Nobel Committee Warns About Rising Authoritarianism as It Snubs Trump
The Nobel Committee delivered a sharp message on the global threat to democracy, as it awarded this year’s peace prize to Maria Corina Machado.

Passing over Donald Trump (in spite of his less-than-subtle appeals), the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday gave Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado the Nobel Peace Prize.
The award’s announcement cautioned that democratic backsliding is accelerating globally—a trend to which Trump has made no small contribution.
The Nobel Committee said it was recognizing Machado for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights” in an “authoritarian state.”
“Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace,” the committee stated. “However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are challenging norms and resorting to violence.”
The “same trends” of repression and consolidation of power seen in Venezuela are happening globally, the committee said: “rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarisation.
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” the committee continued.
In these warnings, it’s hard not to hear echoes of the United States today under Trump—the militarization of American cities, weaponization of government against political opponents, violations of civil liberties, deportation of dissidents, and attacks on the press, academia, and other institutions.
Last month, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a global democracy watchdog, reported that it had flagged twice as many instances of the U.S. government eroding or abolishing “rules, institutions, and norms” that shape American democracy in the first four months of Trump’s second term as in the previous two years. Examples included “efforts to restrict academic freedom, criminalize protest activity, question the legitimacy of certified elections, selectively restrict media access to the executive and circumvent due process norms.”