The Great Rupture: As the World Moves On, Here's How Americans Must Fight Back

Europe and Canada are preparing for a post-American world. Now, Americans must find their courage and use the power of the states to fight back at home.

For the last year, world leaders have engaged in a delicate dance of appeasement, hoping that the post-WWII “rules-based international order” could survive the erratic authoritarianism of the Trump regime. That hope died this week at Davos.

Following Trump’s threats of “excessive strength and force” against our NATO allies over Greenland, the tone in Europe has shifted from concern to resolve. As Carole Cadwalladr brilliantly articulates in The Rupture, the Europeans have finally woken up. They are no longer waiting for America to return to sanity; they are preparing to balance against us.

This is a fundamental turning point in the history of the West.

The statements coming out of Davos, combined with Canada’s stunning announcement of what Charlotte Clymer calls its “divorce” from America, make one thing clear: The world is prepared to move on without the United States.

In his stunning address, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney didn’t just mourn the old world order—he buried it. The United States’ once “shining city on a hill” has gone dark, and our allies are building their own lighthouses.

If you haven’t already, Carney’s full address is well worth your time to watch. I believe it, along with the entire Davos meeting, will be marked for many years to come as a key turning point in the history of the Atlantic alliance.

We Are On Our Own

And so now we find ourselves on our own in the world, but increasingly at home too. For those of us inside the United States, this international rupture brings a chilling realization: there is no cavalry coming to save us. The preservation of our republic will not come from external pressure or a sudden return to norms. It will also not come from our own institutions unless we force them to act.

As Barbara F. Walter—one of the world’s leading experts on civil wars—writes this week, It Will All Come Down to Us. The guardrails are gone. The courts are packed. The Senate is paralyzed. Democratic Congressional leadership cannot even be coaxed to agree to eliminate funding for the President’s paramilitary force that has occupied Minneapolis for weeks. If we are to avoid national ruin, it will be because ordinary citizens engaged in massive, unrelenting nonviolent resistance.

The American Winter: Without Unrelenting Nonviolent Protest America Faces Ruin

But what does that resistance look like in practice? It requires two things: personal courage and structural offense.

The Personal Front: Facing Our Fears

The regime relies on fear to enforce compliance. They want you to believe that resistance is futile and dangerous. In a vital piece this week, Rachel Cohen addresses this psychological warfare head-on. Her guide on How to Face Your Fears and Fight ICE is essential reading for anyone wondering how to move from paralysis to action.

Fear is a biological reaction; courage is a political decision. We must choose the latter.

Portland's Inflatable Frog And The Power Of Laughtivism

The Structural Front: Oppositional Federalism

While personal courage is essential, the use of structural power will be required to prevail in the hybrid civil war that the Trump regime has unleashed on Americans.

A New Kind Of Civil War Has Already Begun. You Just Didn’t Notice (And That’s the Point)

Our side has traditionally viewed “Federalism” and “States’ Rights” as tools of the conservative right—weapons used to preserve segregation or block progress. And that was a correct assessment. But the right has created legal weapons that can now be used for the defense of democracy. It is time to pick them up and use them.

In an important new booklet, Oppositional Federalism and You: The Three-Tier Framework, Christopher Armitage outlines exactly how to do this using a strategy he calls Oppositional Federalism.

This is not merely “soft secession“ or passive non-cooperation. Oppositional federalism is the use of state power to actively disrupt and dismantle the machinery of the Trump regime. Armitage argues that Blue States must stop acting like subordinates to a rogue federal government and start acting like the sovereign entities they are.

What does Oppositional Federalism look like?

• Financial Sovereignty: It looks like states working to increase their own financial sovereignty as a means of resilience against Federal threats and retaliation. For example, this could look like establishing public banks—modeled on the Bank of North Dakota—to shield state funds from federal seizure and protect businesses from politically motivated financial blacklisting.

• Data Shields: It looks like refusing to share driver’s license databases with ICE, effectively blinding the regime’s deportation force.

• Weaponized Licensing: It looks like using state licensing boards to revoke the credentials of medical professionals, lawyers, or contractors who participate in the regime’s human rights abuses. If you torture detainees or separate families in a Blue State, you should lose your license to practice.

• State Prosecution of Federal Agents: It looks like local prosecutors charging federal agents who violate state criminal codes—such as assault, trespassing, or kidnapping—while executing unconstitutional orders. There is deep historical precedent for this dating back to the 1850s, when Northern states prosecuted federal marshals and slave catchers for enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.

• Fiscal Civil Disobedience: It looks like states passing legislation—similar to New York’s proposed RECOURSE Act—to place federal tax withholdings from state employees into escrow rather than remitting them to the IRS, specifically if federal officials interfere with state election administration or refuse to certify valid results.

As Armitage writes, quoting Thomas Paine, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” But we must be willing to use that power.

Source: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/223472

The Path Forward

The international community has made its choice: they are balancing against the American threat. Now we must make ours.

We cannot wait for the next election.

We cannot wait for the courts.

We must build a fortress of democracy within our own states and communities, using every lever of power available to us.

The great rupture that so many of us predicted was coming has now happened. The fight is now ours.

📚 Essential Reading:

• January 20, 2026 - Heather Cox Richardson

• Canada Announces Divorce from America - Charlotte Clymer

• Mark Carney Didn’t Mourn the Old World Order. He Buried It. - Being Liberal

• Flood Their Zone: A New Model for Oppositional Response - Chris Armitage

• It Will All Come Down to Us - Barbara F. Walter

• The Rupture - Carole Cadwalladr

• BREAKING: Trump threatens “excessive strength and force” - Defiance News

• Trump Gets Worse, But the Blowback Intensifies - The Contrarian

• Rachel Cohen: How to Face Your Fears and Fight ICE - On Offense