What for decades was regarded as a robust system of limiting power now reveals itself as a democratic façade riddled with structural fractures. The United States of America stands as an emblem of a development that has long since reached Europe as well: democracy is no longer overthrown – it is hollowed out, exploited, and ultimately dismantled from within.

The Myth of Separation of Powers

As early as my university years more than 45 years ago, a troubling thought would not leave me: the celebrated separation of powers in the United States is less a bulwark than a claim. Legally, it is remarkably thin; politically, highly susceptible to manipulation.

A president willing to stretch rules, exploit grey areas, and disregard norms can unhinge this system with alarming ease. The Constitution itself provides the necessary tools. In crucial respects, it is vague, contradictory, and open to authoritarian interpretation.

Through amendments, it can be adjusted like a sliding scale between democracy and dictatorship – including every intermediate stage. “Checks and balances” function only as long as power is voluntarily restrained. The moment a president decides he may do as he pleases, they become entirely worthless.

This condition is particularly disastrous in presidential systems where the same individual serves simultaneously as head of government and head of state, as in the United States, France, or Turkey. Whoever combines legislative initiative, executive enforcement, and influence over the appointment of the highest judges no longer governs through separation of powers – he abolishes it. In such a context, the judiciary degenerates into little more than a decorative prop.

As if that were not enough, there exists an electoral system that systematically overrides democratic majorities. The Electoral College is no historical accident but a deliberately constructed class filter. It was designed to ensure that the people could not “misjudge” – that is, could not elect anyone outside the ranks of the wealthy elites. That presidents may assume office with fewer votes is not a flaw. It is the design bestowed upon the system by its affluent architects.

Narcissism in Power

As early as 2009, I wrote that I was certain that one day a politician would emerge in the United States who would elevate himself to the rank of an emperor – very much in the spirit of George Lucas’ Star Wars. That prediction has become reality.

That the fictional Senator Palpatine would one day bear the name Donald Trump was, admittedly, not yet clear to me at the time. Then, Trump was little more than a grotesque figure of popular culture. Today – January 2026 – he is president of the United States for the second time. For now. How long the title “President” will endure remains an open question.

In 1940, the New York Times wrote of Chaplin’s The Great Dictator that the film was profoundly tragic, not merely because it depicted the suffering of the oppressed, but because it revealed the inner decay of the tyrant: his excess, his vanity, his detachment from reality.

Therein lies the film’s enduring relevance. And: the parallels are unmistakable. Hinkel or Trump – it is the same mixture of wounded pride, grandiosity, and perpetual self-staging. Anyone who still claims to discern meaningful differences is choosing to do so.

The Hour of the Destroyers

We are living in an era in which democracy, freedom, and peace are simultaneously under assault – globally, across Europe, and within countries such as Germany and Austria. The causes are well known: exploding inequality, unchecked corporate power, environmental destruction, wars, and social erosion.

What is new is not the crisis itself, but its simultaneity. Within this volatile constellation, the populists step onto the stage. Trump, Musk, Milei, Vance – they are united by their contempt for the democratic state.

Their aim is not reform, but demolition. The state is to disappear; the market is to regulate everything. Democracy is deemed inefficient; human rights an inconvenience. Trump is more than a symptom. He is the instrument of a democratic coup from above.

Billionaires, tax avoiders, environmental exploiters, and lobbyists have financed him, constructed him in the media, and installed him politically. Not despite his authoritarian instincts – but because of them.

That I myself fundamentally misjudged Putin in the past is part of my own bitter truth. Yet I was by no means alone in this error. Large sections of the political and economic elites of the Federal Republic of Germany made the same mistake.

Unlike myself, however, these individuals bear full responsibility for the consequences – to this day. Especially now, we must be clear about what we consider worth defending: democracy, freedom, the rule of law, social justice, climate protection, biodiversity, human rights, and independent media.

It is more than sufficient to prevent a civilizational regression and to halt – and ultimately reverse – the re-feudalisation of Europe and the world that has already begun.

The Dark Enlightenment

The Intellectual Superstructure of Authoritarianism

Curtis Yarvin, also known as Mencius Moldbug, provides the ideological framework for the new authoritarianism. For him, democracy is a mistake, equality an illusion, freedom a malfunction.

His objective is a form of techno-monarchism: a state organised like a corporation, governed by an all-powerful CEO, controlled through technology, and freed from the inconvenience of public participation.

What presents itself as intellectual provocation is, in truth, a declaration of war against modernity. Yarvin advocates hierarchy instead of equality, control instead of freedom, efficiency instead of dignity.

His so-called “Cathedral” – media, academia, administration – is to be dismantled. Ironically, his critique of alleged opinion control culminates in a positive vision of total surveillance.

RAGE, DOGE and the Path to Techno-Feudalism

Yarvin’s dystopia is no literary exercise. It is a business model. It has investors, networks, and political executors. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, JD Vance – all share the underlying conviction that democracy is a costly nuisance: elections are disruptive, parliaments obstructive, human rights inefficient.

RAGE is the programme: Retire All Government Employees. The state is not to be reformed, but dismantled. Administration, from this perspective, is not a public good, but an obstacle.

DOGE was the field experiment. The result: institutional devastation, mass departure of skilled personnel, and deliberate incapacity. Destruction as a method.

What emerges is not technological progress, but a regression to pre-Enlightenment power structures – with server farms instead of castles.

Techno-feudalism replaces democracy. Loyalty replaces law. Efficiency replaces dignity.

Those who are useful may remain. Those who are not, disappear.

The new aristocracy wears hoodies, speaks of innovation, and means submission. Its kings call themselves CEOs; its court philosophers speak of rationality while working towards the abolition of freedom.

This is not an accident of capitalism. It is its authoritarian end stage.

The End of Excuses

No one can any longer claim ignorance. The attacks on democracy are open, organised, and financed. They do not originate from below, but from above.

Not from the anger of the disenfranchised, but from the calculations of the super-rich.

The most dangerous lie of our time is this: it will not become that bad. That is precisely how every authoritarian catastrophe begins.

Not with tanks, but with applause. Not with violence, but with indifference.

Today, democracy does not die in a state of emergency, but in the routine of everyday governance. It is privatised, outsourced, made efficient – until nothing remains but an empty shell.

Anyone who still wishes to remain neutral has, in truth, already chosen. For silence is consent.

And anyone who believes this development concerns only America has not understood – or has forgotten – the lessons of history.

This is not a prediction. It is a warning. Perhaps already an obituary.