Freedom House 2018 FREEDOM Index

[WMS]

List of changes: The Gambia and Uganda (?) transitioned from Not Free to Party Free, Timor-Leste went from Partly Free to Free, and both Zimbabwe and Turkey downgraded from Partly Free to Not Free.

There is an explanation:

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The change is in spite of Uganda's government, not because of it.

The United States' "Political Rights" score has been downgraded from "1" to "2".

This is the first time since the annual Freedom in the World report was first published in 1973 that the U.S. doesn't get a 1/1 rating on both Political Rights and Civil Liberties.


Reason given on Freedom House's website:

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Yep. A note, though: this didn't just suddenly happen - the U.S. declined during Obama's presidency as well. See the "Trajectory of the United States" chart at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018. The U.S. was on the edge of this 2 already, then Trump pushed the U.S. over the edge. No U.S. avatar should be feeling good about the past 10 years at all...