U.S. downgraded to flawed democracy for the first time

 The United States of America is now a more imperfect union.

The Democracy Index has downgraded the U.S. from a full democracy to a flawed one, marking the first time the nation has fallen into the lower ranking.

Other flawed democracies include Botswana, India, Japan and Ghana, while much of Western Europe stayed in the full democracy category.

Americans’ growing distrust in their government, elected officials and the media prompted the demotion, the Economist Intelligence Unit — the UK-based economic firm that produces the annual index — wrote in a Wednesday report.

While the dip comes just days after President Trump’s inauguration, his candidacy and new administration did not cause it, the group insisted.

“The U.S. president, Donald Trump, is not to blame for this decline in trust, which predated his election, but he was the beneficiary of it,” the report read, explaining that the same distrust that prompted the United States' lower democracy rating also pushed voters to favor a presidential candidate with no previous political experience.

The Economist Intelligence Unit began producing the Democracy Index in 2006, grading countries on a zero-to-10 scale based on 60 factors, including the fairness of elections, voter turnout, freedom to protest and freedom of the media, among others.

A nation has to score above an eight to be considered a full democracy, meaning that “basic political freedoms and civil liberties are respected” while the government maintains a system of checks and balances and independent judicial system.

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The U.S. score fell to 7.98 in 2016 — down from 8.05 in 2015 — prompting the unit to deem the nation a flawed democracy.

Flawed democracies also have fair and free elections, but have “significant weaknesses” in other areas of democracy: there may be low political participation or government may not function as seamlessly as it could.

America’s fall marks the first time in the index’s 10-year history that it was not listed as a full democracy.

The U.S. is the second-highest ranking flawed democracy, coming in right behind Japan and tying with Italy. Cabo Verde, France and South Korea trailed the U.S. by less than .1 points each.

Just 19 of the 167 countries surveyed in the index earned a full democracy designation in 2016. There were 57 flawed democracies, 51 authoritarian regimes and 40 hybrid regimes, that are somewhere between democratic and authoritarian.

Norway earned the highest score on the Democracy Index, a near perfect 9.93. Other top democratic countries include Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark and Canada.

North Korea ranked the lowest, with a score of 1.08. The authoritarian governments of Syria, Chad, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Turkmenistan rounded out the bottom of the list.
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