Donald Trump’s authoritarian drift in his second term places the country on a par with Hungary or Turkey, according to a ranking by Sweden’s V-Dem Institute
Democratic backsliding is advancing in the developed world. The annual report from Sweden’s V-Dem Institute leaves no room for doubt: almost a quarter of the world experienced democratic backsliding, or a shift towards autocratization, in 2025, and six of the 10 newly regressive countries identified in the research are located in Europe and North America, including G-7 powers such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
But the most unsettling conclusion reached by the Swedish institute is that the United States — once a proud beacon of the more or less free world — is no longer a liberal democracy and is now on a par with countries like Hungary or Turkey, thanks to President Donald Trump. Autocracy is also spreading throughout Europe, but its reach extends far beyond the Old Continent: 41% of the world’s population (3.4 billion people) now live in countries where democracy is eroding.
The institute, which belongs to the University of Gothenburg and uses 48 metrics in its evaluation, is one of the most reliable sources when it comes to rating the state of governments around the world, and the conclusion of its 2026 study confirms the worst fears about the authoritarian drift of the U.S. under Trump’s leadership.
As far as I’m concerned, everyone who is a billionaire has to prove they had nothing to do with Epstein or pedophilia in general.
I feel like that’s reasonable but billionaires should automatically be abolished also
Let them try to get by on $999,999,999.99
If they pinch their pennies, show some restraint on…what was it? Avocado toast, Netflix subscriptions, smart phones, and big screen TVs, they just might get by on a mere penny less than one billion…
The cap should be 100 mil or less
If they had shown some restraint on all the houses that they made too damn expensive in the first place, the avocado toast meme wouldn’t have needed to exist
Nah, that’s still too much money. I know you’re being sarcastic but realistically it’d be way under 100 million.
I dream of a world where anything above 10 million net worth need to be reinvested or donated. Like, you can gift your kids until you and them and worth ten mil each, and their kids and whatnot, but it would limit wealth accumulation even with a hundred family members. Something like that anyway.
This seems reasonable
That’s more reasonable, they still have a lot of money but cannot just buy politicians left and right.
I mean one problem is that they dont have a lot of cash, its the worth of their companies…theyd just bribe whoever values these companies to make them worth less would be my expectations…