Journalists from countries that have seen challenges to democracy give their view on the second Trump presidency

What is the view of US democracy from abroad, and what can Americans learn from other nations with a history of political tumult?

During his first term Donald Trump tested democratic norms by undermining trust in fair elections, encouraging political violence and demonizing the media and public servants. He has promised to be a dictator “on day one” of his second term.

On Wednesday, Joe Biden gave a farewell address to the nation. If you missed it, you’re not alone. Biden has been drifting off into the history books with startling rapidity, his presidency already reduced to a footnote between Trumpian chapters, his person diminished to the point of irrelevancy.

As usual, Biden’s message was spot-on. Channeling Eisenhower and his warning of the rise of an unaccountable “military-industrial” complex, the outgoing president warned that America today is increasingly under the sway of the oligarchs spawned by a “tech-industrial complex.” These oligarchs, Biden noted, are using the high-tech infrastructure they control to corrode the public discourse, to confuse the public as to what is truth and what is falsehood, and to deliberately promote misinformation, all so that they can harvest more power and more wealth.

Since Donald Trump’s election victory, we have witnessed striking accommodations to his narrow win and mandate — what has been called anticipatory obedience.

Are we sleepwalking into an autocracy? We hope not, and we would be glad if the threat does not materialize. But as close observers of people and places where democracy has come under pressure and occasionally buckled, we see creeping autocracy as a distinct and underdiscussed possibility. We know well other nations, including Hungary and Poland, where leaders have steered policies that lead to a backsliding of democracy. We see eerie similarities between what transpired in those countries and what Mr. Trump and his transition team have already done and promise to do.