Freedom in the World 2021

As discussed by Hartmann and reported by Freedom House: 

"The final weeks of the Trump presidency featured unprecedented attacks on one of the world’s most visible and influential democracies. After four years of condoning and indeed pardoning official malfeasance, ducking accountability for his own transgressions, and encouraging racist and right-wing extremists, the outgoing president openly strove to illegally overturn his loss at the polls, culminating in his incitement of an armed mob to disrupt Congress’s certification of the results. Trump’s actions went unchecked by most lawmakers from his own party, with a stunning silence that undermined basic democratic tenets. Only a serious and sustained reform effort can repair the damage done during the Trump era to the perception and reality of basic rights and freedoms in the United States."

"But President Trump’s attempt to overturn the will of the American voters was arguably the most destructive act of his time in office. His drumbeat of claims—without evidence—that the electoral system was ridden by fraud sowed doubt among a significant portion of the population, despite what election security officials eventually praised as the most secure vote in US history. Nationally elected officials from his party backed these claims, striking at the foundations of democracy and threatening the orderly transfer of power." 

Hartmann concludes:

"Republicans’ plan to gain and hold power falls back on the autocrat’s playbook: purge Democrats from voter rolls and lie about your opponents and the issues while making it really, really hard for average people to vote. All while changing election laws so your legislature can simply throw out votes you don’t like, as more than a dozen Republican states have now done or tried to do. When Republican support for Putin and other autocrats around the world, and CPAC’s decision to hold a conference in strongman Orbán’s Hungary this year, are viewed in this context they make perfect sense."