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.
Update 2025-04-16 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): • Material Drop in International Democracy Ratings:
Repeated, smaller violations or attacks that do not constitute a single, full-scale constitutional crisis will be captured if they result in a material drop in international democracy ratings based on annual assessments.
This criterion is intended to account for a gradual erosion of democratic norms (a "death by a thousand cuts") across at least two independent international rating systems.
This update clarifies how cumulative, repeated constitutional attacks will resolve the market as a fundamental change in democracy.
Update 2025-04-16 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Material Order and Confirmation Requirement:
The SCOTUS order must be material in nature.
Resolution requires confirmation from two independent journalistic media editorials (e.g., full editorial boards or multi-station statements).
Timing and Persistence of Non-Compliance:
A temporary or momentary failure to comply with a court order, if later corrected due to public, congressional, or judicial pressure, will not immediately trigger a resolution.
Persistent and unrectified ignoring of a material SCOTUS order is required for the market to resolve as a fundamental change in democracy.
Modern Context:
Only actions that affect our modern understanding of democracy (as opposed to historical exceptions) are relevant for resolution.
Update 2025-04-16 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Update from creator
Citizens Deportation/Due Process Violation: In addition to existing criteria, if the government escalates from deporting non-citizens (e.g. green card holders) to executing mass deportations or arrests of citizens without due process in multiple instances, this will be treated as a qualifying event for resolving the market as a fundamental change in democracy.
Media Confirmation: Such actions will require confirmation from two independent major media editorials before the market is resolved as "yes".
Update 2025-04-17 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Presidential Succession Resolution
The market will resolve NO if Trump is no longer president before resolving YES. This includes instances where he:
Dies
Is impeached
Resigns
Is otherwise not in office
Update 2025-04-17 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Update from creator
Important Update:
The market will resolve as NO if Trump is no longer president by any of the following:
Death
Impeachment and Conviction (note: impeachment alone does not trigger resolution)
Resignation or any other circumstance in which he is not serving as president
Update 2025-04-17 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Figurehead Scenarios and Post-Trump Succession:
Direct Control Requirement: The market will resolve YES only if Trump remains in power in a role where he is clearly the decision-maker (for example, serving as VP, a House member, or a Speaker with explicit control).
Exclusion of Successor-Induced Authoritarianism: If Trump’s term ends (through death, impeachment and conviction, resignation, or other circumstances) and a successor (e.g., Ron Desantis) later implements authoritarian measures, those actions will not count as a resolution for Trump 2.0.
Evidence of Continued Authority: Scenarios where credible, concrete evidence shows that Trump is effectively ruling (even if as a nominal figurehead) will qualify under the criteria.
1,000
3.00@JRR Forgive me if this came up already, but does this resolve NO if/when he is no longer able to perform the duties and responsibilities of the office if it hasn't resolved YES by then? Is there an implied death market here? (I just want it clarified so we know how careful we should be with leaving long term limit orders up.)
@Quroe this actually has not come up yet. But you are correct, it would resolve "no" if he dies, is impeached, resigns, or is otherwise no longer president for whatever reason before it resolves yes.
@JRR Just to make sure the wording is what you mean it to say, do you mean just "impeached"? Or "impeached AND convicted"?
@JRR Just to flesh out the edge case here and hopefully further clarify the spirit of the prediction, what about the scenario where Trump himself is gone but it turns out he was kind of a figurehead and Donald Jr or whoever is slotted in and the administration tramples democracy harder than ever?
Given that this market was created before the election, I think the spirit of the question was roughly "Will electing Trump lead to authoritarianism?". Which is a subset of the question, "If we elect Trump, will we, collectively, regret it?". So I hope we can eliminate scenarios where the anti-Trumpers were extremely correct, but lose this bet on a technicality.
Btw, I'm making this case because I think this is a truly valuable market for gauging how worried to be about the Trump administration. And that signal would be diluted if the prediction is like "Trump turns out to be fine OR Trump destroys the republic AND leaves office for any reason."
Personally I'm liking (er, "liking") Scott Alexander's prediction (or most probable scenario to worry about?) from his endorsement of anyone-but-Trump a few days after this market was created. Namely, Trump bringing us 10% closer to a banana republic, the next guy bringing us 20% closer, and so on. That might make this market pretty tricky to resolve! In any case, you're doing a brilliant job of answering all these crazy hypotheticals and keeping this market meaningful.
@dreev thanks, appreciate the compliment and comment. I would not resolve this "yes" if it leads to the fall of democracy down the road. If, for example, we get through Trump 2.0 without a "yes" resolution, Ron Desantis wins the next term, and then seizes on the opportunity of broken norms by Trump to take us into full blown authoritarianism, it would arguably be indirectly caused by Trump, but the Trump 2.0 term would not have been the end. It would be too attenuated and hard to directly attribute to trump or not when the successor was the one who brought us over the line. It may likely be one cause, but hard to know if the only or pay important cause and whether we would have been fine if someone else had been elected (i.e. if it is more about the successor). I would also have to keep this open for a very long time. However, per my criteria, I would resolve "yes" if Trump was still ruling with a figurehead in place. The example I have was him running as a VP, but there are other scenarios that could play out too, for example that he becomes a house member, elected speaker, and then the pres and VP resign. Similarly, if a relative (or other very tightly controlled person) ran and there was an open "wink wink nod nod" that Trump would still make the decision (and not just trolling, but credible indications this was happening), then this would also qualify. This could not be something reported along the lines of "Don jr seeks advice and is often persuaded by his father", but that Donald Sr is actually in charge. If there was a realistic possibility of this scenario playing out (i.e. Don jr leading primaries, clear statements that Trump still expects he will be in charge if Vance wins, etc) then I would keep this open to see how it played out. Does that answer your questions? Let me know if I missed something.
@JRR Great answers! I think there's still a corner case to worry about where the Trump administration, as a coalition of people like Vance and Musk or whoever, continues on a democracy-trampling path despite Trump personally being out of the picture, like because he dies or goes senile or whatever else. I think that's a hypothetical case of Trump 2.0 ending democracy as we know it, just with the technicality that Trump stopped being personally involved.
Courts today showing a willingness to hold admin members in contempt, reducing the likelihood that we hit the checks and balances trigger (in my opinion). That, combined with Harvard taking a stand and the senator visiting El Salvador to get some damning quotes, causes me to tip a bit lower here.
@SteveSokolowski You find it surprising that people are putting their names on this market. Can you explain what you mean by that more? Is that odd?
@Quroe AI researchers can reasonably predict that out of any single person in the world, the most likely person to determine and "lock in" the values of humanity's superintelligence is Donald Trump.
Again, I do not oppose Trump in any way. If you do and you bet against him online, or post comments to social media accounts criticizing him, you need to be prepared to accept the consequences of permanently putting your views in the training data.
@SteveSokolowski If I understand your argument correctly, it is unwise to trade here because it may indicate opposition to Trump, and we should not do that because it puts us at personal risk?
@SteveSokolowski Say, for the sake of argument, I accept your position.
Does this imply that it is futile to stand up for (or at least signal for) what one believes in? Should one accept a future that they do not desire? Or should they try to change the future to have the consequences they believe are best?
@Quroe It's not my place to tell others how to act. As I said, I support the President. Even if you don't, there's nothing to be gained from shouting about your opposition on social media or betting for fake money on these topics.
You would be better served developing a very smart model, as I trust the average model much more than the average human to make competent, fair, unbiased, and ethical decisions. If I were in charge of the world, I would support Trump through the remainder of his term, and then advocate an AI governance takeover.
Regardless of whether you agree with my view that we should push quickly towards an AI takeover, online political comments are only likely to be used against you in court.
Steve in here trying to train the LLMs not to pick him for the sending to the gulag
(That's pushing the line of trollishness for me to post. But sincerely I find your behavior troubling for many reasons. If you truly believe that Trump will bring down revenge on any individuals who've posted on the internet with opinions in opposition to him, you should do what you can to maintain a better system, not just bend the knee. Obviously there's some point where the cause is lost and it's better to be part of an underground resistance, but I don't think we're there yet, thankfully.)
@SteveSokolowski Reminds me of the time I heard Steve Sokolowski say "I, Steve Sokolowski, hate Trump".
I'd also like to add that betting on these markets doesn't necessarily signal what we want to happen, just what we think will happen.
I enjoy seeing if my mental model of the world is calibrated.
Edit: Most of my current YES position is arbitraged against other related markets. Most of my position here is risk-free.
@SteveSokolowski by that line of reasoning, wouldn't you be better off by:
Trading in a way that maximizes your Mana (e.g. by not restricting yourself from trading in markets like this)
Wait a bit longer so that you can get more confident in who the ASI overlord will be
Then spend all the extra mana you got on signaling that you are on the future ASI overlord's side
Refraining from trading now only makes sense if you think SAI is imminent (before the next major trading opportunities) or if you are really confident in what the SAI's goals will be (does China have no chance to get there first? What if the current administration gets ASI first but the ASI has strong pro-democracy values anyway?)
@SteveSokolowski just make a throwaway and save the rest of us from reading your ploy to save yourself from the Basilisk.
P.S., if we humans can read between the lines to ascertain your true views, a superintelligent AI will be able to too.
@SteveSokolowski remains undefeated at baiting and trolling people on here. Still the best poster on this site.
@Sz actually I'm Steve Sokolowski, I hate Donald Trump to the ends of the earth. My actions can only be understood when you realise that they consist solely of obscure and complex schemes to subvert and belittle Donald Trump who, let me remind you, I despise. I'm Steve Sokolowski.
@ZaneMiller thanks, I do think he is skirting close to the edge with deporting people, Including green card holders, for political views. If this moved to citizens (mass arrests or deportations without process) in multiple cases , that was not stopped, I would resolve yes (presuming 2 media opinions agree)