By Roger Abbiss

Trump is a disaster — but the greater disaster is the system that enabled his rise. His presidency isn’t an anomaly; it’s a symptom of a broken global order. We, in the West, have been living under the illusion of security while wars rage in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Africa. But war is just one piece of the global metacrisis. Democracy has been eroding for decades, authoritarian leaders are gaining power, the climate crisis deepens, and dangerous AI development rushes ahead unchecked. Each of these poses a catastrophic risk.

These crises aren’t new. But for many of us, they felt distant — until now.

The Trump presidency lays bare the lie that we ever had a real rules-based international order. Certainly not an enduring one. Let’s be honest: war is the defining feature of our international ‘order.’ We had a few decades of relative calm after WWII, and a few more post-Cold War. The end of history, we were told. Trump got himself elected leader of the most powerful nation on the planet by deceiving voters. His victory was fuelled by nearly $300 million from Elon Musk, now an unelected official, behaving like the actual president. When a handful of billionaires rule, the system of government is appropriately called an oligarchy, not a democracy. Trump didn’t take power through some great democratic mandate. He rode a system controlled by billionaires, corporate interests, and media manipulation.

War is the Defining Feature of International ‘Order’

America is the most powerful country in the world by far, spending almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined. It has 750 military bases in 80 countries. And now, the most powerful military force in history is in the hands of a man who openly admires dictators.

Trump wants to annex Canada, reclaim the Panama Canal, force Gaza migration for real estate development, invade Greenland, abandon Ukraine, and break up the NATO alliance. Absurd? Maybe. But in today’s political reality, the absurd is often just a few tweets away from policy.

The powerhouse that is the U.S. is now in the hands of a wannabe king and a billionaire puppet master. They may have the power to pull off their dreams of absolute power. More likely, they will spark another world war with their reckless, foolish attempts. We cannot survive another world war. As Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Electoral Democracy’s Fatal Flaws

Trump’s presidency exposes deep, fundamental flaws in our electoral system. With few exceptions, we complain that the choices on offer every election day are uninspired. As a result, fewer and fewer of us vote. It is not a coincidence that democracies are in decline around the world. A key reason why democracies are not working is the near impossibility of attracting competent people of good character to positions of power. Many people who seek office do so for the right reasons. But far too many attracted to politics are narcissistic sociopaths with Machiavellian tendencies. We must figure out how to get wise people, willing and able to serve the common good, into crucial positions of power.

When asked, most people equate democracy with voting. But democracy does not necessarily imply elections. In fact, in ancient Athenian democracy, a method called sortition was often used, whereby representatives were chosen at random, similar to how juries are selected today.

Our electoral system is riddled with problems. The influence of money corrupts election campaigns. The best-qualified individuals often avoid running due to the brutal and demeaning nature of the process. Political parties create sharp divisions instead of fostering cooperation. Relentless re-election campaigns distract representatives from actually governing. Name recognition leads to celebrity politicians and political dynasties.

Aristotle warned against electoral democracy, arguing that it assumes all people are equal in their ability to govern. He believed that leadership should be reserved for those who are both competent and concerned for the common good. Today, we see precisely what he feared — populist leaders gaining power across the globe.

Allowing the wrong types of people to achieve positions of great power may be our biggest mistake.

This is not an argument against democracy itself but rather against an outdated system of choosing our representatives. Imagine a government with wise, kind, competent representatives and brilliant leaders. We need to explore variations of sortition, citizen assemblies, or other democratic methods to ensure we get wise people of good character in place to represent us. The current electoral system ensures the opposite.

Existential Threats Demand Urgent Action

We were already in a decades-long existential predicament before Trump was elected. Most of us feel, in the pit of our stomachs, that something is really wrong. But feeling helpless, we push it aside and carry on. Now, our attention is constantly hijacked by headline after headline, drowning out the larger, more urgent issues facing the planet.

But existential threats — given that they threaten our very existence — must be resolved. And paradoxically, Trump just might be the catalyst. His madness might be the trigger for united action.

Nuclear war, climate collapse, and unchecked AI development each pose a direct existential threat to life on Earth. Meanwhile, people are preoccupied with rising prices, housing affordability, and recession fears. It’s not that these issues don’t matter — but they become irrelevant if our civilization collapses.

The Big Problems Cannot Be Solved Nation-States

The major global crises we face are not being resolved by our current institutions. What we need to recognize is that they cannot be resolved by our current political institutions. National governments lack the scale, jurisdiction, incentive, and coordination to address problems that transcend borders.

Take climate change. With the stroke of a pen, Trump has hobbled the clean energy transition at a time when urgent action is needed. Further, gutting environmental regulations and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement will give the U.S. an actual or perceived competitive advantage over its rivals. Other nations will be under pressure to do the same. Rival states will be less willing to implement necessary GHG emissions reductions as it would put them at an economic and political disadvantage to the U.S. and others who do not. This is not a new problem, but Trump’s moves exacerbate it. The same dynamic (it’s called a multipolar trap) plays out with the nuclear arms race and the development of artificial intelligence. Trump recently repealed a sensible 2023 law that placed some responsibility on AI companies for harmful AI outcomes. His stated reason is that it would put Silicon Valley at a disadvantage to Chinese AI developers. That may be true.

Even when there is a sincere desire to ‘do the right thing,’ the forces of this dynamic prevent it. It prevents us from taking the corrective actions necessary to save ourselves. It actually creates a cascading, self-terminating system. Looked at through a narrow economic lens, it appears to make sense. But ultimately, multipolar traps condemn our species to extinction.

We need a global system whereby everyone has to play by the same rules, and those rules need to be enforceable by a properly democratic global authority, where we widen the aperture fully — to see all of the repercussions of all of our decisions–to ensure our very survival.

These problems require enforceable global laws and global institutions with real authority to implement them. And yet, no such institutions exist. The UN, despite good intentions, is flawed by an undemocratic construction and the permanent veto power of a select handful of nations. Consequently, it has been unable to live up to its primary purpose: to prevent war. Nor can the UN solve our other existential crises. Eight decades of reform attempts have failed. Expecting the most powerful nations on Earth to surrender any control voluntarily has proven a losing bet.

Ceding Sovereignty to Survive

The fundamental problem is absolute sovereignty at the nation-state level. When no nation is accountable to enforceable supranational laws, anarchy rules. Anarchy at the global level with nuclear arsenals, an overheating planet, and unfettered AI is like playing a game of Russian roulette with all but one chamber loaded. The Trump administration’s America First policy, an embrace of absolute sovereignty, dramatically increases the risk of world catastrophe.

Absolute sovereignty fuels war, blocks climate action, and hinders solutions to AI risk and other crises. But most leaders of nation-states are loath to relinquish any sovereignty. They don’t understand that limiting sovereignty doesn’t equate to a loss — it results in a net gain. Ask any individual who feels safe walking down the street at night, protected by laws against theft and violence. Would they prefer absolute personal sovereignty, where everyone is free to act without constraint? Of course not. Sensible legal limitations enhance freedom by creating a secure environment.

The same principle applies to nations. War quite obviously ought to be against the law. A global Supreme Court decision, not war, would be the final arbiter in a conflict between nations — just like it is for parties in conflict within a nation-state.

A democratic World Federation with limited but enforceable authority over existential threats would not erase national identities, languages, or cultures. It would simply provide the global governance necessary for survival.

We nearly did the right thing in 1945. But instead of building a truly democratic global authority, the UN was fraught with structural flaws — permanent veto power, lack of enforceability, and an undemocratic framework. We need to do it right this time. A properly democratic institution of the people. Not a League of Nations, not a United Nations, but rather a United Peoples.

A Movement for Global Change

A democratic World Federation of, by, and for the people is not a wild-eyed utopian fantasy but rather, as Einstein said in 1946, the “only way out.” His reference was, of course, to the nuclear arms threat, but his insight now also applies to other existential threats.

Establishing a World Federation is a daunting task, both technically possible–and about as difficult as you can imagine. That said, these are exceptional times, and a recent survey of over 42,000 people in 17 countries lead by Oxford Junior Research Fellow Dr. Farsan Ghassim suggests world populations now overwhelmingly favour a democratic world government to deal with global issues. And the success of civil resistance is not theoretical — it has been demonstrated time and time again. Over the past century, non-violent civil resistance movements have almost always proven effective if they can cross the 3.5% participation threshold (according to the 2011 book “Why Civil Resistance Works” by Harvard professor Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan). And those movements accomplished dramatic change, often toppling governments, including authoritarian ones. In contrast to a dramatic revolution at the nation-state level, we are merely asking leaders to cede limited sovereignty to the World Federation — solely on global existential issues that they are incapable of resolving on their own.

The 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests showcased just how rapidly a movement can gain momentum, spreading to hundreds of cities across more than 80 countries within weeks. Similarly, the Arab Spring uprisings demonstrated how swiftly large-scale change can unfold. Although inspiring, neither movement achieved lasting success — Occupy struggled with unclear demands, while the Arab Spring lacked a well-structured transition plan. The World Federation movement has clear, concrete demands and an in-progress transition plan that is fundamental to its strategy.

Non-violent Civil Resistance is the Only Viable Strategy

For a global shift of this magnitude, non-violent resistance is the only path forward. Even in authoritarian regimes, perhaps especially in authoritarian regimes, armed revolutions are only half as effective as peaceful ones: violent revolutions divide people, lead to war and fragmentation, and often result in renewed authoritarianism rather than democracy. In contrast, non-violent civil resistance can force even the most powerful institutions to yield — not by violence, but by removing the very cooperation and legitimacy they need to function. And in a peaceful movement, many, many more people, from young students to grandparents, from the under-employed to the professionals, are prepared to get involved.

Governments depend on the consent of their people. If that consent is withdrawn at sufficient scale — through a multiplicity of civil resistance tactics and the establishment of an alternative global governance structure — then the transition to a democratic world government will not be a battle, but an inevitability.

So it is left to us. If we organize and turn out in great numbers peacefully demanding change, success is nearly assured. This is a positive movement for positive change. We can even enjoy the process. If we each do just a little bit, the cumulative effect will be transformative.

We often look back on fallen civilizations and wonder why. Why couldn’t they see it coming? It looks so obvious in hindsight. Why didn’t they act? Now that very question stares us unblinkingly in the face.

History will remember this moment. Did we stand by and watch as the world burned, or did we unite to save ourselves?

A better world is possible — but only if we choose to make it happen.

Roger Abbiss is the founder and director of the non-profit World United, a nonviolent global grassroots movement to establish a World Federation. More info at worldunited.net