In the short period which has elapsed since Donald Trump took office (again) in January, he has slashed public health funding, gone after education, attacked media freedom, and challenged the authority of the legal system of the courts.

Some of this seems outright reckless, but some of the actions taken by this Trump administration mirror the political trajectories of countries like Hungary, el Salvador, Turkey, and Russia. Countries where democracy has crumbled and autocracy has taken hold.

Katie Stallard is joined by Kim Lane Scheppele, a scholar of law and politics at Princeton University and Lucan Way, distinguished professor of democracy at the University of Toronto.

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