Trump’s election is not only a catastrophe for Americans, who will have to endure the Project 2025; it is also the end of the liberal order.

The liberal order is the structure put in place in the post-war era to resolve conflicts between states: through institutions such as the UN, the WHO and even the EU, it was hoped to put an end to the vicious circle of war. Inspired by the economic liberalism of the British, or the political liberalism of the Enlightenment, Bentham and Montesquieu believed that “commerce softens morals”. Westerners, admittedly hypocritically, carried the banner of democracy high for 80 years, fighting a Cold War that was tempered only for themselves. In the rest of the world, these principles clashed with African and Latin American nationalist narratives ^[1], which were legitimately seeking emancipation. But for fear that they would join the Soviets, these independence movements, which should have been supported by liberals, were nipped in the bud.

However, this ease with Western principles should not be over-interpreted to understand the crisis of the Western world: the end of the liberal order is not the result of rebellions from the periphery, but from its hyper-centre. Rome, the thousand-year-old Mediterranean empire, did not collapse because of its barbarians, but because of blows from within. The USA, the most powerful country in history, and guarantor of the post-World War II architecture, gradually slipped from its role as protector to gravedigger of democracy. In fact, the USA had become too powerful: victory in the Cold War galvanized them, and they lost interest in international law, which limited their field of action. When Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the USA was still in favor of a more equitable legal architecture. But the election of Bush, his illegal invasion of Iraq, the birth of the Tea Parties in the 2000s, and even the gradual disinterest in Europe initiated by Barack Obama, were all signs that alerted us to the change underway: “international law will no longer be our priority”.

However, for international law – that strange thing which is created almost mechanically as necessity dictates – to function, a powerful country must ensure its enforcement. In the global arena, there is no gendarme responsible for enforcing international law, unlike in national law, where the police enforce judicial decisions. In inter-state relations, each country can decide whether or not to apply the decisions taken by the international judge. By sinking into fascism and rejecting all legal limitations on their actions since January 20, 2025, the USA confirmed a fundamental trend that was already present, but that we were refusing to see. A groundswell that extends beyond the USA, since all Western democracies have been tempted to distance themselves from international commitments for at least a decade: Perhaps the leaders have not been up to the task, and their populations, stricken by the cynicism of the Iraqi and Libyan interventions, tired of a world in which they no longer understand how favorable it is to them, are tempted by honest corruptions, or criminals who no longer wrap their intentions in a plethora of lies, but tell them straight out: this world is a jungle, and I will be your king. Democracy is an imperfect system, because it requires the reassurance of its people, which cannot be achieved by telling them the whole truth. You can forgive a man anything, but it’s hard to forgive a disembodied institution.

The parallels with the fall of the League of Nations (LoN) in 1933 are legion: while the LoN was intended to be an embryo of conflict resolution through words, the future Axis countries were leaving, one after the other, the recent forum for dialogue designed to limit their imperialist aims. Trump, who wants to annex Canada, Greenland and Panama to leave his mark on history, will do exactly the same, either formally or informally. After withdrawing from the WHO, the Paris Agreements, the Human Rights Council, and brain-dead from NATO and the WTO, Trump will withdraw his country from any international body that can limit it. In the coming weeks (or months, or years), Roosevelt’s United States will withdraw from the UN. The same people who guaranteed peace in the West for 80 years are the same ones who will definitively destroy the post-war architecture of international peace.

Some European countries are well aware of the stakes: if they want democracy to survive, they will have to do without the yesterday’s big brother. Europe, the world’s second-largest economy, is not without its assets. Alongside its Canadian, Australian and Latin American allies, it will have the means to resist the end of international cooperation. For there can be no doubt: the liberal order is dead. The USA, sinking further into fascism with each passing day, has become the enemy of democracy. While it’s possible that domestic American resistance will be able to turn the tide, it would be irresponsible to count on that. If Americans were able to elect a man convicted of rape, economic fraud and electoral fraud, the author of an attempted coup d’état in January 2021, it’s a safe bet that this resistance won’t manage to do anything to change the minds of Trump’s supporters, surrounded by the world’s greatest fortunes, possessing a party and congress at his command, and a Supreme Court that has already previously declared that a sitting president cannot be held responsible for his actions. Or at least, not without violence. The U.S. Constitution never foresaw a man like Trump.

The years ahead are therefore going to be difficult. The European Union can’t let Russia conquer the Ukraine, and can no longer count on the USA to dismember it. And if the initial responses of European leaders are encouraging, we’re going to have to get our feet wet. As citizens, you and I have a role to play. Democrats are going to have to mobilize as one, ignoring everything that separates them. For the world we have entered since January 20, 2025 is aggressive, violent, and has no regard for fairness, human rights or freedom. It is the expression of a conservative world that wants to reinstall the uneducated, uncompassionate white man at the pinnacle, take all power away from minorities, put women in the kitchen. It’s a world of every man for himself, where strength is admired, science and intelligence mocked. Let’s not forget that we didn’t put an end to fascism with fine words, bombastic phrases and historical reminders. In a fascist world, lies are transformed into propaganda, giving falsehood the trappings of truth. Fascism is impervious to argument, and can only be stopped by force. You don’t philosophize about the Enlightenment with a highwayman who wants to subdue you, you resist him.

Let’s get ready to use that power. For we have grown up in a world where conflict resolution was, in theory, to be achieved through justice. That world is over. The foul beast has returned, and we will have to use the sword of justice to cut off its head, whether we like it or not. Let us face, with valour, rid of what separates us and united by our desire to laugh and love one another, the violence that wants to take science, compassion and intelligence from us. For if they are not nipped in the bud at the outset, the Dark Ages tend to endure.

Let’s not let our enemies subdue us. Let’s not let them breathe. Let’s win the cultural war, because we’ve been too tolerant. Let’s fight the despots who suffer when we question their infallible word. Let’s not tremble, and let’s remember that change is the hallmark of our existence, the one that gives all its beauty to peace, freedom and tolerance. Later, we will rebuild a new world; but before that, let us be worthy of what has been bequeathed to us. We will be victorious, because History has always proved us right.

Democrats of all countries, unite!

1. such as the assassinations of Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso in 1987 and Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973[↩]