Thread by @Yascha_Mounk

A bombshell report on democracies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia from @freedomhouse:

"There are fewer democracies in the region today than at any point since the annual report was launched in 1995."

And the pandemic is making things worse.

[Thread.]freedomhouse.org/report/nations…

In 2010, there were fifteen democracies in the region.

Today, there are only ten.

The most precipitous decline has come in Poland and Hungary; in fact, Hungary's descent from a supposedly consolidated democracy to a semi-consolidated democracy to a hybrid regime is unprecedented in the region.

But countries like Serbia have also deteriorated significantly.

The global democratic recession identified by @LarryDiamond is very much in evidence in the region.

In each of the past eleven years, more countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia experienced shifts away from than shifts towards democracy.

Trump has been very friendly to the Polish and Hungarian regimes. Many of America's leading conservative intellectuals still celebrate Orban.

Now, they face a stark choice: Will they stand side-by-side with someone who, according to nonpartisan experts, is, simply, a dictator?

Do read the full @freedomhouse report.

Especially if you are so ensconced in your ideological bubble that you still think Viktor Orban - the most successful enemy of democracy in the western world - is just an honest conservative.

[End.]