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you see a large, across-the-board decline in support for democracy between 20. “In the U.S., this age gradient is particularly visible. “In our data younger people are less supportive of democracy,” Acemoglu wrote in an email. Of all the forces undermining democratic traditions in elections and policymaking - Donald Trump’s big lie, the politicization of ballot counting by Republican state legislatures, the attempt to disenfranchise segments of the population - one that has devastating potential is operating under the radar: the growing cynicism of younger voters.ĭaron Acemoglu, a professor of economics at M.I.T., contends that the decline in popular support for democracy is greater in the United States than elsewhere, especially among the young. Democracy survives in the United States, but it remains under threat. Toxic levels of polarization continue to increase. Government misinformation declined last year but did not return to previous levels. Liberal democracy remains significantly lower than before Trump came to power. From 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency, to 2021, when he involuntarily left office, the United States fell from 17th to 29th in the global V-Dem democracy rankings: Of 179 countries surveyed, V-Dem found, the United States was one of 33 to have moved substantially toward autocratization. Liberal Democratic Index score dropped from 0.85 in 2015 to 0.72 in 2020, driven by weakening constraints on the executive under the Trump administration. While the United States remains a liberal democracy, V-Dem data shows that it is only a fraction away from losing this status after substantial autocratization. Take the most recent analysis by Varieties of Democracy, better known as V-Dem, an international organization founded in 2014 to track trends in democratization: Donald Trump’s drive to undermine American democracy has proved strikingly successful.