From Beacon of Freedom to Island of Uncertainty: How the U.S. Went from Leading the Free World to Leading the Unfree

By Paul Alexander Wolf 🇦🇺

Back in March 2016, and again in December that year, I wrote in my blog about the growing dangers I saw unfolding in the United States. I wasn’t trying to be a political prophet. I’m just a GP from Australia, with really a modest blog and some experience working across continents. But the alarm bells were hard to ignore.

Even then, I could feel it—the slow drift toward something darker.

I wasn’t predicting civil war. I wasn’t claiming America would collapse. But I did worry that the democratic values the world once looked to might slowly corrode. That the chaos would not come from foreign enemies, but from inside—through a mix of apathy, arrogance, and the illusion that “it could never happen here.”

Well, here we are.

Is America Becoming the Weimar Republic?

It’s a question no one wants to ask out loud—but let’s not pretend the warning signs aren’t flashing. The Weimar Republic didn’t fall overnight. It crumbled because too many people shrugged off danger until it was too late.

In today’s America, it’s not tanks rolling in—it’s judges being threatened, elections undermined, truth turned optional. The Constitution wasn’t written with a “get out of jail free” card for autocrats. And yet, here we are: a former president under indictment, calling the justice system corrupt while his enablers cheer. And yet, he became once more elected despite the fact he should have been jailed.

This isn’t a partisan crisis. It’s a democratic one.

Absurdity as Policy

Tariffs on uninhabited islands? Foreign policy via social media tantrums? At times it feels like a bad parody. But the danger is real. When absurdity becomes the norm, accountability disappears. When power becomes theatre, trust collapses.

The U.S. used to be a global anchor. Today, it often feels adrift—even to itself.

Who Profits from the Chaos?

Certainly not ordinary Americans. The only people thriving in this mess are those who always do—the billionaire class, the corporations gaming the system, the strongmen who exploit distraction to consolidate control. While families worry about groceries and rent, political power is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

And as America turns inward, the rest of us watch. We used to lean on the U.S. for leadership, for principles. Now, we wonder: if democracy is this fragile in America, what hope is there elsewhere?

So, What Happens Now?

This isn’t about Trump. Or Biden. Or red vs blue. It’s about the soul of a nation—once the beating heart of democratic hope. If it falters, the impact won’t stop at its shores. Other democracies will follow.

The answer won’t come from political saviors or magical policies. It will come from everyday people. From those who still believe in decency, dignity, and the idea that truth matters. It will come from voters, teachers, nurses, bus drivers, students—from those who choose to show up, speak up, and push back.

Because democracy isn’t a machine that runs on autopilot. It’s a flame—and it needs tending.

Lincoln’s Warning: A Final Echo

Let me end where America once began to find its moral clarity—with Abraham Lincoln:“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

He wasn’t being poetic. He was issuing a warning.

And today, that warning echoes louder than ever.

Not by tanks. But by lies.
Not by bombs. But by silence.
Not by outsiders. But by insiders.
Not by collapse. But by corrosion.
Not by war. But by forgetting who we are.

This is how democracies die—not with a bang, but with a shrug.
Not when they are attacked, but when they are abandoned.

So no—I’m not a statesman. I’m not famous. I’m just a GP in Australia with a blog and a concern that keeps growing louder. But you don’t have to be powerful to speak. You just have to care.

And right now, the world needs Americans to care again.
To remember.
To act.

Because if the lights go out in America, it may affect us all.

Who is going to stop this?

Paul Alexander Wolf