Ralph speaks to Dr. Marina Nord of the V-Dem Institute about this year's V-Dem Democracy Report and how the Trump Administration is dismantling democracy in the US. Then, Ralph welcomes Dr. Ralph Estes to discuss corporations' shady accounting practices.
Dr. Marina Nord is a postdoctoral research fellow at the V-Dem Institute. She is co-author of V-Dem’s Democracy Report 2026: “Unraveling The Democratic Era?”.
Only six countries during the 21st century have registered larger one-year drops on the aggregate Liberal Democracy Index [than the United States] —and all of them are coups. If you look at the last almost 250 years (so for which we have data going back to 1789), there were only thirty-five instances of more rapid dismantling of democracy—almost all of them were either military coups or international interventions.
Dr. Marina Nord
We do not measure [Trump’s] words. We measure how institutions function de facto. And what is a lot more important for us is not only what he says, but how other institutions (checks and balances) function to constrain him. And one of the things that we see, for example, is that Congress is not constraining him in any way. And this is very, very serious, because if you have a President who violates the law, who violates the Constitution, you should have the judiciary who stand up, the Supreme Court who should stand up to protect the Constitution. You should have the Congress who is not allowed to [abdicate power to the executive]. And this is something that is very, very concerning, a lot more concerning than what Trump is saying. What I find a lot more concerning is that there are no checks and balances to constrain him.
Dr. Marina Nord
When looking at the data, we also looked at the countries who managed to stop autocrats similar to Trump. And we tried to analyze which factors contributed to stopping democratic backsliding and turning it around. So research shows that, of course, there is no single recipe, but there are several combinations of factors that may help. One of them is: use whatever institutional safeguards that you still have in the United States…The second thing that we know that still works quite well is robust societal action. And by that we mean not only demonstrations similar to the No Kings protests, but sustained protests, mass pro-democracy protests…And then, of course, one of the things that still should be a possibility to turn things around is the midterm elections.
Dr. Marina Nord
Dr. Ralph Estes is Emeritus professor of business and accounting at American University in Washington, D.C., co-founder and vice president of The Center for Advancement of Public Policy, and Emeritus Trustee at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the author of several books, including Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good People Do Bad Things and Fight the Corpocracy, Take Back Democracy: A Mad As Hell Guide for the 99%.
The public has no way of fairly evaluating a corporation except through the press, what it sees in corporate press releases and their claims about being, for example, environmentally responsible and very favorable to customers. And there are no measures on that. Corporation doesn’t give us any. Corporation produces a set of financial statements. You won’t know how relevant those financial statements are to you and me. They’re not relevant at all… In terms of social performance, there’s nothing in the corporate reports, the formal reports, that is reliable. Again, you’re stuck with what the corporation claims or what the politicians who are lobbying for contributions will admit corporations do… But this is a problem. If the corporation doesn’t report it, if the citizens don’t know about it, the politicians can try to do something, but they have to start from scratch.
Dr. Ralph Estes
News 5/15/26
We begin this week with a bombshell story from Latin America. This week, El País broke what they are calling “Hondurasgate,” an expose centering on leaked audio recordings of conversations between President Donald Trump, Argentinian President Javier Milei and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández – who was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison on drug trafficking charges in the U.S. but pardoned by Trump last year. In these leaked recordings, the three current and former heads of state discuss the creation of a “channel of spreading fake news with the intention of misinforming and destabilizing” Leftist governments in the region, including those of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico. According to this report, the leaks reveal the involvement of another world leader – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – in the decision to pardon Hernández. El País writes the leaks prove the pardoning of Hernández was “not a gesture of clemency, but the down payment of a broader agreement.” Expect more damning information to come out as more recordings are unearthed, even if so far the American media has largely blacked out this stunning story.
At the same time the Trump administration is seeking to subtly undermine governments like Mexico’s, they are executing considerably less subtle covert operations there as well. On March 28th, an explosion blew up the car of alleged narco Francisco Beltran just outside Mexico City. CNN now reports that, while “Mexican authorities have maintained extreme secrecy around the explosion,” multiple sources confirm that this was “a targeted assassination,” carried out by the CIA. Not only that, this operation is reportedly just one of several assassinations carried out by the CIA against rank-and-file cartel members on foreign soil which began last year. Troublingly, CNN notes these operations could be illegal under Mexican law, which prohibits foreign agents from participating in law enforcement operations without the express permission of the federal government. Omar Garcia Harfuch, Mexico’s Secretary of Security released a statement indicating that the Mexican government has not granted any such permission, writing “The Government of Mexico categorically rejects any version that seeks to normalize, justify, or suggest the existence of lethal, covert, or unilateral operations by foreign agencies on national territory.”
One ironic aspect of the joint right-wing destabilization effort and CIA covert operations campaign both currently underway in Mexico is the fact that the Sheinbaum government has affected a stunning reduction in murders throughout the country. According to Mexico Solidarity Media, the daily average of intentional homicides has been reduced by 40% between the beginning of the Sheinbaum administration in October 2024 and April 30, 2026, with that last month hitting the lowest level in over a decade – comparable in fact to the United States. We can only hope that Sheinbaum is able to stay the course and continue to drive down the murder rate while simultaneously avoiding the destabilization campaigns being waged against her government.
In Colombia, another state targeted in the Hondurasgate plot, Ivan Cepeda continues to consolidate progressive forces in that country ahead of the presidential election, aiming for a first round victory. This week, Luis Gilberto Murillo, a center-left presidential candidate, dropped out and endorsed Cepeda. While Murillo never rose very high in the polls, he has held high positions in the Colombian government – including Minister of Environment and governor of the department of Choco as well as Colombia’s ambassador to the United States and later foreign minister under Gustavo Petro.
Colombia One notes that this is the second such withdrawal in recent weeks, with Senator Clara López doing the same, indicating a serious intention among the progressive forces in Colombia to stave off a second round of the presidential election, which could see the right-wing consolidate against Cepeda in a way they have thus far been unable to do ahead of the first round.
Meanwhile, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, a standard bearer for the Latin American Right and a close ally of President Trump, is mired in a new scandal involving his dealings with the MS-13 gang and his ensuing attempts to silence the press. According to PBS, last month the Salvadoran outlet El Faro, in conjunction with PBS FRONTLINE released a documentary titled The Deal: Trump, Bukele & the Gangs of El Salvador, which “uncovered evidence that Bukele’s administration had offered privileges to gang leaders in prison in exchange for a reduction in homicides and voter support in territories the gangs controlled.” Now, in retaliation for publishing this story, Bukele has reportedly “frozen the personal assets of two of [El Faro’s] shareholders,” including editor-in-chief Carlos Dada who said in a press conference that “These are not fiscal measures…They are political measures trying to silence us.” This article notes that the facts presented in The Deal are particularly damning to Bukele, because of his public claims that he “would never negotiate with gangs” because it would grant them legitimacy. Just as it is ironic that the Trump administration is seeking to destabilize the Mexican government while it dramatically reduces murders, so too is it ironic that it is seeking to bolster the Bukele regime even as it carries out secretive deals with the very gangs the U.S. claims to be fighting.
In a wholly different part of the world, the centrist Labour Party government of Keir Starmer in the UK is teetering on the brink of collapse. Starmer’s popularity has been declining precipitously ever since he entered office, but the crisis of confidence from within his own party accelerated after the disastrous results of the May 7th local elections. Now, according to CNN, over 100 members of his party in Parliament are calling for him to resign, but the only way to trigger a leadership challenge is for at least 81 Labour MPs to coalesce around a single challenger – and as yet, none have crossed that threshold. Starmer himself has refused to stand down, challenging any other claimants to come forward. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has come the closest to openly challenging Starmer, even resigning his post in the government but stopping short of formally announcing a leadership challenge, the BBC reports. For now, Starmer continues to cling to power but each day could be his last at No. 10.
Turning to American foreign policy news, this week the Senate voted down yet another War Powers Resolution on Iran – the seventh such attempt since the war began in late February. What is notable about this resolution is that it won the support of the most GOP Senators yet – Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – yet still failed by a margin of 50-49 because Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania crossed party lines to vote against the resolution. This from CBS. Even with Fetterman’s disloyalty, this vote is significant for the number of Republicans who broke ranks, perhaps indicating a growing unease with the war and particularly its impact on the price of consumer goods, beginning with gasoline and cascading from there.
In more congressional news, Southern states are scrambling to act in the wake of the Callais decision. In South Carolina and Mississippi, state officials have rejected attempts to call special sessions to redraw congressional maps before this year’s midterms. But, NPR reports Alabama is moving towards a new map that, like Louisiana, will likely include just one single largely Black, Democratic-leaning congressional district. However, even though some of these states are holding off on redrawing these districts today, it does not mean those districts will be safe tomorrow. And in Tennessee, where the legislature is moving ahead with a plan to do away with the state’s majority Black 9th congressional district in a special session – resulting in a revolt by Democrats in the legislature – the Republicans are retaliating by stripping all Democrats from their standing committee seats for “creating disorder,” per StateAffairs.com. Expect this process to get more contentious, and plain uglier, as it grinds ahead.
Next, a story in Fortune highlights the cost of data center construction. According to this story, the nearly 50,000 permanent residents of the California ski resort town of Lake Tahoe – which regularly attracts 25 to 28 million visitors annually – will soon be disconnected from their traditional power source, NV Energy. NV supplies the power to Liberty Utilities, which services the area directly, and NV has informed Liberty that it will stop providing power after May 2027. That power will instead be redirected to data centers, leaving Liberty Utilities less than a year to find another power source. This story notes that “Northern Nevada has become one of the fastest-growing data-center corridors in the country,” with Google, Apple, and Microsoft all having built or planning to build facilities in the area. Gallingly, just last fall NV Energy’s director of business development said the company was “eager to serve the new industrial load” but that it would not “impact [their] existing customer base.” This is a troubling preview of what may come as data center expansion continues unchecked.
Finally, in a story that proves once again that corporate greed knows no limits, the Lever is out with a new report on a class-action lawsuit by consumers against “private equity-backed bowling giant Bowlero.” According to the Lever, the suit accuses Bowlero of executing a “‘multi-year anticompetitive scheme to consolidate bowling centers,’ which has led to skyrocketing bowling prices, deteriorating lanes, and ‘the veritable destruction of the decades-old pastime of bowling in America.’” The numbers back up this narrative. Bowlero, which had just six locations in 2012, has exploded to 350 today. The company is said to control roughly 35 percent of U.S. bowling revenue – and 95% of all lanes in some markets – as well as acquiring the Professional Bowling Association itself. As with any monopoly, once it had cornered the market Bowlero proceeded to jack up prices, even using AI to do so algorithmically. In a sense, this is a story we have all heard too many times to be surprised, but we can still be shocked by the base greed of corporate executives, even in something as seemingly anodyne as the bowling industry.
This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.
