{"id":15672,"date":"2026-03-19T19:07:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15672"},"modified":"2026-03-19T19:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:24:18","slug":"new-world-democracy-report-warns-us-facing-unprecedented-autocratization-under-trump-bradcast-3192026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15672","title":{"rendered":"New World Democracy Report Warns U.S. Facing &#8216;Unprecedented Autocratization&#8217; Under Trump: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 3\/19\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_AmericanFlag-SOS_031926.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Today on <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a>: You&#8217;re not the only one worried about the U.S. devolving quickly into an autocracy under Trump&#8217;s attempted dictatorial rule. So are many of the world&#8217;s top academic democracy experts and researchers! [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>We&#8217;ve got quite a bit to get to on today&#8217;s show. Here is a <i>very<\/i> quick round-up&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our quickly deteriorating man-baby President hates offshore wind power so much (because, years ago, he felt it would sully the view from one of his golf courses), that now we all have to pretend it causes cancer, or drives whales crazy, or is a national security risk. Whatever nonsense claim Donald Trump dreams up. His attempts to stop five nearly completed projects off the U.S. east coast were <i>all<\/i> blocked by the courts. Now, he has a new strategy: Paying a French company that won leases for two new projects (off of <b>New York<\/b> and <b>North Carolina<\/b>) during the Biden Administration, nearly a <i>billion<\/i> dollars to <i>not<\/i> move ahead with those projects. That&#8217;s right, 928 million in <i>your<\/i> taxpayer dollars is being offered to the company in a settlement if they agree to <i>not<\/i> do any work to provide clean, safe, renewable energy to millions of Americans during an energy crisis sparked, in no small part, by Trump&#8217;s ridiculously ill-considered war on Iran.  One other thing the company must do as part of the deal, according to the settlement documents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/17\/climate\/offshore-wind-settlements-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UlA.5X5N.MSgsmhApXasE&#038;smid=url-share\">reviewed by <i>New York Times<\/i><\/a>: invest money in dirty, deadly, natural gas infrastructure in <b>Texas<\/b>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the tenth annual democracy report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/18\/media\/trump-vdem-democracy-media-report\">issued this week<\/a> by the <b>V-Dem Institute<\/b> at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, authoritarianism is on the rise across the globe with the U.S. and 43 other nations &#8220;autocratizing&#8221;, while just 12 are becoming more democratic, out of more than 200 countries and territories examined by democracy researchers.\n<p>&#8220;The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history,&#8221; the group&#8217;s Democratic Report 2026 warns. It finds that &#8220;By magnitude of decline on the [report&#8217;s Liberal Democracy Index], the 2025 plunge is the largest one year drop in American history going back to 1789 &#8220;\u201c that is, in the entire period covered by V-Dem data.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Among the bullet points atop the 7-page special section on &#8220;Autrocratization in the USA,&#8221; included in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v-dem.net\/documents\/75\/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf\">52-page report [PDF]<\/a> (<i>the special section starts on page 33 and is worth a read!<\/i>)&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Under Trump&#8217;s presidency, the level of democracy in the USA has fallen back to the same level as in 1965.<\/li>\n<li>Yet the situation is fundamentally different than during the Civil Rights era. In 2025, the derailment of democracy is marked by executive overreach undermining the rule of law, along with far-reaching suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices.<\/li>\n<li>The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.<\/li>\n<li>Legislative Constraints &#8212; the worst affected aspect of [U.S.] democracy [cited by the scholars] &#8212; is losing one-third of its value in 2025 and reaching its lowest point in over 100 years.<\/li>\n<li>Civil Rights and Equality before the Law are also rapidly declining, falling to late 1960s levels.<\/li>\n<li>Freedom of Expression is now at its lowest level since the end of WWII.<\/li>\n<li>Electoral components of [U.S.] democracy remain stable [in this year&#8217;s &#8220;Liberal Democracy Index&#8221;\u009d. But] election-specific indicators are re-assessed only in electoral years, and the 2025 scores are based on the quality of the 2024 elections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;What would it take to stop autocratization in the USA, and turn it around?,&#8221; the report asks rhetorically. &#8220;Roughly 70% of all &#8216;third wave&#8217; episodes of autocratization have been reversed, making U-turns. <b>Elections were often pivotal windows of opportunity, and the first electoral cycle was often decisive.<\/b>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>See you in November!!!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>That stunning V-Dem report also cites the federal judiciary as one of the few remaining bulwarks against U.S. autocratization and the loss of freedom of expression, as the Executive branch has all but usurped the powers of the Legislative branch under a compliant GOP majority in Congress. To that end, judges in the lower courts, if not at the Supreme Court, continue, by and large, to <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/acyn.bsky.social\/post\/3mh4o6s43ys2h\">adhere<\/a> to the Constitution and Rule of Law, providing a check on the criminal excesses of the Trump Regime. Another ruling this week from a Reagan-appointed federal judge underscores that point. U.S. District Judge <b>Royce Lamberth<\/b> ordered that more than 1,000 federal workers at <b>Voice of America<\/b> &#8212; the 84-year old beacon of democracy and for a free press around the globe &#8212; be reinstated and VOA restored to the global airwaves by next week! That, following the unlawful dismantling last year of VOA, its parent agency (the U.S. Agency for Global Media) and its sister networks around the globe by twice-failed GOP candidate and Trump loyalist <b>Kari Lake<\/b>. <a href=\"Lake\">Last week<\/a>, the same judge determined Lake was never lawfully serving in her job and her mass firings &#8212; leaving nothing more than a skeleton crew to unlawfully run rightwing propaganda &#8212; were therefore null and void. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/voice-of-america-kari-lake-trump-cd6d1ef05272f842705da0ed38d3de24#\">This week<\/a>, Lamberth gave the Administration one week to bring employees back to work and for the national treasure of a radio network, established during WWII, broadcasting in 49 different languages to some 352 million people, to finally be restored as per federal statutes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>MAGA loyalist, white nationalist, and Trump National Counterterroism Center Director <b>Joe Kent<\/b> very publicly resigned this week, citing opposition to Trump&#8217;s war on <b>Iran<\/b>. One of his objections from his announcement was that Iran &#8220;posed no imminent threat to our nation&#8221;. As it turns out, there is much <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semafor.com\/article\/03\/18\/2026\/fbi-investigates-national-security-aide-who-resigned-over-war\">more to that story<\/a>. And yes, it ties in to testimony given, or in this case <i>not<\/i> given, by Kent&#8217;s friend and fellow veteran <b>Tulsi Gabbard<\/b> to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee this week. Gabbard, Trump&#8217;s Director of National Intelligence and former opponent of dumb foreign wars (you can still buy one of Tulsi&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebay.com\/itm\/397668626950?_skw=tulsi+gabbard+shirt&#038;itmmeta=01KM3XWEGJSXW3G2WXVQGZYVT2&#038;hash=item5c96e5b206:g:qeEAAeSwXthpu1kc&#038;itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA8LB2JXbe%2Bh2pdWBqbR2c2DtzGwAvhvEjxsPI38offJ5W%2B1kS7Flvz8gu7Bg%2FumNRGoWZGY8cNIwkZqXvfeOMNsrNiXn\">&#8220;No War With Iran&#8221; t-shirts<\/a> from her failed 2020 Democratic Presidential run, if you like) refused to say outloud during her testimony to the Committee whether the U.S. Intelligence Community assessed that Iran <i>actually<\/i> posed an imminent threat to the U.S., as Trump falsely insist. That, in contrast to her <i>written<\/i> testimony which concedes as much. All of this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/now\/video\/ossoff-questions-gabbard-about-iran-posing-an-imminent-nuclear-threat-259530309799\">attracted the ire<\/a> of Dems on the Committee, including Georgia&#8217;s Sen. <b>Jon Osoff<\/b>, whose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/now\/video\/ossoff-questions-gabbard-about-iran-posing-an-imminent-nuclear-threat-259530309799\">sharp questioning<\/a> of Gabbard we share on today&#8217;s program.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15671\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, as oil and <b>gas prices<\/b> continue to skyrocket and a <b>hunger<\/b> crisis looms thanks to <b>Trump&#8217;s war<\/b>; and as the autocratic Administration bigfoots <b>California<\/b> state law to order the restart of a disastrously failed crude <b>pipeline<\/b> near Santa Barbara&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-BillionToBlockWind-AmericanAutocratizationReport-KentGabbardIranThreat_031926.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today on The BradCast: You&#8217;re not the only one worried about the U.S. devolving quickly into an autocracy under Trump&#8217;s attempted dictatorial rule. So are many of the world&#8217;s top academic democracy experts and researchers! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] We&#8217;ve got quite a bit to get to on today&#8217;s show. Here [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,89,675,479,2053,6,28,883,130,134,955,1791,477,107,126,957,127,233,1726,541],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-donald-trump","category-election-2026","category-election-irregularities","category-election-reform","category-fascism","category-freedom-of-the-press","category-iran","category-jon-ossoff","category-kari-lake","category-kpfk","category-national-security","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-tulsi-gabbard","category-the-constitution","category-us-senate","category-voice-of-america-voa","category-wind","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15672"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}