Scoring Methodology
How we measure and score threats to American democracy — transparently and systematically.
What This Tracker Measures
The Trump Autocracy Tracker monitors two distinct but related dimensions of democratic erosion:
- Autocracy — Structural and institutional actions that concentrate power, weaken checks and balances, and dismantle democratic safeguards. These are things done to the machinery of government.
- Authoritarianism — Rhetorical and behavioral patterns that normalize strongman rule, dehumanize opponents, and undermine democratic culture. These are things said and signaled to shape public acceptance of autocratic governance.
Together, these 20 markers capture both the structural dismantling of democracy and the cultural normalization that enables it.
The Two Frameworks
Autocracy Markers (AC01–AC10) — Structural / Institutional
| ID | Marker | What It Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| AC01 | Consolidation of Executive Power | Concentration of authority in the executive branch beyond constitutional limits, including expansion of emergency powers… |
| AC02 | Undermining Judicial Independence | Attacks on the independence and legitimacy of the judiciary, including defiance of court orders, packing or threatening … |
| AC03 | Attacks on Free Press / Media Capture | Systematic efforts to delegitimize, intimidate, or control media organizations, including ‘fake news’ rhetoric, selectiv… |
| AC04 | Politicization of Law Enforcement / Military | Using law enforcement and military institutions for political purposes, including targeting political opponents, deployi… |
| AC05 | Election Interference / Voter Suppression | Actions to undermine free and fair elections, including voter suppression, gerrymandering, false fraud claims, and inter… |
| AC06 | Silencing Political Opposition | Efforts to suppress, intimidate, or criminalize political opposition, including investigations of political rivals, thre… |
| AC07 | Purging Civil Service / Loyalty Tests | Systematic removal of career civil servants and replacement with political loyalists, undermining institutional expertis… |
| AC08 | Weakening Legislative Oversight | Efforts to reduce congressional oversight and checks on executive power, including defying subpoenas, withholding inform… |
| AC09 | Weaponizing Prosecution | Using the justice system to target political enemies, including selective prosecution, political prisoner detention, and… |
| AC10 | Dismantling Regulatory Agencies | Systematic weakening or elimination of independent regulatory agencies that provide checks on executive and corporate po… |
Authoritarianism Markers (AU01–AU10) — Rhetorical / Behavioral
| ID | Marker | What It Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| AU01 | Dehumanizing Language Toward Out-Groups | Use of rhetoric that strips humanity from targeted populations, including immigrants, minorities, political opponents, a… |
| AU02 | Cult of Personality Promotion | Efforts to build and maintain a personality cult around the leader, including demands for loyalty, personality-centered … |
| AU03 | Scapegoating / Enemy Creation | Systematic identification and demonization of target groups to redirect blame and build political support through shared… |
| AU04 | Demands for Personal Loyalty Over Institutional Loyalty | Requiring personal allegiance to the leader rather than to the Constitution, rule of law, or institutional norms.… |
| AU05 | Delegitimizing Elections and Democratic Processes | Undermining public confidence in democratic processes, including elections, vote counting, peaceful transfer of power, a… |
| AU06 | Promoting Violence or Threatening Force | Use of violent rhetoric, threats of force, or encouragement of political violence, including against protesters, opponen… |
| AU07 | Conspiracy Theories as Governance Tools | Promotion and use of conspiracy theories to justify policy, delegitimize opposition, and maintain supporter loyalty.… |
| AU08 | Nationalist / Populist Demagoguery | Exploitation of nationalist sentiment and populist grievances to build personal power, including ‘us vs. them’ framing, … |
| AU09 | Rejection of Accountability / Rule of Law | Systematic rejection of legal accountability, rule of law, and institutional checks, including claims of immunity, obstr… |
| AU10 | Suppression of Dissent | Active efforts to suppress protest, dissent, and opposition voices, including threats against protesters, retaliation ag… |
Scoring Scale
Each marker is scored on a 0–10 scale:
- 0 — No evidence of this marker in current conduct
- 1–2 — Isolated incidents, within normal political range
- 3–4 — Pattern emerging, warning signs present
- 5–6 — Active and sustained erosion of norms
- 7–8 — Institutional damage actively underway
- 9–10 — Crisis level, democratic breakdown imminent or active
Threat Levels
The overall threat level is derived from the aggregate scores:
LowNormal democratic functioning (average 0–2)
ElevatedWarning signs present, vigilance warranted (average 3–4)
HighActive erosion of democratic norms (average 5–6)
SevereInstitutional damage underway (average 7–8)
CriticalDemocratic breakdown imminent or active (average 9–10)
How Scores Are Computed
Per-Marker Updates
Every 6 hours, our analysis pipeline scans news sources and applies AI-assisted analysis to identify events, statements, and actions relevant to each marker. For each relevant finding:
- The content is analyzed against the full marker taxonomy
- Each marker “hit” receives a severity delta: +1 (escalation), 0 (continuation), or -1 (de-escalation)
- Each hit is assigned a confidence level: high, medium, or low
- Only high and medium confidence findings adjust scores — low confidence findings are logged as evidence but don’t move the number
- Scores are clamped to the 0–10 range
Overall Computation
The overall threat level is calculated as follows:
- Autocracy Average = arithmetic mean of all 10 autocracy marker scores
- Authoritarianism Average = arithmetic mean of all 10 authoritarianism marker scores
- Overall Average = mean of Autocracy Average and Authoritarianism Average
- Threat Level = the band that the overall average falls into
Equal weighting: All 20 markers contribute equally. We do not weight certain markers as more important than others, because democratic erosion can proceed through any combination of vectors. What matters is the pattern, not any single indicator.
Data Sources
The tracker ingests content from these source categories:
RSS Feeds (Continuous Monitoring)
- Legal / Policy Analysis — Lawfare, Democracy Docket, JD Supra
- Investigative Journalism — ProPublica, The Atlantic
- Political Analysis — The Bulwark
- News Wire Services — NPR Politics, Reuters, AP News
Search-Based Discovery
- Targeted web searches for Trump speeches, executive orders, press/judiciary attacks, loyalty purges, DOGE agency actions, ICE enforcement, and related topics
- Searches are conducted using the Tavily search API for LLM-optimized content retrieval
Manual Uploads
- Full speech transcripts, press conference transcripts, and rally transcripts can be uploaded directly for analysis
AI-Assisted Analysis
Content analysis is performed by Claude (Anthropic’s AI), operating under strict instructions:
- The AI receives the full marker taxonomy as context and must map findings to specific markers
- Each finding requires specific evidence (a direct quote or concrete description)
- Each finding requires a confidence assessment
- The AI cannot invent evidence — it can only identify patterns present in the source text
- All analysis results are logged with full provenance (source, date, text analyzed)
Transparency commitment: This tracker uses AI as an analytical tool to process volume and identify patterns. The marker taxonomy, scoring methodology, and threat level definitions were designed by humans drawing on academic literature in comparative politics, democratic backsliding research, and authoritarianism studies. The AI applies the framework; it did not create it.
What This Tracker Is Not
- Not a prediction market — we track what has happened and is happening, not what might happen
- Not partisan opposition research — the markers are derived from comparative political science, applicable to any leader regardless of party
- Not opinion — each score is tied to documented evidence that can be reviewed and challenged
- Not static — scores can go down as well as up, if evidence of de-escalation emerges
Academic Foundations
The marker taxonomy draws on established frameworks from:
- Levitsky & Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (2018) — institutional erosion patterns
- V-Dem Institute — Varieties of Democracy indicators
- Freedom House — Nations in Transit methodology
- Protect Democracy — democratic norm tracking
- Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding” (2016) — executive aggrandizement typology
- Huq & Ginsburg, “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy” (2018) — constitutional retrogression
Data refreshes automatically every 6 hours. Last rendered: 2026-05-27 02:12 UTC