US institutions, due process and democratic norms are under threat from within

The position holds that US institutions, due process and democratic norms are under threat from within, and that the damage to the rule of law is real and accelerating. Its advocates point to deaths in immigration custody, arrests without a warrant, citizens wrongly detained, gerrymandered maps, and a climate of fear and crackdown.

The position is voiced by 121 outlets from Western and allied countries on the conflict over domestic governance in the United States, and by US outlets on press freedom and broadcast regulation (110), cabinet turnover (110), Federal Reserve independence (88), immigration enforcement, electoral legitimacy and the midterm contest, and the courts and executive power (77 each).

One competing position says the administration is lawfully carrying out the mandate voters gave it, and that resistance is an attempt to overturn a democratic result. Another, drawn from state media abroad, holds that American democracy is decaying from within, proof that the US model is failing. The events of recent months run both ways: the Supreme Court allowed third-country deportations and the use of a voter citizenship database to continue, but it blocked Missouri's Republican-drawn map and Trump's mail ballot restrictions, and a federal judge ordered press access restored for CNN, MS NOW and Politico.