How Autocracy Is Trending Again

06:51 AM August, 24 2018

سودانيز اون لاين
Hassan Farah-جمهورية استونيا
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How Autocracy
Is Trending Again
It has often been said that Donald Trump is an Autocrat. Reports from Radio Free Europe tell us that these are the years of the autocrats, since more have turned up recently than in the near past.
Democracy is supposed to protect a country's people from an autocratic ruler, but Donald Trump began what is commonly called a war on the press in his 2016 presidential campaign, which some believe is his bid for becoming an autocratic ruler. Trump's push to delegitimize any journalist who was not complimentary to him has continued up to the present. Any press release unfavorable to Trump is dubbed "fake news," and to bolster his claims, he has the silent support of a Republican Congress.
This attempt to restrain the legitimate press from offering reality to the public is one form of autocracy, which is one of the ways Trump, Putin, and other autocratic leaders hope to rule their countries, (and I suspect that by joining one another, perhaps most of the world.)
But autocratic leadership does not stop there, as autocrats swat away the rule of law and cross as many lines as they can easily get away with. For Trump, we saw right away how several laws in the U.S. Constitution were ignored by Trump, starting with the emoluments clause.
Today, in the USA, we have an investigation that may help us to save our Democratic Republic from becoming an Autocracy. To that end, Trump is working hard to try to impede and stop the investigation, because Trump is working hard to become the first Autocratic Ruler of the USA.
U.S. Democracy is facing one of its biggest challenges since its inception.
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AUTOCRACY IS TRENDING AGAIN
BY Wojtek Grojec
AND Carlos Coelho
AUGUST 23, 2018In 1967, with the Cold War simmering and conflicts raging from Guatemala to the Sinai, 34 of the world’s governments were democracies and 120 were autocracies*. It was the year the Soviet Union marked 50 years since the Bolshevik Revolution, the Apollo and Soyuz space programs suffered deadly setbacks, and the United States announced the Vietnam War was finally turning in its favor.
Fast-forward to 1991. The Soviet Union is no more, leaving 15 newly independent republics in its wake. It is democracy’s moment to shine. Now there are 14 more democracies and 12 fewer autocracies.
This trend continued through the 1990s and into the early 21st century. By 2003, a decade had passed since Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history,” and the number of democracies had increased to 94 and autocracies decreased to 82.
Then something changed, and democracy’s sails began to flutter. For the first time in 38 years, the number of declining democracies around the world matched that of advancing ones.
According to V-Dem data, here’s why global democracy is facing one of its biggest challenges in at least half a century.
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The Waning of the Rule of Law
“There can be no democratic legitimacy without the rule of law,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a June 2018 session of the European Commission in Strasbourg. His comments came in the context of possible disciplinary proceedings against Warsaw for allegedly threatening the independence of Poland’s judiciary. The purported push for greater control over Poland’s Supreme Court is one in a string of controversial decisions concerning Polish justice, and Poland has seen notable declines in V-Dem indicators on the rule of law.
But Poland isn’t the only country to “backslide” significantly. Have a look at Russia, Turkey, China, Hungary, and the United States..
Curbs On Freedom Of Expression
Increasing government influence on media frequently emerges gradually through relatively obscure means including inducement, intimidation, and co-opting. Such tactics can lead to increasing self-censorship and fewer explicit criticisms of the government in the media.

Such a trend has arguably been the case in Russia, where the government approved laws specifically targeting media independence.
The United States has also been described as suffering a decline in media freedom: In 2016, the notion of “fake news” gained prominence during the U.S. presidential election -- specifically in efforts to discredit the media and specific news organizations as biased against certain individuals or broadly unreliable.

A number of countries stand out in the area of government censorship of the media and harassment of journalists, but Turkey was seen as having taken some of the harshest measures against journalists. In 2017 alone, 72 journalists were imprisoned in Turkey, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
In 2016, the notion of "fake news" gained prominence during the 2017 presidential election -- specifically in efforts to discredit the media and specific news organizations as biased against certain individuals or broadly unreliable.
---Two hundred and seventeen journalists were imprisoned world wide in 2017.---

https://www.rferl.org/a/how-autocracy-is-trending-again/29449280.htmlhttps://www.rferl.org/a/how-autocracy-is-trending-again/29449280.html
Edited, because illustrations, charts, and graphs that can be viewed in the article, did not copy for this report.