We are witnessing the decline of the American empire in real time. Stupidity now sits on a gilded throne in Washington and obedience is being enforced with terrifying brutality upon its people and institutions with the rest of us in the firing line of the regime’s impulsive and criminal acts.
Within a year under the second Trump administration, America looks like a wounded gunslinger slumped against a swinging door at the O.K. Corral, indiscriminately shooting at women and whisky bottles as democracy bleeds out.
The Century Foundation’s Democracy Meter, which measures the health of democracy across a 100-point scale, found democracy in the USA collapsed from 79 to 57/100 in 2025. The only thing left standing between democracy and full-blown authoritarianism is free and fair elections, which are looking very shaky at this point.
How the mighty fall under the weight of hubris, denial, and grasping, as the entropy of collapse gathers momentum and turns inwards to cannibalise itself. The rest of the world is left scrambling to unplug and reboot in safe mode, hoping to quarantine at least some of the fallout and avoid a world war.
These are dangerous times, and we are not immune. As a nation we are tied to this flailing beast, feeding it money in the hope it continues to assure our security. We need to wake up fast. Australia is poised to hand over $368 billion dollars for the AUKUS deal to a bunch of mobsters very high on their own supply.
According to a YouGov poll commissioned by The Australia Institute in November 2025, only eight per cent of Australians are genuinely convinced Australia ‘shares values’ with Trump’s America. Fewer than half of Australians think the AUKUS deal is in our best interests or makes us safer.
The chorus of voices calling for an urgent rethink of our old alliance with America is also growing louder. Elbows up Albo. Canada just brokered a ‘strategic partnership’ with China since its best friend and neighbour went rogue. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney pragmatically said, ‘We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be’.
On our shores, the initial coming together in the wake of the horrific Bondi massacre has sadly given way to polarised debate on the government’s proposed hate speech and gun law reform package in response. This was a moment for national unity and bipartisanship that went badly off track. Let’s hope something can be salvaged from it.
Still, it’s naive to think you can just legislate hate and racism away. Without addressing underlying causes, like rampant inequality, it’s always simmering away, at risk of spilling over.
The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is also facing criticism by those who feel the terms of reference are too narrow and should address fraying social cohesion across the whole community.
Let’s face it, major threats to social cohesion are not lurking in universities or writers’ festivals; they’re being broadcast at us 24/7 via a parasitic media that foment hatred, division, and mis/dis-information in the battle for our nervous systems.
In welcome contrast are nineteen Buddhist monks, accompanied by Aloka the peace dog, who have awakened the hearts of millions by their Walk for Peace across America from Texas to Washington DC for ‘national healing, unity, and compassion’. They set off in October 2025 and are due to arrive in mid-February after walking some 3,700 kilometres.
When asked why they walk, the monks said, ‘Our walking itself cannot create peace. But when someone encounters us – whether by the roadside, online or through a friend – when our message touches something deep within them, when it awakens the peace that has always lived quietly in their own heart – something sacred begins to unfold.’
Compare the monk’s act of authentic peace to the bizarre ceremony where the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, handed over her peace medal to Donald Trump. He thinks himself to be a more worthy winner. The Nobel’s organisers have categorically stated the prize ‘cannot be revoked, shared or transferred’.
In gifting Trump her medal, Machado told journalists it was in ‘recognition for his unique commitment to our freedom’. Perhaps she made a strategic sacrifice to soothe the beast’s ego for five minutes?
This year has all the hallmarks of a major turning point in the trajectory of the world, and perhaps humanity itself. If ever there were a time to ‘imagine all the people living life in peace’, genuine peace, it is now. The time for complacency is over.
Let us use the weapons of the Tibetan Buddhist prophecy of the Shambala warriors – compassion and insight – to dismantle the destructive forces from the inside out and finally heal the world.
Jo Immig is a former advisor to the NSW Legislative Council and coordinator of the National Toxics Network. She’s currently a freelance writer and researcher.
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