The Metaculus Democracy Threat Index

In recent posts on Trump and dictatorship, people have asked me - how do you know you’re not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome? I take this seriously; we’ve all lost loved ones to this condition. The best check on my reasoning would be an objective measure of the health of American democracy. There are several “democracy indices” that purport to do this, but they have a mixed reputation. My impression is that most current accusations of bias are relatively weak - I agree with Claude’s analysis here - but they rely enough on “expert” opinion that I don’t expect them to convince a skeptic.The newest entrant in this space - Metaculus Democracy Threat Index - works differently, and deserves a closer look.Metaculus is a “forecasting engine”- like a prediction market, except that no money changes hands. Forecasters who beat the crowd gain “reputation” and the right to have their future predictions upweighted. The final forecast comes from a proprietary algorithm that optimizes for…