The rise of authoritarianism cannot be dismissed with willful blindness, nor should the opportunity to expose, defend and confront it.
In January 2018, Angela Merkel a product of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), opened her remarks at the World Economic Forum with a warning from Europe’s past - a reminder about how politicians had “sleep-walked” into the first world war. Merkel's remarks were prompted by a series of meetings pitting President Trump against the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan. Merkel’s comments came on the heels of European Council President Donald Tusk’s statement that President Trump’s administration “put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy.”
Merkel was not alone. In her book, Fascism: A Warning (2018), the late Madeline Albright asked if the United States could retain its commitment to lead toward liberty, justice, and peace. “The issue before us now is whether America can continue to exhibit that brand of leadership under a president who doesn’t appear to attach much weight to either international cooperation or democratic values. The answer matters because, although nature abhors a vacuum, Fascism welcomes one. This is the question of the day.”
In 2024, four-star General John Kelly once Trump’s White House chiefs of staff, told the New York that Trump would rule like a fascist if re-elected.
The phrase fascism is repugnant to those who believe in peace, justice, liberty, the rule of law, and those who ascribe to an international norm in which disputes are not settled with force and no one more powerful is able to suppress those less powerful. Fascism feeds on social and economic grievances; the belief that someone else is receiving better treatment than they deserve or owed; the unemployed, the low-wage worker, those who feels harassed by government regulations, the fundamentalist who feels his culture is being maligned, or the nationalist who feels her identity is threatened.
The rise of authoritarianism today, however, cannot be dismissed with willful blindness, nor should the opportunity to expose, defend and confront it. In June of 2025, on the 100th anniversary of the Italian resistance to fascism 400 intellectuals worldwide including Nobel Laureates from more than 30 countries signed a letter warning signs of rise of authoritarianism, and its more militaristic sibling fascism noting “These movements have re-emerged across the globe, including in long-standing democracies, where widespread dissatisfaction with political failure to address mounting inequalities and social exclusion has once again been exploited by new authoritarian figures.”
Trumpism not only exploits social grievances, it dismantles and exploits the theoretical basis on which the American and global capitalist order is structured. Trumpism casts chaos by undermined both Friedman’s and Keynesian principes by instituting Trump’s own arbitrary preferences. His signature policy being, in his words “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”; which economists reject as effective in improving the welfare of Americans. As a renowned Danish economist described Trump’s understanding of fiscal and monetary policy - “he has no clue about what that is”.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Trumpism has undercut incomes for all but the wealthiest households, slowed job growth, and enabled employer exploitation and abuse—including unprecedented attacks on federal workers’ collective bargaining rights that make him the biggest union buster in U.S. history. Worse, Trump has taken “deliberate actions” to weaken the federal government and erode trust in its ability to serve the public interest.
Alarmingly a Century Foundation’s comparison of U.S. democracy in 2024 and 2025 reports that a democratic collapse has already occurred, with an overall score “dropping nearly 28 percent in just one year—well into authoritarianism”. The report notes that the United States is behaving like an authoritarian state: breaking the law, ignoring court rulings, engaging in grand corruption, targeting critics for persecution, and conducting a campaign against immigrants that flagrantly violates civil rights.
Albright cautioned that these are the catnip for others with autocratic tendencies, “a comfort to them -provider of excuses”, and warned that “The temptation is powerful to close our eyes and wait for the worst to pass, but history tells us that for freedom to survive, it must be defended and that if lies are to stop, they must be exposed.”
In January of 2026 Dutch author Geert Mak, cautioned that the US is in a fascist process heading towards a point of no return, noting that “Fascism is an ideology, and you see elements of it in Trump's circles, such as a desire for purity and anti-immigrant rhetoric. It is also a process of taking over a state. You see this when you compare it to Mussolini's Italy in the 1920s and the National Socialists in Germany in the 1930s.”
Dismissing the label does not dismiss fascism. Accommodation, optimism, and tolerance only enable authoritarianism to seep into the very heart of liberal democracies around the globe. The signs have been there, clear and present threat to everything the liberal democratic world order values.
America is now trotting into fascism. Undermining and intimidating free press, threatening to lock up political rivals, censorship, intimidation of the institutions of higher education, vilifying immigrants and the countries from which they come, and whitewashing history have all become common occurrences. Summary execution of civilians in international waters, invasion of vulnerable nations and arrest of a sovereign leader, threats to annex vulnerable nations, and openly disparaging and undermining allies has, as Prime Minister Carney noted “ruptured” the global order.
Albrights warning above all can be summed up is her acknowledgement that history tells us that for freedom to survive, it must be defended and that if lies are to stop, they must be exposed. She observed - the job of international leadership is not the kind of assignment one ever finishes; that old dangers rarely go away completely, and new ones appear as regularly as dawn. Dealing with them has never been a matter of just money and might. Middle powers are the determinant fulcrum in the iterative challenges of balancing the spectrum that shifts from socialist to social democracy to democratic authoritarianism and fascism.
How democracies manage perceived political failure and social grievances, while being unanchored from American leadership, is the existential challenge for the liberal democratic order today. Securing democracy, first and foremost, begins with domestic policies. Canada and Australia bear a special responsibility for making good on their charter as defenders of liberalism, human rights and the rule of law. This requires difficult decisions to correct the trajectory of socio-cultural grievances in ways that maintain hope and faith in democratic governance as much as foreign policy.
Anil Anand
March 4, 2026
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