The Erosion of Democracy: Examining the Decline of Democratic Values in the United States

Graphics by Taylor Whirley

The United States Freedom House score, a comparative measure of democracies across the globe, has fallen 11 points on a 100-point scale in the last ten years. While there has been a major democratic decline taking place worldwide, this has been specifically ramping up in the United States within the past decade. The increase in barriers to voting and executive branch overreach lies at the heart of this democratic backslide. The gradual erosion of our democracy has led to further polarization and distrust in political leaders, slowly chipping away at the foundation on which our nation was built. As another election year approaches, it is imperative to understand the reality of this pattern of decline and learn what we can do to limit democratic backsliding.

Through the past few election cycles, there has been increased manipulation of the electoral system, with major consequences for civic engagement and equality of representation. This manipulation primarily includes increasing barriers to voting and gerrymandering. It is essential to note that these practices are not occurring in every state; however, states under GOP control are making drastic changes, adopting measures that restrict access to the polls. The State Democracy Index is a measure of electoral democracy, including factors such as polling wait times, voter registration red tape, and gerrymandering. Professor Jacob Grumbach’s study on democratic backsliding has found that the primary factor impacting states' democratic performance is the Republican control of the state government. Examining the SDI, it is evident that states with the lowest scores are under Republican control, and are all behaving in similar ways. These states include South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Overall, GOP control of government has been associated with increasing measures that restrict voter's access to the ballot through gerrymandering and constrictive laws. Since 2010, the 12 states with the lowest SDI scores have seen their scores drastically decline further, making their weak democracy even weaker.

Outside of just state-level decisions, a more conservative Supreme Court has started to narrow down voting rights, cutting back on provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. For example, the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 completely gutted an essential aspect of the Voting Rights Act. Where states were previously required to clear changes to voting procedures with the federal government before enacting them, the court ruled that they are no longer required to do so, placing the burden of fighting discriminatory practices on the voters themselves. Since 2013, there have been countless consequences of this decision, including increasingly restrictive voter ID laws and the closing of over 1,000 polling places without federal review. 

Each of these changes has had a discriminatory effect on voter turnout across the country and has disenfranchised Black, Latino, and Native American voters. It is crucial to note the impact of these restrictions on our democratic principles, as racism and bigotry have guided disenfranchisement efforts throughout American history. One specific example of this is a Texas bill, SB 14, a strict Voter ID bill passed in 2011 that requires voters to have a strict set of government-issued IDs. While this bill was previously blocked by the federal government, it was immediately put into effect after the Shelby decision. Bills like this are inherently racist and discriminatory, as hundreds of thousands of Texans who were registered to vote lacked the necessary identification. These forms of identification were difficult to obtain as they were costly, involved traveling to far government offices, and required a vast number of supporting documents that were not easily accessible. Researchers have found that these requirements had an extremely disproportionate effect on Black and Latino voters. This law was ultimately struck down because of its discriminatory practices, with the federal court claiming “the requirement to show photo identification before casting a ballot would have imposed "strict, unforgiving burdens" on poor minority voters and the cost of the scheme would have fallen disproportionately on blacks and Hispanics”. Despite this decision, a similar bill, SB 5, was surreptitiously passed again in 2017 with minor modifications.

Executive overreach and aggrandizement is the other essential aspect of the democratic decline in the United States. Clear evidence of this comes from the controversy over the 2020 election. The contestation of the election results shows a drastic shift from the country’s tradition of maintaining a peaceful transition of power and is the clearest indicator of faults in the foundation of our democracy. Over two-thirds of American Republican voters still deny the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election. With distrust in the electoral system, there is a lack of faith in the validity of our governmental system as a whole, majorly contributing to democratic backsliding. The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is further evidence of the democratic erosion that is prominent in the United States. As scholar Annika Silva-Leander explains, it was former President Trump’s baseless questioning of the election results that has proven to be a historic turning point in America’s democratic decline. Not only did questioning the integrity of our electoral system place doubt in the eyes of all citizens –  it actively incited a violent riot that spread anti-democratic sentiment.

On a more procedural level, the hyperpartisanship in the United States has led to political gridlock and diminished capabilities of checks and balances. One aspect of this stems from the disorganization and increasingly polarized nature of Congress. With Congress unable to come to swift decisions and agree on policy issues, they are contributing firsthand to the democratic decline allowing more and more power to be usurped by the executive. A prime example of this is a move by Senate Republicans in 2016 to keep a Supreme Court seat vacant for a year rather than review President Obama’s nominee. This action not only called into question the limits of governmental authority but also further skewed the courts in a more conservative direction. This is just another prime example of the abandonment of democratic principles by U.S. leaders, further enhancing the polarization of the country.

Despite this recent decline, all hope for democracy in America is not gone. To begin, Harvard professor Tarek Masoud reminds us that the foundation of our democracy, ideals of free elections, and freedom of speech and association, are not under serious threat. While some aspects of democracy are evidently in decline, other great advancements cannot be ignored. For example, since 1980 there has been a 7 percent increase in voter turnout, as well as an increase in women's representation, with more women elected to Congress than ever before. The United States remains a ‘free’ country on the Freedom House scale, and while this position is unlikely to change in the near future, that does not mean we should not be putting safeguards in place to reduce the acceleration of democratic backsliding.

It is important to note that the U.S. also plays a major role in the stance of democracy worldwide. Despite the decline domestically, the U.S. is still in a position to stop global democratic backslide by promoting democracy abroad. This position that the U.S. holds dates back to the Cold War. One example of successful diplomatic interference was seen when the United States refused to recognize the incorporation of the Baltic states in the Soviet Union, providing them symbolic assistance to their uprisings fighting for independence. As democratic erosion is becoming more and more prominent, the U.S. has the capacity to play a larger role in promoting democratic values. For example, Brooking's “The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backslide” states that “U.S. government has the power to raise attention among domestic and international audiences of transgressions against democracy and the rule of law. Congress, especially the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, should hold regular hearings on the state of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe.” Efforts to step in worldwide have already begun, notably with the U.S. Helsinki Commission, an organization set up by Congress to monitor the status of human rights and fundamental freedoms across Europe and Eurasia.

Despite this capability of promoting democracy worldwide, Americans need to face the reality on the domestic level. Scholars have proposed some complex solutions to the issue of democratic backsliding, including the introduction of a multi-party system as opposed to our long-standing two-party system, which would allow for more inclusion and the deliberation of more viewpoints in hopes of alleviating the country’s current hyperpartisanship. Although this seems appealing, historically, this option has never succeeded. With such a rich history of the two-party system, the emergence of third parties has always been short-lived and lacked the ability to have major influence over the Democratic vs. Republican framework. Despite all of these complexities, the first step in mitigating democratic backsliding is simple: voters must be aware and informed on the nature of democratic decline, and how it will influence the 2024 Presidential election.

Overall, the unprecedented acceleration of democratic backsliding in the United States is a major cause for concern heading into the next election year. Given the recent trends and actions among political leaders, there is reason to suspect there could be lots of contention in the next Presidential election. Voters must proceed with caution and remain vigilant of the integrity of our electoral, and overall political, system. Power remains in the hands of the voters, however, and there are practical steps that can be taken to exercise vigilance at the polls. Voters can remain informed, using data such as the SDI index to understand the state of democracy in their region, as well as join together to fight against gerrymandering and boost efforts to increase voting accessibility nationwide.