American democracy is being dismantled at a speed unprecedented in modern history, with the U.S. losing its "liberal democracy" status for the first time in over 50 years. The Republican Party spent decades building a strongman presidency through the Unitary Executive Theory, and Trump is the culmination of that anti-democratic project. Legislative constraints have hit their lowest point in over 100 years — this isn't political disagreement, it's democratic collapse.
Blaming one president for democracy's decline misses the real rot — a morally disoriented public that keeps outsourcing judgment instead of reclaiming it. No index score captures the deeper truth that free government cannot survive citizens who abandon civic responsibility, whether to a strongman or an algorithm. Democracy doesn't fail because of one election cycle; it fails when people stop doing the hard work of self-governance.
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