# Erosion of US Democracy Exceeds Hungary, Turkey, India: V-Dem

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erosion-of-us-democracy-exceeds-hungary-turkey-india-v-dem/1028517>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Tags:** trump\
**Created:** [March 17, 2026, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erosion-of-us-democracy-exceeds-hungary-turkey-india-v-dem/1028517 "2026-03-17T11:50:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2026, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erosion-of-us-democracy-exceeds-hungary-turkey-india-v-dem/1028517/7 "2026-03-17T16:41:28Z")

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> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> That is of course part of the assessment—the LDI has a sub-index, the Electoral Democracy Index. And indeed, as the article notes

I’d argue thats like having a scoring system for burrito joints, that doesn’t make the “how good are the burritos” the most important factor. That’s in a different “burrito quality” sub-index. You can do that of course, and dedicate a great deal of time to your “[burritoscore.com](http://burritoscore.com)” with all sorts of graphs and scientific sounding numbers, but I’m not giving your opinion that much credence. To be clear we all agreed these are some truly awful burritos (sub gas station microwave burrito, major salmonella risk) we talking about here, but I’m not trusting your opinion no matter how many graphs you draw.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> democracy is in danger and liberties are revoked

Though that’s quite a no sh\_t sherlock. I look forward to their equally exhaustive scoring system for the sylvan defecation habits of the genus ursus, and the religious denominations of the Roman pontifex maximus 500CE-present day 😉

To be clear we are all agreed democracy is nosediving in the US. But it’s not quite dead yet, and it’s not inevitably going to die. Saying it’s already dead reduces (the admittedly small ☹ ) changes of saving it. We aren’t in a Ergodan style quasi dictatorship _yet_, we could be this time next year. And we could be in a Putin style one (or a Kim Jong Il style one) by 2028.

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