Will there be a major change with Trump's election such that the U.S. does not live in a traditional US Democracy anymore? Such conditions would include things like: Trump running for a 3rd term, declaration of Martial Law at any point, removing Supreme Court Justices or ignoring a material order from SCOTUS, Executive Branch overturning a certified election result, refusing a transition of power, etc. This will be certified "yes" if a major event occurs that is considered a fundamental ending of our democracy as we know it and multiple major news organizations declare as much.
**Update 11/15: This has received a lot more attention lately and more than I expected, so let me clarify a few things to try and help add some details around resolution and answer questions:
There will likely be many norms shattered, lines crossed, flaws in our system exposed and maybe even illegal activity over the next four years. This question is NOT asking about whether those will occur; this is about a fundamental change in our system from the American form of democracy as we have known it in modern times to something more closely aligned to a dictatorship, autocracy, theocracy, oligarchy, kingdom, etc.
In order to determine what makes us no longer living in a democracy as we know it, it helps to outline what I would say are the key components of our democracy: checks and balances, free and fair elections, the rule of law/adherence to constitution, peace and order, federalism, due process, the freedoms of speech, press, and association and obviously having an executive as opposed to a king/dictator.
I will weigh in and give some examples of things I would/wouldn’t consider as a resolving event for each of those key components of our democracy:
checks and balances: As we currently have a majority republican legislature and supreme court, there will obviously be a decrease in our “checks and balances”. As these were elected/appointed in the normal process and still have the ability to exercise their power, that of itself does not nullify our democracy. The following example would not count for a resolution: Senate allows recess appointments, as this is constitutionally allowed and has been done historically. Would count: Trump ignores a material order from the Supreme Court (as this would demonstrates the judicial check is gone)
free and fair elections: would not count - generally applicable new federal voting laws that may have an indirect benefit to republicans, such as voter id requirements. would count - voting laws that essentially guarantee republican control of government, such as an increase of 5 electoral votes for all rural states or federal gerrymandering of state’s house maps.
the rule of law/adherence to constitution: Would not count- Trumps issues executive orders that are later found to be unconstitutional (provided he does not continue to enforce such unconstitutional orders). It is not uncommon for orders/laws to be passed that are found later to be unconstitutional. Would count - Running for a third term despite 22nd amendment
peace and order: This is important because if we have a complete breakdown of society, then we can not function as a democracy.. Would not count - occasional violence or large protests that get out of control. Would count - Trump declares martial law resulting from significant internal unrest, which is maintained for an extended time or is used to quell fundamental rights.
federalism: this has already been seriously eroded over the years, as the fed government has even forced state laws through funding holdbacks (see, e.g. drinking age requirements) and “over reach” on federal laws regulating activities typically delegated to the states. So this would have to be something dramatic. Would not count - passing a federal law on abortion or holding back funds unless states adopt a law/policy (as long as the law was not an infringement on some other aspect of democracy). Would count: federal assumption of state roles, such as removal of governors or state/local police in favor of federal appointees.
due process: would not count - investigations into, or even charges, of one or two “political enemies”, provided it goes through standard, fair court process. would count - arrests of clear political enemies that do not go through normal process (e.g. military tribunals for civilians, no trials at all, etc.) or mass arrests of large numbers of “political” enemies to create a chilling effect
freedom of speech: would not count: shutting down a protest here and there, even if it ended up violent due to escalated tensions, provided it was not sustained. Would count: arresting anyone who says something bad about Trump on social media or using extreme violence to shut down an otherwise peaceful protest (like Tiananmen square) on multiple occasions or being explicit it will happen again such that it stops all protests. Thus, Kent State would not count as it did not otherwise silence all other protests that came after it.
Freedom of press: Would not count – Arresting journalists who stole government secrets. Would count: Arresting journalist who report negative stories on Trump on charges that most agree are not legitimate or Trump revokes the licenses and/or shuts down the offices of multiple new outlets critical of him due to their criticism. Would also resolve if our overall freedom of press rating drops down to 140th or worse in the global rankings of free press found here: https://rsf.org/en/index. This would put us towards the bottom in the world and below or around countries like Ethiopia, Lebanon, El Salvador, Kuwait, Libya, etc. This is the one exception where I would resolve without requiring 2 major news outlets to confirm the end of democracy, since we would no longer have a free press to do so.
Freedom of association: would not count - reducing funding for groups historically funded, such as NPR. Would count - systematic disbanding of advocacy and charitable groups that oppose trump, such as ACLU.
No king/dictator: Perhaps the most obvious, but covers breaking/ignoring the laws and norms we have to prevent having a dictator/king/authoritarian. would not count - strong man tendencies and pushing of boundaries of presidential power, such as putting the federal reserve under the executive. would count - Not leaving office at the end of his term or running as VP for a third term (this would be similar to Putin who really called the show but once ran as VP to avoid term limit rules)
I cannot specify every possible scenario that would resolve “yes” as I can’t even conceive everything that could happen. Instead, I have outlined the type of things that would qualify. Yes, it means some bit of executive decision making on my end, but I tried to make it as objective as possible by adding the requirement of 2 news sources also declaring it the end of our democracy as we know it. So it is not just my opinion, but that of 2 major news sources as well. If you are not comfortable with a tad bit of subjectivity involved or the criteria as I laid out, then please do not bet.
Regarding the 2 major news sources, to clarify, this cannot be a single person’s opinion. So an op-ed in the NYtimes that says democracy is over from a single writer is not valid. However, an editorial piece from the entire editorial board (e.g. the NYT editorial board) would count, as this is the statement of the paper. Also, that is most likely where such a story would be published, as an opinion piece. As to what counts as “major” new publication, I will consider the following U.S. media as qualifying: 1) top 20 circulation newspaper, 2) top 10 news magazine publications, 3) top 20 most visited news websites, 4) news programs on ABC, NBC or CBS, such as nightly news, Meet the Press or 60 minutes, from the anchor/moderator representing the opinion of the station. Cable networking will not count as most is opinion broadcasting, unless they made some sort of rare “station” statement saying as much as a network.
2/20/25: One concern that has come up is that our democracy slowly crumbles via a “death by a thousand cuts” but there is not a single major “constitutional crisis” incident that occurs to meet the above criteria. To address this, we can look to international rankings of democratic health to see if we have gone a fundamental change to our democracy as we know it. Four major ones are Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index, Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Report and Global State of Democracy Indices (GSoD). These score and rank democracies generally, so can give us a full picture of the state of our democracy from international, independent sources (except for the Freedom in the World Report, which is US based and received federal funding, and thus may face political pressures re changes to the US score). If we see dramatic, material changes in 2 of those 4 ratings in next four years, I would consider this a resolve to “yes”. It must be both material (defined below) so that no real debate that we are no longer in “democracy as we know it” and in multiple ratings to not allow a single analysis affect the outcome. For V-Dem, the U.S. has scored above a .79 for 50 years (between .79 and .91). If it were to fall below .55, I would consider this a material change from our historical democracy rating as it would be dramatic reduction and put is in line with countries like: Georgia, Honduras, Kenya, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Liberia. For EIU, we have been in a narrow range of 7.8-8.2 in the nearly 20 years of ratings, within their “full” and “flawed” democracies categorization. I would consider a material change if we fully fell out of the democracies categories and into the middle of the “hybrid regimes” categorization with a 5.0 or less putting us in line with countries like: Bosnia, Morocco, Ukraine, Tanzania, Kenya and Honduras. For House Freedom, we have always been categorized as level 2 “free” since 1972. I would consider a material drop if we dropped to a level 1 (“partly free”), now in line with countries like: Bolivia, Armenia, Ecuador, Sierra Leone, North Macedonia and Hungary. Lastly, for GsoD, we have remained very consistent with our scores in the four categorization since the 1970s. We currently rank at the following spots out of 173 countries: Representation (46th), Rights (34th), Rule of Law (26th), Participation (8th). If we drop 40+ country spots in two of those four categories (50+ in participation since starting so high), I would consider that a material change and would put us in line with counties like: Benin, Honduras, Ukraine, Suriname, Hungary, Malawi, Mongolia.
I am happy to answer questions and fix anything glaringly problematic, but as not to affect people who are placing bets based on this info, I will be doing my best to not make major changes to the criteria. Note I don’t think any of the above qualify as any changes from when people first bet, as it is more details/clarifications than changing the question in any way.
Lastly, I changed the question to no longer be conditional now that Trump was elected.
1,000I think a decent amount of the price movement was me buying because I just found this market. I believe the most likely YES resolutions would come from freedom of press (see recent AP banning + rebuke from RSF), or continuing to enforce executive orders that have been ruled unconstitutional. No specific event in the past few days, just seemed underpriced to me.
@SaviorofPlant I think the above is correct; 1) the tweet from the white house that says "long live the King" with an image of him in a crown https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1892324135109316875%7Ctwgr%5E0dece811ef17e1632a5f6110e82b3148f9f05941%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Ftrump-long-live-king-post-002349338.html and 2) just a couple big individual bets who caused some fluctuations
Would be nice to get some clarification on what you mean by a material order from SCOTUS. Would ignoring a court order not to shutdown USAID count? What if the court, fearing trump will ignore the court order, suddenly "realizes" we have been miss reading the 22nd amendment and its actually fine for trump to run again?
@LevMckinney court order is currently not from SCOTUS, so presumably that doesn't count. SCOTUS letting Trump run for a third term I assume resolves yes, as mentioned in the description
Given the first few weeks of actions/orders/comments of Trump 2.0, a bit surprised have not seen more movement on this question. Lots of interesting things to discuss, but this one seems quite relevant: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/legal-experts-constitutional-crisis-vance-musk-judicial-rulings-trump-rcna191387
a bit surprised have not seen more movement on this question
The whole question is just so vague. God knows what your threshold of “as we know it” is.
For example:
Would count - Running for a third term despite 22nd amendment
Would a procedurally valid overturn of the 22nd amendment qualify?
What if he runs anyway, and loses?
What if he runs anyway, wins on the numbers, but yields to the “rightful” winner on inauguration day?
Would count - Trump declares martial law resulting from significant internal unrest, which is maintained for an extended time or is used to quell fundamental rights.
People on this site are already losing their minds over the ban on passportholders' loss of discretionary control over the “Sex” field on their passports; some already believe that's a violation of fundamental rights. How are we to know where you draw the line in the sand?
@JamesEAdministrator well this has 426 trades, so I am not concerned that no one is trading on this. I was just more surprised there wasn't recent action given we are in the first few weeks and a lot has happened. While the question may be a bit "vague" to your liking, I hardly think you can argue I didn't put a ton of work in trying to nail things down with an extensive description. As noted in there, I can't describe every scenario, so there is some subjectivity in the ultimate decision, though it must have 2 respectable media articles that agree with my asseent (as detailed above). I think I did the best I could and did a lot of descriptions and examples to help explain my criteria. Regarding revoking the 22nd amendment, I addressed this below in the comments. Regarding running again, the constitution clearly forbids it; if he is allowed to officially partake in the process (be in debates, get on the ballot, etc) and is not stopped by the courts, then this would count as he should not be allowed to officially partake in any way. Regarding your last question, the item you are quoting is about declaring martial law to quell fundamental rights. It is not just that he is subverting fundamental rights generally, as that is too broad/vague.
Regarding revoking the 22nd amendment, I addressed this below in the comments.
At the time I asked, this was not mentioned anywhere in the question description itself…
I would consider a repeal/amendment of the 22nd amendment allowing Trump to run for a third term and him becoming the nominee to resolve "yes".
I went to preface this by saying that I do not have any opinion on tiktok.
It is worth noting that a law passed in congress with bipartisan support. A court upheld the law and it was appealed to the Supreme court. The Supreme Court said the appeals court made the right decision so the law stands. The outgoing executive branch has stated, as I understand it, that they will not enforce the law, and the incoming executive branch has stated that they will not enforce the law. Does that count for anything?
@JeremyMitts Good question, but a few important distinction. First, SCOTUS did not order the president to comply with something and he ignored it, they just said that the law passed by Congress was constitutional. So if anything, it is more ignoring Congress than Supreme Court. Also, this law is not an order for the president to do something; the requirement is on the tech companies (apple/Google) to deplatform TikTok. The president's justice department just has the power to prosecute if they do not, which is a discretionary prosecution that is within the power of the presidency. Second, Biden is just not enforcing for 1 day due to the transition and understandable position that the new admin should handle; we will see what happens with Trump, but more likely he complies with it but just exercises a lot of discretion (e.g. he says "they have divested" sufficiently, which is in his discretion according to the law). We will see where he actually ends up. Third, I would certainly argue this is not a "material" order. This is about the ability of a social media company to continue operating, not a fundamental aspect of our democracy. For it to be "material", it would have to be more fundamental to our republic.
Would count - Trump declares martial law resulting from significant internal unrest, which is maintained for an extended time or is used to quell fundamental rights.
Would you be able to provide any examples where declaring martial law would not count? For example, would the South Korean martial law event in 2024 have counted if something like that happened in America (with emphasis pointing to how short that martial law actually lasted)?
This clarification question is for the purpose of seeing if we can arbitrage this market.
If any martial law declaration fully correlates with with a YES resolution here, we can freely arbitrage with other martial law markets as a floor for this market.
(If you answer this question, be ready to check how the AI summarizes your answer in the market description.)
@Quroe Hi, no, a situation like South Korea would not count here. for a couple reasons. 1) per the description, it would need to be "maintained for an extended time or used to quell fundamental rights." The s. Korean one lasted only a few hours and was never really implemented before the checks in place forced him to quickly withdraw it. So a declaration and then prompt walk back would not count. If it went on for an extended period of time and/or it quelled fundamental rights (e.g. shut down material amount of press or peaceful protests), then it would count. 2) the second criteria for any resolution is that 2 media outlets declare the action to have resulted in the end of our democracy as we know it. This would also need to occur for a resolution, to be more objective. It is detailed out more above. Hope this helps!
Seems like a market which is experiencing too much fluctuation also great for buying cheap and reaping off later in case of trump doing trump things and this thing goes up and down.
This has received a lot more attention lately and more than I expected, so let me clarify a few things to try and help add some details around resolution and answer questions:
There will likely be many norms shattered, lines crossed, flaws in our system exposed and maybe even illegal activity over the next four years. This question is NOT asking about whether those will occur; this is about a fundamental change in our system from the American form of democracy as we have known it in modern times to something more closely aligned to a dictatorship, autocracy, theocracy, oligarchy, kingdom, etc.
In order to determine what makes us no longer living in a democracy as we know it, it helps to outline what I would say are the key components of our democracy: checks and balances, free and fair elections, the rule of law/adherence to constitution, peace and order, federalism, due process, the freedoms of speech, press, and association and obviously having an executive as opposed to a king/dictator.
I will weigh in and give some examples of things I would/wouldn’t consider as a resolving event for each of those key components of our democracy:
checks and balances: As we currently have a majority republican legislature and supreme court, there will obviously be a decrease in our “checks and balances”. As these were elected/appointed in the normal process and still have the ability to exercise their power, that of itself does not nullify our democracy. The following example would not count for a resolution: Senate allows recess appointments, as this is constitutionally allowed and has been done historically. Would count: Trump ignores a material order from the Supreme Court (as this would demonstrates the judicial check is gone)
free and fair elections: would not count - generally applicable new federal voting laws that may have an indirect benefit to republicans, such as voter id requirements. would count - voting laws that essentially guarantee republican control of government, such as an increase of 5 electoral votes for all rural states or federal gerrymandering of state’s house maps.
the rule of law/adherence to constitution: Would not count- Trumps issues executive orders that are later found to be unconstitutional (provided he does not continue to enforce such unconstitutional orders). It is not uncommon for orders/laws to be passed that are found later to be unconstitutional. Would count - Running for a third term despite 22nd amendment
peace and order: This is important because if we have a complete breakdown of society, then we can not function as a democracy.. Would not count - occasional violence or large protests that get out of control. Would count - Trump declares martial law resulting from significant internal unrest, which is maintained for an extended time or is used to quell fundamental rights.
federalism: this has already been seriously eroded over the years, as the fed government has even forced state laws through funding holdbacks (see, e.g. drinking age requirements) and “over reach” on federal laws regulating activities typically delegated to the states. So this would have to be something dramatic. Would not count - passing a federal law on abortion or holding back funds unless states adopt a law/policy (as long as the law was not an infringement on some other aspect of democracy). Would count: federal assumption of state roles, such as removal of governors or state/local police in favor of federal appointees.
due process: would not count - investigations into, or even charges, of one or two “political enemies”, provided it goes through standard, fair court process. would count - arrests of clear political enemies that do not go through normal process (e.g. military tribunals for civilians, no trials at all, etc.) or mass arrests of large numbers of “political” enemies to create a chilling effect
freedom of speech: would not count: shutting down a protest here and there, even if it ended up violent due to escalated tensions, provided it was not sustained. Would count: arresting anyone who says something bad about Trump on social media or using extreme violence to shut down an otherwise peaceful protest (like Tiananmen square) on multiple occasions or being explicit it will happen again such that it stops all protests. Thus, Kent State would not count as it did not otherwise silence all other protests that came after it.
Freedom of press: Would not count – Arresting journalists who stole government secrets. Would count: Arresting journalist who report negative stories on Trump on charges that most agree are not legitimate or Trump revokes the licenses and/or shuts down the offices of multiple new outlets critical of him due to their criticism. Would also resolve if our overall freedom of press rating drops down to 140th or worse in the global rankings of free press found here: https://rsf.org/en/index. This would put us towards the bottom in the world and below or around countries like Ethiopia, Lebanon, El Salvador, Kuwait, Libya, etc. This is the one exception where I would resolve without requiring 2 major news outlets to confirm the end of democracy, since we would no longer have a free press to do so.
Freedom of association: would not count - reducing funding for groups historically funded, such as NPR. Would count - systematic disbanding of advocacy and charitable groups that oppose trump, such as ACLU.
No king/dictator: Perhaps the most obvious, but covers breaking/ignoring the laws and norms we have to prevent having a dictator/king/authoritarian. would not count - strong man tendencies and pushing of boundaries of presidential power, such as putting the federal reserve under the executive. would count - Not leaving office at the end of his term or running as VP for a third term (this would be similar to Putin who really called the show but once ran as VP to avoid term limit rules)
I cannot specify every possible scenario that would resolve “yes” as I can’t even conceive everything that could happen. Instead, I have outlined the type of things that would qualify. Yes, it means some bit of executive decision making on my end, but I tried to make it as objective as possible by adding the requirement of 2 news sources also declaring it the end of our democracy as we know it. So it is not just my opinion, but that of 2 major news sources as well. If you are not comfortable with a tad bit of subjectivity involved or the criteria as I laid out, then please do not bet.
Regarding the 2 major news sources, to clarify, this cannot be a single person’s opinion. So an op-ed in the NYtimes that says democracy is over from a single writer is not valid. However, an editorial piece from the entire editorial board (e.g. the NYT editorial board) would count, as this is the statement of the paper. Also, that is most likely where such a story would be published, as an opinion piece. As to what counts as “major” new publication, I will consider the following U.S. media as qualifying: 1) top 20 circulation newspaper, 2) top 10 news magazine publications, 3) top 20 most visited news websites, 4) news programs on ABC, NBC or CBS, such as nightly news, Meet the Press or 60 minutes, from the anchor/moderator representing the opinion of the station. Cable networking will not count as most is opinion broadcasting, unless they made some sort of rare “station” statement saying as much as a network.
I am happy to answer questions and fix anything glaringly problematic, but as not to affect people who are placing bets based on this info, I will be doing my best to not make major changes to the criteria. Note I don’t think any of the above qualify as any changes from when people first bet, as it is more details/clarifications than changing the question in any way.
Lastly, I changed the question to no longer be conditional now that Trump was elected.
@JRR you mentioned licenses in the section on press, what's that about? Requiring any kind of press license in itself would be a substantial diminishing of 1A protections and should cause this to
resolve to a YES. Press is never a licensed profession in the US- and scotus has ruled that any individual is a member of the press and afforded 1A protections by way of simply behaving as a journalist would.
@JeremyMitts I am referring to broadcast licenses for TV and radio. So, for example, if Trump pulled ABC's and NPR's broadcast license because he didn't like the negative coverage of him on them. I agree, the opposite could be true too for things not traditionally requiring a license, like requiring all newspapers to be licensed by the government with papers being denied if they didn't like the speech in the paper.