2026: The year democracy is put to the test

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its founding. Rarely has a milestone coincided so precisely with the exhaustion of the very idea that made it possible. It will be like toasting a world that no longer exists. The nation that for decades presented itself as the guarantor of global democratic order has, according to the most rigorous political scientists, crossed the line separating democracy from competitive authoritarianism. This is neither a metaphor nor rhetorical exaggeration. In 2025, the number of autocracies in the world surpassed that of democracies for the first time. While the guardian has become the arsonist, others watch and wait. But the most troubling thing is not that authoritarians are gaining ground — it is that those who should oppose them seem to have forgotten why.

A year ago, at Donald Trump’s inauguration, the most revealing image was not the vindictive speech or the presence of the so-called Reactionary International — from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele — while leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Olaf Scholz were not even invited. It was the prime position occupied by tech magnates, smiling, alongside the new president. The fusion of political and economic power was already being displayed without shame.

Today, these magnates not only amass unprecedented wealth: they wield an unprecedented cultural and communicative influence. And some no longer hide their disdain for democracy. Peter Thiel, one of the most influential ideologues of this new right, stated bluntly: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” This is not a provocation; it is a program. Curtis Yarvin, another intellectual reference in the Trumpist sphere, openly calls it reinventing fascism and putting it at the service of Silicon Valley. If they lose the 2026 midterm elections, he warns, they will have lost the opportunity to dismantle democracy. Hence the urgency to consolidate power before voters can stop them.

Why should we be concerned? Because they wield a kind of power that no previous elite possessed. The Rockefellers didn’t aspire to colonize Mars, create private currencies, or influence military conflicts in real time. They didn’t believe that progress required abolishing democracy.

Evgeny Morozov has precisely described what they represent: they concentrate three forms of domination that were previously dispersed. The plutocrat, who buys influence; the oracle, listened to like a prophet; and the platform, which controls the stage where others speak. The problem is no longer that this new power influences what is said, but that it decides what is said, how it circulates, and in what terms it is understood.

But the success of contemporary authoritarianism cannot be explained solely from the top down. It also requires asking why millions of people vote for leaders who will ultimately strip them of their rights, and why populism — defined as a rebellion against the elites— has enthroned an even larger elite.

Inequality breaks the bond between citizens and institutions, and then leaders emerge promising protection from supposedly indifferent elites. They don’t offer a coherent economic program — their policies tend to benefit the wealthy — but they do offer something politically decisive: recognition. Someone who names the suffering and points the finger at those responsible. Material frustration is channeled into identity, and liberal democracy — neutral, procedural, cosmopolitan — becomes the enemy because it seems to represent precisely those who abandoned ordinary people.

As Susan Stokes has described, 21st-century autocrats don’t come to power through coups; they come with ballots and stay, using the very tools of democracy. The process tends to repeat itself. First move: polarize. Patriots versus traitors. When politics becomes tribal warfare, defending the leader — no matter what — becomes a matter of loyalty, not reason. Second move: discredit. Institutions that could limit power are systematically attacked: judges are corrupt, journalists lie, electoral agencies commit fraud, universities indoctrinate. And when institutions lose credibility, they can no longer fulfill their role as a check on power. Third move: replace. Once discredited, the institutions are “reformed,” that is, filled with loyalists.

Everything still appears democratic — there are elections, there is a parliament, there are courts — but the substance has been hollowed out. Only the shell remains. The most perverse aspect is that citizens actively participate in the process. Those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, believed they were saving democracy from a nonexistent fraud. Convinced they were defending it, they were dismantling it.

The year 2026 will put this model to the test. In November, the U.S. midterm elections will decide whether Trump consolidates his power or faces institutional checks. In October, Brazil will choose between an octogenarian Lula and Bolsonaro’s movement, which is waiting for its moment. In April, Hungary — the European laboratory for this authoritarianism — will hold elections in which Viktor Orbán faces his first serious challenge in 15 years. In Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) is aiming for historic results in the eastern regional elections. In France, the municipal elections will gauge Marine Le Pen’s strength before the 2027 presidential elections. The playing field is wide open: either democracies react, or the erosion of democracy will be complete.

But with what moral authority can Europe resist? The authoritarianism arriving from across the Atlantic has severed the link between power and legitimacy. The deepest damage is not only the concentration of power, but the breaking of the postwar pact: the promise that the law would also bind the powerful. And Europe, which should be its guardian, has been complicit. In 2025, while invoking the international order to defend Ukraine, it silently suspended it for Gaza. It is Joseph Conrad’s old formula: light at home, the heart of darkness at the margins. The same logic that Europe applies today at its borders, outsourcing the horror to Libya, Turkey, or Morocco. In June 2026, the new Global Compact on Migration and Asylum will come into force, with faster deportations and return centers. Today it is the migrants. Who will be next?

This is not classic authoritarianism. It is something more insidious: a crisis of meaning. Contemporary Europe resembles the butler in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day: proud of procedure and technical excellence, but reluctant to examine the ends it serves. He manages and makes compromises. Only at the end, on the dock, does the protagonist admit that he dedicated his life to perfecting the service while the world he served crumbled. The question is whether Europe will have that moment of clarity in time, or if only the remains of the day will be left.

Meanwhile, a rudderless social democracy adopts the rhetoric of those it should be fighting. Britain’s Keir Starmer and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen mimic the right wing on immigration, believing they are disarming it. They only succeed in legitimizing its framework. And by abandoning their own ground, they have left a space that others are beginning to occupy: the void creates opportunities. In Copenhagen, the social democrats lost after 122 years not to the far right, but to a left wing that refused to apologize for being left wing. In New York, the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was sworn in on a Quran in an abandoned station of the city’s first subway line. These are signs that something can be born where the old order is crumbling.

2026 will be the year of decision. Not because anything will be resolved — crises of meaning aren’t resolved in an election cycle — but because we will know if there is anything left to defend or if we are merely managing the decline. The question is no longer whether the old order can be sustained. It is whether we will be capable of imagining another.

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