After the Fall: Part 4

No More “What ifs”

I want to preface this blog post with sentiments I expressed in a previous After the Fall post…

To my friends and family: Do not worry, I have NOT gone full Rambo on you. I’m not building a bunker in the woods. And I am NOT suffering from depression. I am quite capable of studying and analyzing very depressing news, information, activities etc., without succumbing to depression over it, as bleak as that information can be.  

For me, depression would mean giving up, and I’m just not wired that way. What I am is someone who is trying to pay attention, someone who wants to share what I know with others, someone who believes we owe it to ourselves to see what is happening politically with some degree of clarity. And the time for clarity has never been greater than it is now. Why? Because the time to act is once again upon us.

Introduction

There are those among you who feel that I am being alarmist for worrying about us possibly losing the democratic form of government we have known our entire lives. So be it. Feel free to disagree with me, to clutch your rosary, to whistle past the graveyard, but I for one, am done worrying about this possibility. Finito! Done! Why? Because… we are not on the brink of autocracy anymore folks, we’re in it up to our knees, like the proverbial Tar Baby.

The old adage, the future is now, is right. It is! And right now we are a fledgling autocracy, and it happened so damn fast! If you can’t see it, I beg of you to stop and take a breath, open your eyes, and see the autocracy that is taking shape all around us.

But I am here to tell you – this doesn’t mean we should be led into despair! Opening our eyes to what is happening around us can lead us to something better… it can lead to clarity, clarity can lead to action, and action can lead to much-needed change. So, if you’re staying informed, writing your representatives, donating what you can afford to the groups promoting democracy, showing up to protest events, you’re already doing what can be done legally. And believe me, it matters.

But don’t just take my word for it. Let me show you why autocracy isn’t a looming threat, it’s already here.

Measuring Democratic Decline: The V-Dem Data

As much as I like to observe and analyze our daily politics, I am still a bit stunned at how fast we slipped into autocracy. I shouldn’t be surprised. I know better. After all, history is replete with examples of this. Still, the slide into totalitarianism was more slick than I expected.

Have you heard of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset? Me neither, at least not until recently when I happened to be researching autocracy. The V-Dem dataset is the name of a long-running project run by the Swedish University of Gothenburg and the University of Notre Dame. In a nutshell, it is one of the most detailed attempts to measure democracy worldwide that anyone has ever conducted. Rather than treat the level of democracy as a single score, they broke it into hundreds of indicators, using things like “freedom of expression,” judicial independence,” “civil liberties,” “clean elections,” “equality before the law,” and so on.

Researchers and experts participated from each country, scoring all of these indicators annually. V-Dem combines the numbers into indices such as the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) and Authoritarian Index. V-Dem is used by Freedom House[i] and the Economist Intelligence Unit[ii], as well as a number of political scientists who track democratic backsliding.

The scoring of the USA has been noticeably sliding towards autocracy. The Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) measures how democratic a country is by incorporating checks and balances, constraints on the executive branch, and individual liberties.

The LDI shows a decline in the US as our score dropped from 0.85 in 2015 to 0.77 in 2023. The most significant dip took place during the first Trump presidency, from 0.85 to 0.73. The LDI links this decline to factors such as reduced checks and balances, weakened oversight, limitations on individual liberties.

The Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) is another measurement used by V-Dem. It assesses the extent to which a country has a representative democracy. It looks at whether political leaders are elected in free and fair elections, and whether citizens enjoy freedom of association and expression. The USA has declined in its EDI score on the Clean Election Index beginning in 2016. It enjoyed a brief bump in 2023, but has not returned to its pre-2016 level. While the Biden presidency helped us survive what many called a crisis, democracy did not fully recover. As of early 2025, democracy in the USA was deemed weaker than before Trump took office.

The causes of this decline are myriad, and familiar, as you might guess (from Google mostly):

• Electoral intimidation and violence. V-Dem cited political violence in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, culminating in the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.
• Increased polarization. Politics these days is more toxic and polarized. Right? Research found that political debates have lost their “deliberative quality” (their characteristics that make policy debates effective, respectful and productive).
• Erosion of free expression. V-Dem has also observed a decline in freedom of expression in the US, including less respect for counterarguments during political debate and reduced citizen participation in public discussions.
• Executive aggrandizement. Imagine the president is too big for his breeches. The 2025 report noted the attempts to test the limits of executive power, especially during the Trump administration, which influenced a decline in deliberation and government checks and balances. Remember Trump firing all the Inspectors General (IGs)?

At first glance, the report from V-Dem shows a definite decline in our numbers. It doesn’t look good. We are heading in the wrong direction. Yet, even in the midst of the dreadful numbers we can still find some hope. The V-Dem report notes the presence of strong “democratic resilience” in the US, including powerful independent media, civic organizations, and public engagement. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but notice that these are specifically the pressure points now being applied by the current Trump administration as it strives to destroy our democracy completely. There is hope, folks. We just need to first see, then plan, then act.

I’ll leave this review of V-Dem with some of the final thoughts found in their 2025 report.

According to the 2025 report, the US has experienced the fastest episode of “autocratization” in its modern history. While the full impact of the Trump administration is not yet included in the V-Dem data, the authors of the report have noted the use of typical autocratic tactics e.g., vilify the press, make people doubt actual facts, create fears about “the other,” etc. The report was published in 2025 and includes data up to the end of 2024. While the US is still considered a democracy at the end of 2024, we are on a trajectory that could be downgraded in 2025 unless things change.

Autocratic Tactics in Real Time

Beyond the V-Dem data, we can identify specific autocratic patterns unfolding in real time. I don’t think you’ll consider me crazy when you see this list, since we can all watch these things happen in real time every day now. The V-Dem numbers confirm what many of us have felt in our bones. The slide is measurable. Peruse the following data at your leisure.

• Executive power expansion.
  • Rapid consolidation of authority in the presidency, sidelining normal checks and balances. This mirrors early-stage autocratization patterns identified by democracy scholars and watchdogs.(Democracy Without Borders).
  • Experts tracking U.S. democracy report aggressive efforts to test and expand executive control over agencies and oversight, a hallmark of autocratic drift. (NPR).
• Undermining judicial independence
  • Public attacks on courts and moves perceived as eroding judicial constraints fit core red flags in V-Dem and comparative research on autocratization. (Carnegie Endowment).
  • Prominent scholars have singled out pressure on the judiciary as a particularly alarming sign in early 2025. (Wiki)
• Politicizing prosecution and enforcement
  • Weaponization of prosecutorial power and selective enforcement against opponents are common tactics flagged in democratic backsliding case studies and current U.S. analyses. (Democracy Without Borders)
  • Surveyed political scientists cite growing concern over the use of state power to punish critics, consistent with Bright Line Watch indicators. (Yale ISPS)
• Weakening the legislature and oversight
  • Efforts to bypass or weaken congressional oversight bodies map to standard autocratization pathways in cross-national datasets. (Carnegie Endowment)
  • Comparative reports note attempts to diminish independent watchdogs and erode constraints on the executive branch. (V-Dem)
• Attacks on independent media and expression
  • Increased hostility toward independent journalism, censorship pressures, and government disinformation align with V-Dem’s most-declining indicators during autocratization. (Idea)
  • Global democracy monitors highlight freedom of expression and media freedom deterioration as leading-edge symptoms, with U.S. trends watched closely in 2024–2025. (Idea)
• Delegitimizing elections and electoral administration
  • Narratives that undermine trust in election integrity and pressures on administrators are classic early-stage signs in the erosion of liberal democracy. (Wiki)
  • Freedom House and academic analysts track risks surrounding credible elections and acceptance of outcomes as core metrics of decline. (Freedom House)
• Normalizing political violence or impunity
  • Tolerance for, justification of, or impunity regarding political violence signals erosion of democratic norms and deterrents against autocratic behavior. (NPR)
  • Scholars link rhetorical cues and official actions around politically motivated violence to accelerating backsliding trajectories. (Yale ISPS)
• Purges and restructuring of state institutions
  • Purging civil servants and restructuring agencies to ensure personal loyalty over neutral competence is repeatedly observed in comparative autocratization episodes. (Democracy Without Borders)
  • Early 2025 commentaries warn of dismantling or politicizing parts of the state as a means to entrench executive control. (Wiki)
• Discrediting opponents and the rule of law
  • Systematic vilification of political rivals, prosecutors, and judges erodes the shared democratic baseline and weakens rule-of-law norms. (NPR)
  • International IDEA and V-Dem emphasize sustained rule-of-law declines, especially around judicial independence and legal impartiality, as pivotal markers. (V-Dem)
• Erosion in cross-national democracy indices
  • V-Dem notes a statistically significant U.S. decline on core democracy metrics since 2014 and flags 2024–2025 as especially worrisome, with experts forecasting potential reclassification if trends continue. (V-Dem)
  • Freedom House and other monitors track stagnation or declines in political rights and civil liberties, situating U.S. movement within a broader global downturn. (Idea)
• Polarization and disinformation as accelerants
  • Heightened polarization and strategic disinformation correlate strongly with autocratization across countries and are highlighted as deteriorating areas in recent reports. (V-Dem)
  • Scholars warn that polarization weakens democratic guardrails, enabling executive overreach and norm-breaking to go unchecked. (Stanford CDDRL)
• Public sentiment and expert surveys
  • Bright Line Watch’s 2025 wave shows a steep drop in scholars’ ratings of U.S. democratic performance, reflecting concern across 30 institutional indicators. (NPR)
  • Contemporary commentary frames the current period as unusually rapid backsliding relative to prior U.S. episodes, echoing comparative historical warnings. (Politico)

What Lawful Resistance Looks like

I admit to being somewhat hopeful at this point that you may agree with me that something needs to be done about our current slide into authoritarianism. It’s easy to agree, of course, but it’s always harder to “do”. First, we have to ask ourselves what it is we can do?

Well, the first and easiest thing we can do is to let our politicians know just how we feel. Follow the steps outlined below to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind:

1. Find your representatives’ contact info using a trusted resource like government websites. You can do this for both your congress reps and your senators. (Find and contact elected officials)
2. Write a short, clear message: state your concern, what action you want, and why it matters to you personally. You can make this short and pleasant, or short and angry. Be civil, but let them know how you feel.
3. Email, call, or mail a letter; personalized messages tend to be more effective than form emails.
4. If possible, schedule a meeting or attend public forums where you can speak directly or ask questions.
5. Stay polite, concise, and specific, and always include your name, address, and contact details so your opinion is counted.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the huge protest event that everyone is invited to on October 18^th, the next “No Kings Day!” If you give a damn about democracy, please, please, try to attend this event!

You can find out more information about this event and what is happening locally near you, by checking out NoKings.org and Indivisible.org. My wife and I attended the Beaverton protest last time and would not miss the next. It will be huge and I am guessing, historic!

Given Trump’s obsession with sending our military into cities to arrest and harass our citizenry, this event could get interesting. I believe that Trump has been trying to lay the groundwork for declaring Martial Law. I mean it. It’s coming. We have to be on our best behavior during this event, although that hasn’t stopped him from outright lying about Portland, for example.

Please remember that awareness doesn’t have to mean despair. It is just the first step in pushing back.

Stay informed. Stay safe. Resist.

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[i] Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons.

Source: Wikipedia

[ii] The Economist Intelligence Unit is the research and analysis division of the Economist Group, providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis, such as monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts, country risk service reports, and industry reports. Source: Wikipedia

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