We are seeing a decline of American hegemony, accelerated by this current regime. And the ascendancy of a non-democratic superpower.
However, the largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries and very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028.
The real question is, will Europe find its spine?
If you want a primer on where we're already moving into, and likely to remain for some time, this wikipedia article is the place to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime
In a decade, the year most scholars of political science will say the US slipped fully into this will likely be either 2025 or 2026.
But yes, we'll probably still have elections. Functionally nobody's talking about what those elections would need to be laser-focused on achieving to turn us from this path, though. Court reform, eliminating much of the post-9/11 security apparatus, revoking a great deal of authority congress has ceded to the president. Even the democrats won't have the votes to get a majority on most of that, even if they didn't have to worry about a veto and if they took a slim majority in both chambers. They won't get more than 90% of their own members on board with any of that, in many cases, probably not even 50%. We're toast. The very best we might get is a little push-back on tariff power and, if we're very lucky, a substantial reduction in ICE funding. No restructuring the absurd and dangerous under-the-executive(?!) immigration courts to fall under the judiciary instead. No court reform. No undoing large parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. No full abolition of our paramilitary domestic police force. We'll relieve a few symptoms, maybe, in the very best case, but not treat any part of the disease. And that's the best plausible outcome.
Let’s hope they are (happening).
I would look more for voting place shenanigans, voter ID laws with only a weird subset of IDs allowed, radical gerrymandering, and stuff like that. Some of it will be blatantly partisan but also people are using justifications like "restoring trust in elections" to advocate for things that reduce the general franchise. They don't need to do a lot since a few percent is enough to swing the general balance of things.
Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials.
So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state.
But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that.
More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.
People keep saying "if" the election happens and it's definitely happening, it's just whether it's free and fair (the US has never had incredibly fair elections even in modern times, highly gerrymandered two party elections are really stupid, but substantially less fair than even the somewhat low bar the US traditionally sets for our democracy).
What there are also going to be are allegations, claims of cheating, lawsuits...
They'll be the most free and fair elections we've had since 2016, and maybe ever!
Now that Babis is back in power with the backing of SPD and AUTO, it will also revert back into an Illiberal/Flawed Democracy.
Furthermore, all states on the cusp of EU membership (Albania, Montenegro) are also Illiberal/Flawed Democracies.
> largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries
The only Full Democracies in the 10 largest GDPs are Germany, Japan, and the UK. Japan under Takaichi Sanae is pro-Trump and Germany is likely to see the AfD break it's cordon sanitare by 2029.
[0] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
Is Greek government really more functional than Polish/Czech one? My personal experience would say "nope".
And after having dealt with the experience of opening a large foreign office in Czechia, there absolutely is a democratic deficit (sure it's extremely efficient, but we just needed to keep a handful of decisionmakers and "phone a (now deceased) friend" in a non-democratic manner).
First, this is not my experience, and second, much like you I don't think that this is particularly relevant to the democratic character of the country.
I also would like to hear more about the democratic deficit you describe. Most problems around opening anything are caused by bureaucracy, which is obliged to follow norms produced by the lawmakers. Some of these norms are stupid, but that does not mean that they are undemocratic. Voters have the right to be stupid and to elect stupid representatives who produce stupid norms.
The core crux of "democratic character" is providing an even playing field as much as possible institutionally, organizationally, and politically. If functioning is subpar or requires "hacks" or misaligned institutions, it undermines democratic character itself.
Chest-thumping while ignoring the real degradation of institutions in a large portion of Europe is only going to put you back in the same position as the US.
> I also would like to hear more about the democratic deficit you describe
I'd rather not given the incumbent in power and how small the Cybersecurity FDI community in Czechia is. Maybe Vsquare, just not you.
Which of the five numbers that, averaged together, result in the total score, do you expect to lower and why?
I also expect the political culture score to start steadily dropping as SPD and AUTO's competition to "own" the far-right leads to the intensification of culture war discourse, and potentially forces ANO to start opportunistically shifting right as well.
I don't expect "functioning of government" scores to shift significantly either, as the same issues that persisted when I helped my former employer enter Czechia still remain.
Our PortCos will still continue to remain in CZ because once you build that network it makes everything so much easier (and because Israeli founders and operators continue to have a soft spot for CZ), but the manner if which we need to operate in Czechia and maintain closeness with the right people isn't that different from emerging markets.
And that I feel is the crux of the issue in Czechia and much of the CEE - once you know the right 20-30 people or their friends or colleagues, you get the red carpet. Otherwise, it's an uneven playing field.
0 have ever threatened or supported any kind of violence against any person ever.
Social media posts on this topic are treated the same way as holding up a poster in public.
They supported a group that spray painted some planes. That was the extent of the "terrorism".
Most of the people who think they deserve to be in prison are racists.
When they refer to liberalism or democratic values they mean neither. These are bywords for western hegemony, which is what they really care about.
This is what was under threat when they celebrated Romania's democratic first choice of president being denied.
A lot "CIA influence" isn't the CIA at all, but the US Government, usually State or DoD, projecting soft power.
I know this sounds pendantic. But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.
From past personal experience, inter-service autonomy over policymaking is tightly guarded, and arguments always end up with the NSA (advisor, not the agency) where the president essentially becomes the tiebreaker.
Under the current administration, this rivalry has gotten much more intense due to the relatively hands-off management style that has been adopted.
The CIA and DEA switched positions repeatedly: one day the CIA wanted to support them to fight communism, and the DEA wanted to cut them off to stop the supply of drugs. When communism fell, the CIA saw the group as a liability who knew too much, while the the DEA wanted to pay them to destroy their drug labs and plant licit crops.
The group ended up destroying their drug labs, and focusing on money laundering, ransomware, and crypto-scams, which neither the CIA nor DEA cared about.
But the CIA is very consistent in following state department policies. They jealously guard their ability to delivery intelligence that conflicts with State Department priorities, but they don't have any strong priorities that conflict with those of State.
I'm sure things need to be ironed about by the NSA/NSC. That's normal. But the CIA isn't going fight the State department like they fight the DEA.
I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation.
It's much more gray simply because there are multiple agencies per department that can interpret and conduct intelligence operations.
The current administration also decided to adopt the private sector practice of letting "middle managers" conduct and implement what they want on their own and only disturb "upper management" if there are irreconcilable differences.
This is why policies change on a dime in the current administration.
Nobody likes to admit their vote (or lack of) has consequences outside their little bubble.
I've observed that it's the messy process of democracy that has put the people in power. Sure, big countries (i.e, mostly Russia) would like to tilt governments their way, but it isn't succeeding. I can tell you though that local Facebook pages for newspapers are full of strange comments, seemingly Russian trolls (but I have no proof).