I would agree that the index of Democratic backsliding produced by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial TImes underestimates the damage and lasting effect of co-opting and decimating executive agencies, but it captures the reality that Trump is far from capturing all the levers of power.
The mid-terms, and the response to the actions he will take to corrupt the results, will tell us a lot about how far gone we really are
Here's what Paul Krugman had to say about the index.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/american-democracy-will-not-die-in
Almost everyone, myself included, underestimated how far MAGA would go in engaging in open violence and abuse of power against those it considers enemies. On the other hand, we overestimated the movement’s impulse control, its ability to mask its tyrannical goals until its power was fully consolidated.
As Steven Levitsky said in a recent interview, comparing Donald Trump with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban,
Orbán doesn’t arrest journalists. And in Hungary if you walk the streets of Budapest or other Hungarian cities, you will not find heavily armed masked men abducting people. That doesn’t happen in Hungary.
The startling extremism of the Trump regime, even compared with other modern wannabe dictatorships, is obvious to the naked eye. But I always find quantification useful. So I was very pleased to see that the estimable John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times has risen to the occasion, producing an index of democratic backsliding that lets us compare the trajectory of the United States under Trump with those of other nations we used to view as cautionary tales. (I’ve looked at how the index is constructed, and it’s reasonable.) We’re on a uniquely steep descent, at least for modern times.
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