I’m an absolutist when it comes to war. From where I stand, both the left and right in America are "The War Party". The Geneva Conventions could be distilled into a single, sacred commandment:

No killing of innocents—ever.

Call me unrealistic; I don’t care. We’re too technologically advanced to risk annihilating civilisation through miscalculation or careless impulse. In today’s world, “being realistic” is the most unrealistic stance of all.

That’s probably why I didn’t join the chorus of panic when Donald Trump first entered office in 2017. Before his presidency, the Clintons, the Bushes, and Obama all wore polite masks while waging foreign wars. I naïvely thought that a brash, blue-collar-sounding New Yorker might break that mould. He was crude, but he didn’t seem eager to expand the killing fields. And for a while, that calculation seemed right: fewer wars, fewer coffins.

No, I didn’t vote for him; it was obvious he was a deeply flawed character. But once elected, I reckoned he deserved a chance.

I was wrong.

Leadership of the world’s most powerful nation isn’t just about governance — it’s about shaping the moral tone of a civilisation.

You may argue that underneath the liberal veneer, many of the policies of his predecessors were just as bad. You’d be right. Every president relies on a team of cold, calculating, and astute strategists — the “power behind the throne” — who possess the intellect to govern but lack the charm to be elected. These unseen forces pitch policy, leaving the president to act as a curator, selecting from a pre-set menu of options.

Others will argue that Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip policies have been correct and that he’s delivered what Americans want. But it’s like using a flamethrower to kill weeds — yes, the weeds are gone, but so is the entire garden. The problem isn’t always the policy itself; it’s the way Trump implements those options that separates him from the polished machines of the past.

The role model matters. Methods matter. How we accomplish things matters as much as what we accomplish.

And how has Trump accomplished?

He has degraded centuries of moral and civic progress that once pulled us — however imperfectly — toward decency and compromise. He has normalised impulsive decision-making, personal vendettas, and scorched-earth tactics where might makes right. Allies have learned not to trust American commitments. The long-term damage may not be fully visible for years, but the trajectory is unmistakable. We have gone backwards in moral governance.

As of January 2026, this second term has surpassed even the most pessimistic predictions of his detractors. The presidency now operates with open impunity, largely unrestrained, while everyone tiptoes around him as if it were normal. These are not quirks of an unconventional leader; they are failures of governance with real consequences.

It has become clear that Trump must go. But unless something better is waiting in the wings, we return to the same endless loop — a corporatocratic war machine dressed up as a democracy.

So how do we fill the void? Can we come together to objectively assess what went wrong in the first place? Trump is a symptom, not the disease.

What laid the groundwork wasn’t Trump himself; it was a system that ground people down. We voted and voted and voted but nothing changed. Corporate interests endured. Power calcified. Institutions stopped responding. People became desperate for someone — anyone — who promised to break the machine.

That doesn’t make Americans stupid or evil. It makes them exhausted. The country is polarised, divided, and incapable of finding solutions in this anguished state. Left versus right. Red versus blue. It feels impossible to bridge the divide.

But there is no left. There is no right. There is only a stark trajectory toward a more frightening world where centuries of moral and civic progress are reversed. What we don’t need is more tribalism. What we do need is a reunification of purpose - a common goal to focus upon. We must seek and build on common ground.

Each American must relearn the arts of diplomacy, persuasion, and respectful debate. We must abandon toxic, all-or-nothing binaries. We must truly try — even when it’s uncomfortable, even when we’re convinced we’re right — to understand the other person’s point of view. This requires empathy—real empathy—and a willingness to talk to each other as equals.

Only then can we enact meaningful reform: real limits on corporate money in politics, campaign-finance overhaul, electoral reforms like ranked-choice voting that weaken the two-party stranglehold. These conversations must happen now, while Trump’s chaos has made it impossible to ignore the rot in the system.

Can we tear off our tribal lenses and cross the divide? With Trump’s rising unpopularity, the gap between us may be smaller than it appears. If his chaos pushes us to the breaking point and forces the creation of a better republic, he may — paradoxically — have been worth it.

But only if we seize this moment.

Trump will go. That’s not an if; it’s a when. And when he does, we’d better be damn sure we have something better ready to replace him.