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US downgraded from democracy to banana republic [1]

['Jason Weisberger']

Date: 2025-12-09  

The United States has officially traded its democracy credentials for the banana republic starter pack, and there do not appear to be any safeguards left to get us back on the rails. Dean Blundell shares a disturbing report and itemized list of where the United States has gone, and is going, wrong.

Obstructed.

That's the category where democracies go to die. And here's the part that should terrify everyone — this isn't just an academic downgrade or a bunch of international policy nerds wagging their fingers. These civic ratings are the same tools used by governments, investors, international courts, and security alliances to figure out which countries are stable… and which ones are sliding into authoritarian rot. For the first time in modern history, the United States is being treated as a country in structural democratic decline. Not temporary. Not atmospheric. Structural. And spoiler alert: that decline has one author. His name is Donald Trump. Dean Blundell's Substack



While Americans argue over who can use which bathroom and see the ICE Gestapo kidnapping our neighbors, watchdogs like CIVICUS just dropped the U.S. into the "restricted democracy" category, joining an elite club of nations where "freedom" is primarily decorative. Meanwhile, the economy creaks, civil rights have been repackaged as partisan threats, and strongman cosplay has become a campaign strategy, but sure, let's keep debating whether drag queens reading books aloud are a real threat to national security.

Previously:

• Get your Enemies of Democracy trading cards! Collect 'em all!

• How AI could save democracy instead of destroying it

• Weapons of Math Destruction: how Big Data threatens democracy

• Read this great graphic novel about how to un-rig our democracy

[END]
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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/12/09/us-downgraded-from-democracy-to-banana-republic.html

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