Land of the free?

2026-03-23 - 04:20

DONALD Trump has changed the US in significant ways — particularly during his current stint at the White House. While the American president’s foreign warmongering is today being discussed across the globe, he has also eroded democratic norms at home, according to many independent observers. For example, Sweden’s V-Dem Institute, regarded as one of the world’s leading monitors of the health of democracy in nations, says that the US can no longer be described as a “liberal democracy”, and is undergoing the process of “autocratisation”. US-based NGO Freedom House has reached similar conclusions, observing that “freedom” in the US has dropped to its lowest levels since the organisation began assessments in 2002. Both institutes have zeroed in on the same issues: executive overreach, attacks on freedom of expression and lack of checks and balances on presidential powers. To be fair, the US has hardly been a beacon of democracy through the ages, attacking, pillaging and bullying less powerful states for decades, while before the Civil Rights movement, its treatment of people of colour at home was appalling. Yet attempts had been made to right some of these wrongs, and create a more level playing field at home at least. Unfortunately, under Mr Trump, whatever progress was made has been rolled back, as the US experiences “the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever”, according to the V-Dem Institute. The sight of masked ICE agents hauling away immigrants, and law enforcers cracking down on students protesting for Palestine are images one associates with authoritarian states. Moreover, Mr Trump’s America has exited many international organisations and agreements where its funds and expertise had once helped make the world a better place. This includes UN agencies such as the WHO and Unesco. And in January, the US formally withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement — according to Mr Trump, climate change is “the greatest con job”. Reversing these negative domestic trends is the prerogative of the American people. Their elected representatives need to show some spine and confront the autocratic tendencies of their president. But that will prove difficult at a time when America is deeply divided along cultural and political lines. From the standpoint of the rest of the world, the US must set its own house in order, instead of launching brutal, senseless wars. Arguably, the age of empire is over, as is the unipolar world. What we are witnessing are the painful birth pangs of a new multipolar order. The US, and the West in general, must come to terms with this reality. And if the US, under Mr Trump, cannot contribute to this changing world in a positive manner, it should at least stop meddling in others’ affairs and work to restore democratic norms at home. Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2026