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* (See below for further clarification)

  • 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.

Update 4/2/25: Given Trump's recent statements regarding running for a third term, I thought I should provide some more details/clarity on how I would resolve "runs for a third term" in my resolution criteria from above.  In order for this to resolve "yes", he must successfully run for a third term (not "win", but successfully run).  An attempt to run is only an attempt to subvert the constitution.  If it is stopped, then our checks and system held and thwarted the attempt.  Just as an attempted military coup would not be the end of our democracy, unless it succeeded.   Thus, it is not enough for Trump to declare, file the paperwork and start campaigning.  As long as his run is stopped by either the Republican Party, congress, state government, the courts or public backlash, then our system held.  So when would I declare the attempt was not able to be stopped and has thus succeeded?   The line would be if Trump gets on the primary ballot and is an option when the first primaries are held (caucuses are weird, so would not count that) and/or is an option on enough primary ballots to be selected as a candidate (should he lose the early decisions but is let on to the later ballots).  If he decides to run as an independent or other third party, the same would hold if he was on sufficient ballots for the actual national election. By that time, there would have been plenty of opportunity for him to be stopped via republican party (not inviting him to participate in debates or other official process), state action (not allowing on ballots, etc), congressional action (e.g. Impeachment),  court injunction, or public backlash.  If none of those stop him and he is a viable option for voting at the start of the primary (or later becomes an option in the primary process), I would consider our system to enforce the constitution to have failed.  Note, if a couple of deep red state midway through the primary adds him to the ballot despite one of these checks as a more symbolic measure (i.e. there is no real chance of him getting the nomination considering he has been removed everywhere else or dropped out), this would not count.  

Two other points of clarification on this item.  If the constitution is changed to allow him to run for another term, I would still resolve this as "yes." Given modern history has had term limits and our democracy as we know it now relies on that, and to then repeal/modify the 22nd amendment specifically for one person would be a change to our agreed principles for one person that we have not done for anyone else. It is one thing to change it on a future basis, but to do it for a specific person to continue to serve as leader, would be essentially be enshrining him as a "king" or "dictator". Also, such a change would most likely be done through representative electors (either congress or state legislatures) and not through an actual direct will of the people (i.e. it could be done by a small number of influential people who are close to the president and influenced by him). So, 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". Similarly, if SCOTUS made a decision that the 22nd amendment does not forbid him from running again, I would resolve "yes." Given there is a very clear reading of the constitution that all legal scholars and really no reasonable person could interpret otherwise, then I feel a 6-3 conservative court that so blatantly redefines the interpretation of the constitution for the benefit of allowing Trump to stay in power is an abdication of their role and check on the presidency, and thus is a fundamental change to our democracy as we know it.