US sinks below Mongolia and Argentina in global ranking for freedom

The United States has dropped 11 points in 10 years in the global ranking for freedom.

A new report from democracy watchdog Freedom House charting the political and civil rights of different nations has the US down significantly because of racial inequality, the negative impact of money in politics, and the rise in polarisation between Americans.

Coming in at 83 out of 100 possible points, the US is now tied with countries such as Panama, Romania, and Croatia, and behind Argentina and Mongolia. America is outstripped by the United Kingdom and Chile which both got 93 points, Costa Rica at 91 and Slovakia at 90.

The nordic trio of Finland, Sweden, and Norway were the only countries getting full marks at 100 points. America's neighbour to the north, Canada, came in at 98 points.

The United States went from 94 points in 2010 to 83 points in 2020. The drop, analysed by Freedom House's vice president of research and analysis, Sarah Repucci, comes after events taking place during the last several months that "amounted to an acute crisis for democracy in the United States", she writes.

She told The Guardian: “Dropping 11 points is unusual, especially for an established democracy, because they tend to be more stable in our scores."

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Freedom House usually does not write a report focusing on the ins and outs of American democracy, but did so this year because of the stark developments that came at the detriment of freedom.

These developments include the racial inequality in voting and criminal justice, with Black and Native Americans being most acutely affected. That public trust in the government has been eroded thanks to the ways wealthier Americans used their finances to buy influence is another factor in the point-drop.

Partisan gerrymandering, meaning the process of drawing districts in a way that benefit one party over another, has lead to levels of polarisation so high that it's a threat to democracy, the report argues.

"The practice of partisan gerrymandering ... has the most corrosive and radicalising effect on US politics, generating a multitude of districts in which one party can be virtually certain of victory," the report states.

Ms Repucci told The Guardian: “We’re really concerned about these longer-term challenges that aren’t going to be addressed with quick fixes, that were kind of highlighted during the Trump administration and, in some cases, taken advantage of, by that administration.

“A change of president is not gonna make them go away.”

The report makes three broad recommendations based on these issues to bring American democracy up to scratch.

The report suggests that the US "lower barriers to voting as part of a comprehensive effort to address racial injustice," and it argues that campaign finance laws be tightened to "curb the influence of money in politics". Finally, "independent redistricting commissions" should be established to "reduce political polarisation and extremism," the report concludes.

While state Republicans hope to halt the trends of states moving towards Democratic rule in its tracks by making it harder to vote, as reported by Vox, Democrats on the national level are pushing a voting rights package that addresses the issues stated in the report.

The House passed a massive voting bill earlier this month, but it faces an "uphill battle" in the Senate, The New York Times reports.