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U.S. retains middle-of-the-pack freedom ranking

Statue of Liberty
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The good news for the United States in the latest survey of political freedom around the world: Things haven't gotten any worse. But the country remains mired in the middle tier of "free" countries when it comes to political rights and civil liberties.

The Freedom in the World 2020 report, produced by Freedom House, ranks the United States 53rd among 84 countries described as "free" (as opposed to "partly free" or "not free"), sandwiched between Slovakia and Belize. The previous edition put the country just one notch better, in 52nd place, although the nation's overall score was the same both years.


As in 2019, the report blames the nation's overall decline on the Trump administration, accusing it of failing to emphasize democracy and human rights in its foreign policy.

"Balancing specific security and economic considerations with human rights concerns has been difficult for every administration, but the balance has grown especially lopsided of late," the report states, continuing:

"This problem has been compounded by efforts to undermine democratic norms and standards within the United States over the past several years, including pressure on electoral integrity, judicial independence, and safeguards against corruption. Fierce rhetorical attacks on the press, the rule of law, and other pillars of democracy coming from American leaders, including the president himself, undermine the country's ability to persuade other governments to defend core human rights and freedoms, and are actively exploited by dictators and demagogues."

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Freedom House scored countries in 25 categories, each worth up to 4 points. The United States received a total score of 86, earning 3 or 4 points in every indicator but one: whether "laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population."

On that marker, the United States received only 2 points, noting that "women and some minority groups continue to suffer from disparities on various indicators, and a number of recent government policies have infringed on the fundamental rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants."

Read the full report.

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Joe Biden being interviewed by Lester Holt

The day after calling on people to “lower the temperature in our politics,” President Biden resort to traditionally divisive language in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt.

YouTube screenshot

One day and 28 minutes

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

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One day.

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This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, is an ambitious manifesto to redesign the federal government and its many administrative agencies to support and sustain neo-conservative dominance for the next decade. One of the agencies in its crosshairs is the Department of Labor, as well as its affiliated agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Project 2025 proposes a remake of the Department of Labor in order to roll back decades of labor laws and rights amidst a nostalgic “back to the future” framing based on race, gender, religion and anti-abortion sentiment. But oddly, tucked into the corners of the document are some real nuggets of innovative and progressive thinking that propose certain labor rights which even many liberals have never dared to propose.

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Former President Donald Trump speaks at the 2024 Republican National Convention on July 18.

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