US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in civic freedoms

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sun 9 Mar 2025 20.00 EDT
Last modified on Sun 9 Mar 2025 20.02 EDT


The United States has been added to the Civicus Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries that the global civil rights watchdog believes are currently experiencing a rapid decline in civic freedoms.

Civicus, an international non-profit organization dedicated to “strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world”, announced the inclusion of the US on the non-profit’s first watchlist of 2025 on Monday, alongside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia. The watchlist is part of the Civicus Monitor, which tracks developments in civic freedoms across 198 countries. Other countries that have previously been featured on the watchlist in recent years include Zimbabwe, Argentina, El Salvador and the United Arab Emirates.

Mandeep Tiwana, co-secretary general of Civicus, said that the watchlist “looks at countries where we remain concerned about deteriorating civic space conditions, in relation to freedoms of peaceful assembly, association and expression”. The selection process, the website states, incorporates insights and data from Civicus’s global network of research partners and data.

The decision to add the US to the first 2025 watchlist was made in response to what the group described as the “Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation”. In the news release announcing the US’s addition, the organization cited recent actions taken by the Trump administration that they argue will likely “severely impact constitutional freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and association”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/09/watchlist-decline-civic-freedoms-civicus

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Link to Civicus March Watchlist - https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/

[Irish_Dem]

1. How many Americans care that we are losing our freedom and democracy?

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Unfortunately the term "democracy" is such a broad concept

that many are unable to apply it to anything "practical".

This is why you see the GOP narrowing it down by using the term "freedoms", which can be applied to a number of more tangible concepts dealing with "rights".

[Irish_Dem]

3. Most of the populace doesn't know the meaning of the world democracy.

They take it all for granted.

[Tonk]

4. A 50/50 nation..

Half of this country voted for Trump, and the other half have cherished the United States and our freedoms since its founding.

[CincyDem]

6. Technically...30% opted for democracy, 30% votes against, and 40% said...

…let’s sit back and see what happens if we let this degenerate toddler stick a fork in a 220v outlet while standing in a puddle of water.

We’re not sure he’ll really do it, we’re not sure if he does it’ll affect me, but we are sure the other candidate will still be a black woman after the election so I don’t think I like either choice…imma just gonna sit this one out.

So let’s…hand me another beer, switch on that rerun of Price is Right and let’s see what the toddler does.

———

Ok. 40% didn’t feel that way. Some meaningful percentage may have wanted to vote but were stymied by republican hurdles in the registration or actual voting processes. Some percent are struggling in unimaginable ways because republicans ignore their responsibilities to help care for the common good (vs gutting it at every opportunity).

But some (even if it was only 1% of the voting age population) said screw it, if he burns it down or if he doesn’t…makes no difference to me. The largest political block in this country may well be the Apathetic Party and we need to start peeling off some of it’s (non)voters to start rebuilding what survives this toddler.

[OldBaldy1701E]

7. I feel like that 40% knew what was going to happen.

Most of them anyway. Their thought was, "I don't like this anymore. Let's let the idiot burn it all down."

However, they have not thought this through. Change is desperately needed, but doing it as one would burn a piece of land to clear it leaves out the fact that the land won't be useable for a time. What can we do during that period?

Try to survive. Because we who are not in the uppermost percentage, socioeconomically speaking, are on our own. There will be no white knight riding up to save us. There will be no cavalry coming over the hill. We are left with two choices. Fight, or go to ground and try to survive.

That agency is correct. We are in a depression... of society, of community, of humanity. Our arrogance has spelled our doom as no one will help us once our system collapses. We were just too busy trying to rule the world.

Gods help us all.

[BadgerKid]

5. So much for T wishing for a Nobel Peace prize