Is the U.S. approaching autocracy, or are we already there?

A question asked often these days is whether the U.S. is approaching a slide downwards toward authoritarianism.

According to a report from The Steady State, an organization of over 300 former national security and intelligence professionals, we are, regrettably, not on the precipice, but moving down that slope.

The report, “Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline,” can be found at steadystate1.substack.com/p/accelerating-authoritarian-dynamics, but some highlights should be sufficient to raise the alarm for any clear thinker.

Executive overreach, or efforts to establish a unitary executive who is subject to no control or limitation, is being established daily by executive orders and actions that test the limits of constitutionally designated executive authority, such as the military actions related to Venezuela.

The state is being weaponized through questionable deployments of National Guard units in cities that are falsely being described as “war zones,” dismantling the civil service, and selective prosecution of individuals viewed as opponents of the administration.

Independence of the judicial branch is being eroded through the appointment of compliant judges and, in some cases, outright defiance of judicial orders.

The legislative branch, in which the president’s party currently holds the majority, appears to have surrendered its constitutional prerogatives to the executive in establishing the federal budget, declaring war, and performing oversight of the executive branch.

Our electoral system is being reshaped to favor one party, not through the will of the American voter, but by executive fiat and at the direction of the executive branch, undermining the voting rights of marginalized groups that were won through hard work and spilled blood since the end of the Civil War.

Taken together, all of the foregoing indicate significant changes to the governing order around a cult of the personality, with loyalty toward an individual rather than the Constitution.

Unless there is sustained resistance by institutions, civil society, and the public to these changes, we will continue this downward spiral until the United States is no longer the nation envisioned by the Founding Fathers, that is devoted to “establishing a more perfect union,” and serving as a beacon to freedom-loving people around the world.

We are in danger of losing our credibility as a model democracy and becoming just another gold-plated, tinpot dictatorship.

Editor’s note: Charles A. Ray was the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia from 2002 to 2005 and U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe from 2009 to 2012, when he retired from the U.S. Foreign Service.

Charles A. Ray spent 20 years in the U.S. Army with two tours in Vietnam. He retired as a senior US diplomat, serving 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, with assignments as ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Zimbabwe, and was the first American consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He also served in senior positions with the Department of Defense and is a member of The Steady State.