US moving toward authoritarian rule under Trump, say former CIA, State Department officials

An assessment by former United States intelligence and national security officials says the country is “on a trajectory” toward authoritarian rule.

The position, contained in a report titled ‘Accelerating authoritarian dynamics: Assessment of democratic decline’, was released on Thursday by the Steady State.

The Steady State is a network of more than 340 former officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), State Department, and other national security agencies.

According to the report, democracy in the US is rapidly backsliding under President Donald Trump.

The former state officials said the assessment was made “because the same tools we once used to assess foreign risks now show unmistakable warning signs at home”.

To conduct the assessment, the group said it applied the same analytic methods used by US intelligence agencies to assess the fragility of democracies abroad but turned them inward for a domestic analysis.

The report identified the expansion of executive power through unilateral decrees and emergency authorities, the politicisation of the civil service and federal law enforcement, and attempts to erode judicial independence through strategic appointments and “noncompliance” with court rulings or investigations as key indicators of democratic decline in the US.

It also cited a weakened and increasingly ineffective Congress, partisan manipulation of electoral systems and administration, and the deliberate undermining of civil society, the press, and public trust.

“Absent organised resistance by institutions, civil society, and the public, the United States is likely to continue along a path of accelerating democratic erosion, risking further consolidation of executive dominance and a loss of credibility as a model of democracy abroad,” the report stated.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has pardoned Capitol rioters who assaulted police, fired independent watchdogs and career officials viewed as critical, and deployed National Guard troops to US cities.

The president has also called for the jailing of state officials, publicly urged his attorney general to prosecute political opponents, threatened universities, and restricted press freedom.

Trump has also publicly mused about the idea of an unconstitutional third term.