The Democracy Index

May 9, 2025

This week we saw the consequences of autocratic overreach. Although there are still heartbreaking tragedies and dangers inflicted every day, it’s important to step back and see where democracy has been resilient.

That is what we do in this week’s edition of the Democracy Index, as we also unveil our brand-new Visual Index. We’ve broken it down into six key pillars: rule of law, free elections, national security, corruption, civil rights/public safety, and free press/disinformation. Every week, we take the temperature of these metrics in an attempt to gauge the overall health of our democracy. You can explore the full, interactive graphic — and our analysis of the week’s developments follow below.

There were two notable victories for the rule of law, where excessive attempts to subvert democracy through the legal system were successfully thwarted.

For the last six months, outside the national corridors of power, one of the most insidious attacks on the heart of our democracy — free and fair elections — has been playing out in North Carolina. In November, the Republican candidate for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, Judge Jefferson Griffin, lost a close race to the incumbent justice Allison Riggs. Even after two recounts confirmed Riggs’s 734-vote victory, Griffin would not relent. Instead, he filed hundreds of challenges to get 65,000 legally cast ballots tossed out. Despite Griffin’s protestations, these votes — which included ballots from service members and military families stationed overseas — were cast within the state’s established election rules that were counted for every other statewide race in North Carolina. Griffin wanted the courts to change the goal posts after the fact, so he could be declared the winner.

Finally, after a winding road through state and federal court, a Trump appointed federal district court judge ruled against Griffin’s attempt to discount ballots after they were counted, writing, “You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done.” Griffin subsequently conceded the race, instead of continuing to pursue an appeal, ending this saga.

And then on Thursday, Donald Trump was forced to pull the nomination of Ed Martin to be the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin is a particularly odious and dangerous figure, a man who praises and consorts with avowed Nazis — including someone who literally dressed up as Hitler. He has also bent over backwards to support convicted January 6th insurrectionists, raising funds for them, then as their defense attorney, and even after taking office as the acting chief federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital. During his short tenure in the office, Martin abused the prosecutorial powers he was temporarily granted, sending threatening letters to Democratic politicians and scientists, among others, and refusing to investigate a credibly accused Republican congressman.

Martin’s nomination proved a bridge too far for Trump’s Republican allies, as conservative voices publicly expressed their opposition to his nomination — most notably and openly Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a member of the Judiciary Committee. With Martin’s nomination sinking, Trump withdrew his name from the ring. Given Martin’s actions as acting US attorney in DC, and his extreme public statements of affiliations, he looked poised to use the rule of law to attack his political opponents and protect allies. Indeed, Martin in many respects represents the very weaponization of the DOJ that Trump and his allies falsely and hypocritically decry.

These two victories for the rule of law were sharp failures, and emblematic of a hubristic autocratic overreach that has turned sour for Trump and his allies — a phenomenon that has played out in a variety of areas. While DOGE wreaked havoc upon across services and organizations that millions of people rely on, it abjectly failed at its own self-stated mission. The Washington Post reported that one of DOGE’s inspirations has turned against it, comparing it to an “orchestra of chimpanzees.”

None of that lessens the significant harms the clumsy would-be autocrats continue to dish out. Even with the defeat of Ed Martin, Trump’s replacement is no Robert Jackson. The new interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, and therefore one of the most powerful attorneys in the country, is Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. The relief felt by many of us at this development is a true measure of just how bad this administration is, and the expectations we have for it. And Trump has announced Martin will work in the Justice Department, but in a position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. It’s a mixed bag.

And as one attack on the vote rightfully fails in one state, a different dangerous attack ramps up in another. The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Thursday the arrest of six individuals — including five public officials, one of whom is a judge — for a supposed “vote harvesting” scheme. Paxton brought these charges under Texas’s S.B. 1 law, parts of which have already been ruled unconstitutional by a GW Bush-appointed federal judge. The 5th Circuit stayed that ruling, which allowed Paxton to continue his criminal investigation. The merits of the case will be played out in court, but Paxton’s mimicry of the Trump DOJ’s arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan in Wisconsin, gives rise to concerns that a dangerous pattern could be developing, one of criminalizing and arresting officers of the court in order to intimidate them into submission.

We also see an effort to force submission within the federal government itself. Two staffing decisions – one firing and one hiring — tell the dangerous story of the devaluation of expertise and competence in this administration. There is a concerted effort to stamp out any bit of dissent and to reward obsequious loyalty to Trump. One day after the FEMA director, Cameron Hamilton, told Congress—unsurprisingly given the role it plays in emergencies—that it would be a mistake to eliminate the agency, the White House fired him. Meanwhile, the newly appointed Surgeon General appears to be shockingly unqualified: her license to practice medicine in Oregon lapsed in 2019 yet she freely offers eccentric, unsupported, RFK-aligned advice, while claiming that she left her medical training “to focus on how to keep people out of the operating room.” Members from both sides of the aisle were vexed by the decision to appoint a non-practicing doctor as Surgeon General. To make matters worse, when the president was confronted with these facts by the press, he sloughed off any responsibility for the choice, betraying no knowledge about her specifically and claiming he picked her because “Bobby” (RFK) thought she was fantastic.

That rhetorical gambit by Trump – disclaiming any responsibility by claiming ignorance – has become alarmingly frequent. When asked whether, as president, he needed to “uphold the Constitution,” he replied: “I don’t know” — a concerning answer given that is the core of the oath he took when sworn in as President. He has also appeared to be unaware of his own government’s actions events, most recently saying he didn’t know whether his Administration was sending migrants to Libya. All of this suggests an out-of-touch president, content with the trappings of power, but unable or unwilling to administer it or take responsibility for his actions.

Until then,

The Democracy Index team