Democratic backsliding in Europe holds lessons for America

Robert Benson is the associate director for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Earlier this month, nearly one million Americans flooded the streets to protest U.S. President Donald Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric, as well as his radical playbook for dismantling the nation’s democratic institutions. From Washington to Wichita, demonstrators carried signs warning American democracy stands at a tipping point.

They’re right.

Anyone who has lived through a democracy’s collapse knows the score: Authoritarians often come to power off a wave of public anger. Their early popularity can delay resistance, making it feel risky or even anti-democratic — but that’s precisely when the real damage gets done.

The longer a resistance movement hesitates, the harder democracy falls.

We know from decades of research on democratic backsliding that timing and scale matter. Meaning, there’s a brief window for action before a would-be authoritarian consolidates power, and that window closes faster than most realize. Also, mass mobilization alone isn’t enough to counteract the momentum; it must be coupled with real institutional pushback.

In Hungary, for example, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party steadily hollowed out the country’s democratic institutions, capturing courts, media and universities, while their opponents hesitated. Hungarian opposition leaders now admit they moved too slowly. Many feared resisting too early on might appear anti-democratic, so they waited. They didn’t know just how fast the system would erode.

In Turkey, meanwhile, we saw how mass protests can signal resistance, but don’t always stop the slide toward authoritarianism — at least, not in isolation. Even enormous demonstrations, like the 2013 Gezi Park protests, didn’t prevent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of power. And once authoritarian movements capture institutions, the game changes. Resistance becomes harder, and far more dangerous.

Years later, Turkey now stands at the brink of what democracy scholars call the authoritarian endgame: The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s most formidable rival, signals a new benchmark in the country’s continued backslide.

Finally, in Serbia, citizens have been taking to the streets in recent months to challenge President Aleksander Vučić’s rule. But years of inaction and a fragmented opposition have similarly allowed him to tighten his grip. And much like in Turkey, while civic momentum has kept democratic ideals alive, it hasn’t been enough to reverse the damage on its own.

Now, let’s consider countries where mobilization did make a difference: In Slovakia, for instance, after the 2018 murder of journalist Ján Kuciak, mass protests forced the prime minister’s resignation and ushered a reformist president into power. In Guatemala, weekly rallies against government corruption led Congress to strip the sitting president of immunity in 2015. He resigned days later. And in Romania, mass protests in 2017 against attempts to weaken anti-corruption laws forced lawmakers to reverse course.

These efforts worked not just because of public anger but because mobilization aligned with elite defections, bringing pressure to bear on institutions.

This same civic energy is now beginning to stir in the U.S., as seen in the recent “Hands Off!” protests. The size and passion of these demonstrations matter. They suggest Americans are alert to the present danger and are ready to act.

This same civic energy is now beginning to stir in the U.S., as seen in the recent “Hands Off!” protests. | Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images

But resistance must also be coordinated and strategic, with the singular goal of driving action in Congress, the courts and among party leaders. Hoping an autocrat will lose popularity is a trap — authoritarian regimes don’t crumble on their own. But public opinion can shift, especially when people are given a compelling alternative and real avenues to push back.

This means opposition parties should use every constitutional tool at their disposal. They can block nominees, deny quorums and file lawsuits — like when Democrats recently placed a strategic hold on a U.S. Attorney nomination, proving Congress still has levers to fight the authoritarian drift.

And this is where leadership matters most. Examples from around the world show us that institutions don’t move on their own — people inside must instigate the movement. That means standing up when it’s inconvenient, not just when it’s safe. So far, Democrats have shown flashes of such resolve. Senator Cory Booker’s 25-hour floor speech excoriating Trump, and the barnstorming town halls led by Senator Chris Murphy and Representative Maxwell Frost have helped galvanize public awareness and made the stakes unmistakably clear.

We need more of this — members of Congress, judges and civil servants drawing clear democratic red lines before they’re erased, and doing it loud enough that others follow.

We also need to build broad democratic alliances. In Slovakia and Guatemala, such coalitions helped convert public outrage into institutional pressure. Business leaders, labor unions, civil rights groups and conservatives who value rule of law must link arms here too. This isn’t about ideology — it’s about protecting the guardrails that make disagreement possible.

A Turkish dissident once told me that in the early years of Erdoğan’s rule, the opposition played checkers while the government ate the pieces. “We waited too long,” they said. “We thought the rules still applied.”

America can’t afford to make the same mistake.