Weekly Update: 6/3/2025

Despite another week of headlines about power consolidating under Trump, the Threat to Democracy Index remains unchanged. That might lead you to ask if the index is working? It is.

We created the index to help people make sense of the flood of political developments in January and February that made it hard to tell if our democracy was collapsing or if those fears were overstated. Today, the situation is different: the news cycle is still constant, but now the question is whether this steady stream of authoritarian-seeming actions by the Trump administration signals a new and more alarming stage of democratic decline.

The index tells us that we have not reached a new stage of democratic decline. The index does suggest that the MAGA movement is actively working to reshape American government in a more authoritarian and less democratic direction. But at the same time, it shows us that U.S. institutions and civil society have, at least for now, held the line and prevented the worst-case scenarios that once seemed imminent.

The index may remain steady until the midterm elections, which could be the next major test of democratic resilience. As political scientist Adam Przeworski put it, “Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections.” If Democrats win a majority in either chamber of Congress and Trump respects the outcome, we may lower the score. If he reacts as he did after losing in 2020, the score will likely rise.

Until then, we may continue to see unsettling news without corresponding changes to the index score—and that, too, is a sign of where things stand.