The End of the World (at least as we know it) Is No Longer Unthinkable

What if the guarantees of survival we Europeans once trusted no longer exist? Twice in the last century, Europe was pulled back from the abyss by the United States. But that America is gone.

Illustration: Mika Horelli & AI

By Mika Horelli

The 20th century taught Europeans that dictators can only be stopped by force. Yet the very power that twice intervened to save Europe, America, is now consumed by its own descent into authoritarianism. We live in an age where the world’s most dangerous weapons are controlled by men who know their time is running out. That is what makes our present moment so perilous.

It is easy to list what is wrong and what should be fixed. It is far harder to say how. I have no ready answer either.

But history offers at least one lesson: dictators, or those who aspire to become them, have never understood anything but force. They interpret talks of the common good as weakness; treaties they treat as expendable, valid only for as long as they serve their interests.

Russians have long mocked us Finns as naïve for keeping their word. And yet, if one compares the simplest of measures, GDP per capita, the outcome of those two political cultures becomes clear. Finland’s GDP per capita in 2024 was around $58,000; Russia’s was just under $14,000. A society that keeps its word is also a society that prospers.

Europe once believed history had given it a form of insurance policy. During the First and especially the Second World Wars, the continent’s democracies were nearly overrun by dictators. In both cases, salvation came from across the Atlantic. The United States may have hesitated, but eventually it mobilised, fought, and carried at least Western Europe back from catastrophe. The idea that “America will come” became part of the continent’s unspoken mental furniture.

But do not expect the United States to come to the rescue anymore; on the contrary, it wants a share of the spoils. Donald Trump’s second presidency has already demonstrated that Washington is not a reliable partner for Europe. The administration operates less like a government and more like an extortionist: the notorious real-estate conman’s experience is now backed by the full arsenal of the United States.

This is not a functioning democracy weakened by accident. It is a system being deliberately hollowed out. And Europe, in retrospect, should have recognised the fragility of American democracy years ago.

Every week brings new measures that chip away at freedoms once thought untouchable: restrictions on the press, intimidation of universities, political vetting of research funding, and direct pressure on independent judges.

The axing of Jimmy Kimmel’s show is just the latest reminder that America’s vaunted freedom of expression is more myth than reality. In Trump’s America, everything is forced to bend to the will of the fundamentalist machine behind him; a coalition of Christian nationalists, nativist crusaders, hard-right media barons, and billionaire ideologues who know that silencing dissent is the fastest path to power.