranny by the government:

The federal judges, elite lawyers, and academics in our sample perceive a significant erosion of the rule of law since Trump returned to office, including politicized law enforcement, a dysfunctional separation of powers, and executive-branch overreach. Legal experts generally believe the erosion of the rule of law as more severe than the public currently perceives it to be.

As a refresher, the “rule of law” played a pivotal role in the founding of the American democracy and in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . . ”)

Americans themselves perceive the change. A recent Marist Poll found that 47% of Americans believe the country has moved away from its founding principles. 67% of Americans believe the US used to be a good example of democracy but isn’t anymore and 81% of Americans believe that democracy is currently being threatened.

The US was downgraded from “Liberal Democracy” and is currently deemed an “Electoral Democracy” with warnings of a further side possibly imminent.

What Is A Liberal Democracy Anyway?

Many of us have not heard the term “liberal democracy” much or may not know what it means in these studies.

“Liberal democracy” is:

liberal democracy, a form of democracy  in which the power of government is limited, and the freedom and rights of individuals are protected, by constitutionally established norms and institutions

Liberal democracy requires:

• Democracy

• Limited government (checks and balances)

• Individual rights and freedoms protected equally

• Adherence to a Constitution

• Respect by the government of the Constitution and checks and balances

• Respect by the government of established norms and institutions

• The rule of law: nobody, including the President, administration, their loyalists and friends, is entitled to special treatment

• Like offenses are treated equally, regardless of political position or status of the offender

• Limits on corruption, competitive civil service rather than a spoils system.

• Free and fair elections
  

These rights, standards, and principles are no longer working in the United States the same way they were before President Trump took office in 2025. This is not a political statement but rather an objective, verified statement of fact. 

It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture amid a sea of constant information and noise. However, Americans should pay immediate attention to this basic alteration of the country and the fact that only the “Free and Fair Elections” category is keeping the US from becoming authoritarian, or an “electoral autocracy”.  

US falling fast towards authoritarianism and dictatorship, at an historic low for the US freedom index.

Electoral Democracy? Authoritarian? Autocracy? What’s It Gonna Be?

If the US is no longer a liberal democracy, what is it? Studies and researchers use different terminology to explain the current state of the US government, including: “illiberal democracy,” “electoral democracy”, “deficient democracy”, “competitive authoritarianism”.

All the descriptions share a conclusion: the U.S. government now falls between liberal democracy and authoritarianism, edging ever closer towards authoritarianism. We’re not there yet.

But the US may fall further towards authoritarianism with a deadline looming in November, according to University of Gothenburg’s V-Dem study author Professor Staffan Lindstrom:

The 2026 American midterm elections will be a critical test for the quality of elections, and democracy, in the United States. If election indicators also decline, the U.S. will fall even further.

What happens in and before November will determine the fate of the American government and the American people and what George Washington called our “grand experiment”.

11 Steps To Counter Moves Towards Authoritarianism- Success Stories

We Hold This Truth to be Self Evident- We Can Do it!

Kitchen Table Talk exists for exactly this kind of moment — when important, well-documented information is getting lost in the noise. Citizens of all political backgrounds deserve clear facts to make sense of what is happening to their country at this crucial time.

Our founders had a beautiful idea. The world has been richer for it. Approaching the 250th anniversary of American independence, it would be tragic to let our rights and freedoms slip away without noticing.

America, the choice is ours. Happy Independence Day.