America has crossed a line many once thought unimaginable.
As political scientists Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt write in Foreign Affairs, the United States is no longer a full democracy. Under Trump’s second term, it has shifted into competitive authoritarianism—a system where elections still occur, but incumbents systematically use state power to hobble opponents.
Yet the authors argue that this slide, alarming as it is, remains reversible. The most important factor in determining the future is not Trump’s strength but how Americans respond.
The shift they describe did not happen subtly. Over 2025, the administration purged institutions such as the Justice Department and the FBI, replacing career civil servants with personal loyalists willing to target critics. Investigations were launched into Democratic officials, civil society leaders, journalists, watchdog groups, and even former Trump appointees who broke ranks.
Many charges were trivial, but that was the point: selective enforcement creates fear and drains resources, even without convictions. Meanwhile, allies received protection, including sweeping pardons for participants in the January 6 attack.
The assault extended beyond law enforcement. University budgets were frozen, philanthropies and fundraising platforms were investigated, independent media outlets faced lawsuits or regulatory pressure, and many institutions quietly withdrew from political engagement to avoid retaliation.
Powerful law firms stopped taking cases challenging the administration. Major donors backed away from Democratic causes. Newsrooms softened coverage or cancelled programming. In the authors’ view, this spread of self-censorship—far harder to measure than explicit coercion—is a defining feature of competitive authoritarian rule.
Even the security services were not spared. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded into something resembling a paramilitary arm of the executive. National Guard deployments in cities raised concerns about intimidation. Trump encouraged crowds of uniformed soldiers to jeer at elected Democrats and urged the military to prepare for a fight against an “enemy from within”.
These actions, the authors argue, are unlike anything seen in the United States since the post-Watergate era.
Yet the essay’s core message is not despair but resistance. Competitive authoritarian systems still contain openings. Elections remain meaningful; courts still function; federalism preserves independent centres of authority; the media landscape, though pressured, still includes diverse voices; and civil society retains unmatched resources. The 2025 off-year elections showed that opposition victories are possible even on an uneven playing field.
The biggest threat to American democracy, the authors warn, is not repression alone but demobilisation—the fear-driven withdrawal of citizens, donors, lawyers, journalists, and institutions. When people assume the game is rigged beyond repair, they stop playing it, and authoritarianism deepens.
The authors foresee years of instability rather than a quick return to democratic normalcy or a smooth slide into dictatorship. But they insist the outcome is not predetermined. Avoiding complacency and rejecting fatalism are equally essential. Democracy’s survival depends on citizens continuing to act as though their engagement still matters—because, they argue, it does.
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
