There is significant academic and political debate about the extent to which the United States has embodied authoritarianism during the Trump presidencies. Many scholars classify the US as a hybrid "proto-authoritarian" or competitive authoritarian regime, as opposed to being a healthy democracy or a highly centralized authoritarian regime. This is the result of significant democratic backsliding, which accelerated during Donald Trump's first presidency, plateaued during Joe Biden's presidency, and accelerated again during Trump's second presidency at a faster, unprecedented rate.
Accusations of authoritarianism center around the concentration of executive power, killings by ICE agents during immigration enforcement operations, controlling information and attacks on the free press, suppressing dissent and crackdowns on protests, aggressive foreign policy, undermining democratic institutions and law, dismantling social protections and rights, corruption, and attacking academia.
Concepts and strategy
Democratic backsliding
Democratic backsliding is "a process of regime change towards autocracy that makes the exercise of political power more arbitrary and repressive and that restricts the space for public contestation and political participation in the process of government selection."
The 21st century saw the erosion of voting rights and the rise of partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures. The first presidency of Donald Trump accelerated the undermining of democratic norms. A paper published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science said, "Trump undermined faith in elections, encouraged political violence, vilified the mainstream media, [and] positioned himself as a law-and-order strongman challenging immigrants and suppressing protests."
Quickly after resuming office for his second term in 2025, Trump became increasingly criticized by political scientists, scholars, and other significant figures for threatening American democracy. Early on, many cited the expansion of executive power and the reduction of agency workforces and regulations by the Department of Government Efficiency as an example of such threats. Freedom House described the pardon of January 6 United States Capitol attack defendants as an attempt to "excuse a violent assault on a key element of democracy."
The V-Dem Institute said in 2026 that "the speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history." The institute noted executive overreach undermining the rule of law, suppression and intimidation of the media and dissenting voices, loss of legislative constraints, and declining civil rights, equality, and freedom of expression, reaching a 50-year low.●Raw data presented at: (Choose "United States of America" and select "Election Democracy Index" and "Liberal Democracy Index".)
Competitive authoritarianism
In competitive authoritarian regimes, "formal democratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining power, but [...] incumbents' abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents." Competitive authoritarian regimes differ from fully authoritarian regimes in that elections are regularly held, the opposition can openly operate without a high risk of exile or imprisonment, and "democratic procedures are sufficiently meaningful for opposition groups to take them seriously as arenas through which to contest for power." Competitive authoritarian regimes lack one or more of the three characteristics of democracies, such as free elections (i.e., elections untainted by substantial fraud or voter intimidation), protection of civil liberties (i.e., the freedom of speech, press, and association) and an even playing field (in terms of access to resources, the media, and legal recourse).
In 2019, political scientists Robert R. Kaufman and Stephan Haggard saw "striking parallels in terms of democratic dysfunction, polarization, the nature of autocratic appeals, and the processes through which autocratic incumbents sought to exploit elected office" in the United States under Trump compared to other backsliding countries (Venezuela, Turkey, and Hungary). They argued that a transition to competitive authoritarianism is possible but unlikely. In 2020, Kurt Weyland presented a qualitative model for assessing democratic continuity and reversal using historical data from the experience of other countries. His study concluded that the United States is immune to democratic reversal. In 2021, political scientists Matias López and Juan Pablo Luna criticized his methodology and selection of parameters and argued that both democratic continuity and reversal are possible. With regard to the state of scholarly research on the subject, they wrote that "the probability of observing democratic backsliding in the United States remains an open and important question". According to some Canadian security experts, Canada may reevaluate historically close Canada–United States relations in response to democratic backsliding in the U.S., which could bring instability to the region and compromise Canada's greatest source of intelligence, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has openly said that U.S.–Canadian relations have entered a new chapter wherein the United States will no longer be seen as a trustworthy partner.
Steven Levitsky found the first two months of the second Trump administration to be the most aggressively and openly authoritarian case of democratic backsliding that he has seen, expressing particular concern about attacks on the courts. In September 2025, Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, has warned that the United States was heading towards 1930s-style authoritarian policies.
Proto-authoritarianism
Professor Christina Pagel mapped the first actions of the Trump administration in a Venn diagram that identifies "five broad domains that correspond to features of proto-authoritarian states." These five domains are undermining democratic institutions and the rule of law, dismantling federal government, dismantling social protections and rights, enrichment and corruption, suppressing dissent and controlling information, attacking science, environment, health, arts, and education, particularly universities, aggressive foreign policy, and global destabilization.
Unitary executive theory Unitary executive theory is a theory of United States constitutional law holding that the president, as head of the federal government's executive branch, must retain sole authority over executive administration and officials,Cornell Law School. Legal Information Institute Unitary Executive Theory (UET). (Web). Retrieved September 24, 2024. structurally centralizing control within a unified hierarchy. Weaker formulations are less controversial than maximalist versions, which face constitutional and practical criticism. During the Reagan era, conservative organizations, including the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, and some Supreme Court justices, most notably Antonin Scalia, began favoring the theory.
Trump exerted more control over the executive than any modern president, citing Article II in 2019, "where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." Before his confirmation as attorney general, Bill Barr supported the theory in a 2018 memo criticizing the Mueller special counsel investigation.
By 2018, five justices on the Supreme Court had been executive branch lawyers from the Reagan and Bush eras focused on expanding presidential power. In Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2020), the Roberts Court held 5–4 that the Executive Vesting Clause gives "the entire 'executive Power' ... to the President alone." The dissent said the constitutional text does not say "entire 'executive power'" or "anything about the president's power to remove subordinate officials at will."
This precedent guided Collins v. Yellen (2021), a 7–2 ruling where Alito wrote the Constitution prohibits even "modest restrictions" on the president's removing single-officer agency heads. The Court reaffirmed that precedents found in Humphrey's Executor and Morrison were the only exceptions to this removal power.
The New York Times and The Guardian reported that Project 2025 sought to establish a framework for expanding presidential power during the second Trump administration based on a maximalist and "contested" version of the unitary executive theory. The BBC called Project 2025's application of the theory to independent agencies "controversial." Robert Shea, a former OMB official in the George W. Bush administration, told The Atlantic: "I can't overstate my level of concern about the damage this would do to the institution of the federal government."
Trump v. United States (2024), viewed by some as embracing the theory, further empowered the presidency.
Trump's second term expanded control over agencies and the civil service. He ordered the targeting of political opponents and civil society. He undertook mass firings of employees, inspectors general, and independent agency and oversight board members who might obstruct him.
Legal analysts said these actions set up Supreme Court tests on agencies Congress insulated from presidential control. The Court subsequently ruled in favor of the administration and an expansive view of presidential power.
Under the theory, the administration says the Constitution grants it a right to control or cease law enforcement, which legal experts called a "constitutional power to immunize private parties to commit otherwise illegal acts with impunity." In February 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi warned career Justice Department lawyers they could not "substitute personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election" and could face discipline if they failed to vigorously defend the administration's policies. Emil Bove sent a similar letter to Danielle Sassoon, triggering a wave of resignations as each federal prosecutor instructed to seek dismissal of the Eric Adams indictment refused to do so. According to Michael C. Dorf, the administration's stance reflected its expansive view of presidential power.
Trump and his subordinates are seen as embracing an extreme version of the theory, under which the administration pursued a revived impoundment power, with Russell Vought and Mark Paoletta citing Article II's Executive Vesting, Faithful Execution, and Commander-in-Chief Clauses as authorizing executive power to decline spending congressionally appropriated funds and as undermining the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Impoundment has not been a central feature of the unitary executive, but the administration has tried to extend the theory outward to override this explicit legislative act constraining how the executive interacts with Congress's constitutional power. Though the Supreme Court has not ruled on the extent of the president's constitutional authority, if any, to impound funds, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh previously wrote against impoundment, and in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, Ltd. (2024), the Court wrote, "Our Constitution gives Congress control over the public fisc" under the Appropriations Clause.
In March 2025, the D.C. Circuit held that the president could remove members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board, finding removal restrictions unconstitutional. The theory's impact on federal administration raised concerns over loss of federal expertise.
After stressing the First and Second Bank of the United States as historical precedents to the Federal Reserve, the Court decided Trump v. Cook (2026).