Competitive Authoritarianism In America

Abstract: The United States crossed the line into competitive authoritarianism during Donald Trump's second presidency: Elections remained real, but incumbents systematically abused state institutions to tilt the playing field against opponents. The administration weaponized the Justice Department, the FBI, and other agencies against critics, universities, law firms, and the press, while national gerrymandering and coerced corporate money skewed competition. Judged by the eleven criteria the authors devised to score 35 regimes in their earlier research, the U.S. case is comparable to Hungary under Viktor Orbán, if far softer than 1990s Russia or Serbia. The new regime is unlikely to consolidate, however: The United States’ vast countervailing power—its wealth, private sector, and civil society—dilutes authoritarian abuse and makes redemocratization by electoral turnover likely. Yet turnover would not mean democracy survived intact. Opposition parties do win unfair elections, and a restored U.S. democracy will remain unconsolidated until both major parties commit to its defense.