Autocratic regimes often strategically employ democratic rhetoric to cultivate an image of legitimacy, both domestically and internationally, even while simultaneously undermining democratic institutions and civil liberties. While democratic language remains a common feature across autocratizing regimes, there is significant variation in how leaders invoke and manipulate core democratic concepts during their consolidation of power. This study examines how the semantic meaning of foundational democratic principles evolves throughout periods of democratic backsliding, and investigates the conditions under which leaders either persist with or abandon democratic rhetoric in favor of overtly authoritarian language. Using a word embeddings approach on an original corpus of political speeches, we analyze how changing external pressures, particularly international conditionality and investment partnerships, influence these rhetorical shifts. Our findings contribute to the public discourse perspective within the debate on contemporary autocratization processes and the erosion of democratic norms, while shedding light on the strategic calculus of would-be autocrats in maintaining regime legitimacy through discourse manipulation.