Democracy Needs a Wellness Check

Archer's Line Podcast · Mar 19, 2026 · 8m

The other day, we did a wellness check on the First Amendment. But democracy in America itself needs a wellness check. We can see movement inside the house, but no one’s opening the door.

This week, a group of political scientists in Sweden who have spent more than a decade building the world’s most comprehensive democracy database put a number on what a lot of us have been feeling but couldn’t quite put into words. The Varieties of Democracy Institute — V-Dem, out of the University of Gothenburg — released its annual report, and the section on the United States reads less like an academic…