In a follow-up op-ed in the New York Times on May 11, 2025, Levitsky, Way and Daniel Ziblatt asserted that the United States had already become a competitive authoritarian regime. Anne Applebaum, in her work Autocracy, Inc., suggests that competitive authoritarian regimes often exhibit corrupt practices associated with kleptocracy, ranging from overt theft to more subtle forms of corruption. Levitsky, Way and Ziblatt define “competitive authoritarianism” as a regime that maintains the outward appearances of constitutional democracy. Is this newly established American competitive authoritarian regime irreversible? There are precedents where seemingly entrenched competitive authoritarian regimes have been ousted and constitutional democracy restored.