Democracy in the United States: What We Will Observe in 2025

As the United States faces a hotly contested general election, Freedom House has highlighted the potential democratic risks around the process — from harassment of poll workers to post-election efforts to prevent vote certification to political violence — and support financially important ways to mitigate these risks.

But as an organization that has assessed political rights and civil liberties in more than 200 countries and territories for over half a century, we also look beyond elections and to the larger story of America's democratic decline. In the last 13 years the United States fell 11 points in our 100-point test freedom in the world Index and is therefore far behind the long-standing democratic nations that were previously our competitors. There are many signs of erosion: increasing gridlock in Congress, declining trust in democratic institutions, and the attack on our democracy on January 6, 2021, among them. The causes are complex and systemic and include increasing political polarization, persistent inequality, and a rapidly changing media environment.

Regardless of the results of the upcoming election, Freedom House will continue to evaluate the United States alongside the rest of the world and work to protect rights and protect and renew our democracy. We do this as part of our vigorous commitment to the bipartisan defense of freedom and democracy worldwide for more than 80 years, including by denouncing the excesses of McCarthyism at home while combating communism abroad and Jim Crow-era segregation and the Watergate era condemn abuse of power and attempts to overturn the 2020 election. We will continue to do this without fear or favor.

The challenges to U.S. democracy that we will monitor include the following.

Fewer restrictions on executive power

The Supreme Court's decision in Trump vs. the United States introduced a sweeping new regime of presidential immunity from criminal liability. Like us noted Following the decision, the new immunity rules go far beyond typical protections for executives in other democracies by providing: absolute Immunity for a potentially wide range of presidential actions. In doing so, they undermine an important deterrent against a range of criminal abuses of office – such as corruption and fraud – that every other public official rightly faces.

The decision could also lead to a broader deterioration in congressional and judicial checks on presidential power, as the court interprets the president's “core powers” so broadly that they cannot be restricted by the other two branches of government. It is not clearFor example, whether Congress is now more limited than before in using its legislative and oversight powers to ensure the accountability of federal agencies such as the Justice or Defense Departments.

Furthermore, the decision appears to have removed a key deterrent to a president influencing or even directing individual Justice Department investigations and prosecutions. This could allow future presidents to more easily prosecute their perceived political opponents – as former President Trump at least tried to do Dozens of timesand has pledged to do again in the event of an election.

Intervention in civic space

While freedoms of expression, association and assembly in the United States are among the most stringent in the world, Freedom House is concerned about a number of recent developments that could undermine these rights in practice. At the federal level, politically disadvantaged nonprofit groups have recently faced disruptive congressional votes Investigations for questionable reasons. There are now a handful of pending bills and overbroad existing laws that could allow the government to politically target organizations' nonprofit status, demand confidential information about their grantees or even require them to register as foreign agents register.

At the state level 21 States have passed restrictive anti-protest laws in recent years, including measures that could impose extreme penalties for protest-related crimes and make vigilantism against demonstrators easier. And in many states –Florida And CaliforniaFor example, governments have targeted corporate actors with costly policy changes, apparently in response to corporate leadership's views on public issues.

Losing trust in the courts

The United States has a strong tradition of rule of law and an independent judiciary. But in recent years, increasingly partisan processes for appointing and confirming federal judges, a series of ideologically divided Supreme Court decisions, and public concerns about perceived conflicts of interest within the Supreme Court have contributed to a significant decline in public trust in both judicial branches generally and the Supreme Court special. In many states, judges are selected through elections, and the rise in campaign fundraising and party participation in these elections over the past two decades has increased the risk of bias and favoritism in state courts.

The declining trend in public trust in the courts could contribute to a further decline in public trust in democratic institutions and the rule of law.

Increasing political violence and anti-democratic behavior

Political violence has increased sharply in the United States over the past decade. In the last few months alone, former President Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts. While the attackers' motives remain unclear, the political violence is more widespread Trends show that ideologically motivated attacks associated with both the far left and the far right have increased since 2016 – although a significantly larger number came from the far right.

During the same period, the country experienced an unprecedented attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was also marked by political violence, and Trump and some of his political allies continued to try to do so Excuse me This violence refuses to accept the election results and spreads false and misleading information Claims about the risks of widespread fraud in US elections.

These challenges of increasing political violence and anti-democratic behavior are linked by the oversized role that political leaders play a role in shaping public rejection – or acceptance – of such behavior. Therefore, it is particularly important for leaders to denounce violations by their own party.

The underlying challenge of polarization

Many of these risks stem from the increasing political polarization in the United States, which is increasingly characterized by Americans' mutual dislike and distrust of members of the other political party. This so-called “affective” polarization has dangerous implications for democracy. Polls show that Americans across the political spectrum are increasingly interested probably to withdraw their own commitment to democratic values ​​and behavior if this means advancing “their side.”

We will see promising efforts to address America's polarization problem, including state-level experiments with electoral reform that could reduce incentives for zero-sum politics, and efforts to invest in civic and media literacy education, national service opportunities, and local ones and independent level to increase media.