Time For Regime Change
He’s not acting like a President... he’s not even acting like an Adult. (Anne Applebaum, 19 Jan 2026)
1I have been reading “Empire of AI” by Karen Hao,2 an excellent history and analysis of the rise of the Silicon Valley oligarchs and their strange world view. She observes that the history of technological change and radical innovation rarely, if ever, lives up to its promise of greater benefit for mankind. “Those who successfully rally for a technology’s creation are those who have the power and resources to do the rallying. As they turn their ideas into reality , the vision they impose of what the technology is and whom it can benefit is thus the vision of a narrow elite imbued with all their blind spots and self serving philosophies. Only through cataclysmic shifts in society or powerful organized resistance can a technology transform from enriching the few to lifting the many”3
It seems that this summarizes quite accurately the current situation in the United States. It explains in part the extreme disparities of wealth and power which have transformed American politics since the passage of Citizens United. The technological revolution of the past 50 years has created billionaires who now fund a rogue regime that has taken over the White House. The oligharchs’ agenda (now enshrined in Project 2025) is focused on their strange world view. This reflects an exploitative rule by (white) elites. They believe that AI will alter society and ensure total control over a supine population, a dream that revives apartheid-era fantasies of white South Africans being able to maintain perpetual minority power. It includes survivalist fantasies such as colonizing Mars after climate change or an apocalyptic war make life on earth impossible. It reflects strong elements of a fascist political ideology now embedded in the White House. It will take a revolution to restore some semblance of democracy and will require a massive reform of the US institutions that have failed its citizens. That is one kind of regime change. It is essential.
In the immediate situation, however, a more trivial regime change, not nearly as productive, is in the forefront of thinking in the US.
It is increasingly clear that the cabal embedded in the White House find Donald Trump to be more of a liability than an asset. Certainly he has solidified their hold on power and implemented the steps necessary to undermine if not cancel the midterm elections and possibly the presidential election of 2028 . But his erratic, unhinged behaviour is now an obstacle to the consistent implementation of their agenda. The steep drop in public opinion puts their program at risk and is causing division in their base. It is time for them to jettison him. Their challenge is to achieve this without alienating his fanatically loyal MAGA base.
It is thus entirely plausible that the passivity of Republicans, even their encouragement of Trump’s increasingly unhinged public statements and demonstrations of senility reflect a careful strategy. They are quietly hoping that Democrats in congress will launch impeachment resolutions. Greenland, NATO will likely be the catalyst. The resolutions will target Trump, Vance and possibly other members of his administration . When it comes to a vote enough Republicans will crossover and vote with the Democrats , but only in the case of the Trump impeachment, not the other ones. The same thing will happen in the Senate, resulting in Trump’s conviction and removal from office. President Vance will assume office and will prove a much more malleable, reliable and predictable frontman to implement the agenda of the Heritage foundation and the oligarchs. Of course, since Democrats introduced and led the impeachment process (with support from a RINO minority) Trump supporters will remain loyal, perhaps even more committed than ever and determined to destroy the Democrats who ousted their leader!
But I repeat, a far more comprehensive regime change is necessary. Replacement of a senile president in itself accomplishes nothing.
For 5 years now, since January 6th, the people, institutions, and instruments of government at both the federal and state level have proved totally inadequate to address the threats which the current regime create not just within the country, but for the global order. As Mark Carney has commented, the rules based world order created in the aftermath of World War Two is now dead. From this perspective the US regime (centered in the White House with a spineless congress and a supine supreme court) is the greatest threat to World Peace we have experienced since 1939. It has created more disruption on the international level in one year than Russia, North Korea, Iran , and China combined have done in fifty!
Reform from within the United States has proved to be impossible . The rest of the world has waited patiently for five years for US patriots and the institutions enshrined in the constitution to act. In vain! Patience is running out and it it seems the only option now is for the rest of the world to take responsibility for solving the problems that are beyond the scope of anything that the US can achieve. This is unfortunate for the 60% of Americans who are appalled by, and often the victims of their present government. But unfortunately they will suffer economic collateral damage when the rest of the world unites to destroy this monster.
What does this last sentence mean? I am not talking about a military confrontation . The United States has unsurpassed capacity to win battles . Equally the history of the last century tells us that it is quite incompetent at winning wars . The last significant war that the United States won without allies was against Spain 128 years ago.
In the 21st century, conflicts will be determined by economics and technology, not by which of the adversaries has the most soldiers, bombs or planes. We can already see this happening in the Ukraine. Global analysis of the strategic position of the United States suggests great weakness. The US has the largest and unsustainable debt burden of any country in the world. There is already a flight from the US dollar and movements across Asia and Africa to replace it by the RMB as an international currency and store of wealth. The US is no longer seen as a trustworthy actor which keeps its word and honors treaties. As such it becomes an unattractive target for investment . Its huge debt burden supported by other countries holdings of US treasuries is a knife held at the throat of the United States economy. To be sure were there a massive sell off this would severely impact the economies of many countries. But speaking as a Canadian , I believe there are many who would accept the hardships associated with this as a better alternative then being turned into a vassal state of a dysfunctional country with Nazi tendencies.
This argument is not hypothetical . Not long ago the United States economic power was so great that no other country or even any group of countries could stand against it. No longer! China by many measures is the largest economy in the world. Alliances such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) now far exceed the magnitude of the US economy. Competing international payment mechanisms are being developed that will further reduce the global power of the US dollar. Quite apart from India, China and Russia, if the economies of the West (Europe, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Japan) chose to detonate their economic weapons, they can crush the US economy in days. Admittedly, this is rather like detonating a hand grenade in an enclosed space. But that may be a better alternative than what is emerging, if unchecked, from the White House!
This war has already begun. As I write this, on January 20, the Dow Jones index has fallen more than 800 points since yesterday’s close. Year on Year, the Canadian economy has gained 31% as measured on the Toronto stock market. In comparison the Dow has gained only 11.3% in the same period. We should not be misled by claims about the overwhelming strength of the US economy. It is fragile, over extended and vulnerable.
In Davos today, Mark Carney outlined a vision for stronger networks of middle income and middle-sized economies that would counteract the push to hegemony by the “big powers”. The economic weapons at our disposal are already “locked and loaded”. If they are actually fired, the “regime change” the world has been awaiting for five years could actually occur. We have waited patiently for the institutions of the US to act from within.. To no avail. Patience has run out. It is time to pull the plug!
Interview on Times Radio News 20 January 2026. Accessed via Youtube:
Karen Hao: Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Penguin Press, New York, 2025
Karen Hao, Page 88ff.
Less than 24 hours later, the case for regime change beyond the removal of a deranged President is clearer still. After the humiliation suffered this morning on the world stage, a rational state would move quickly to replace the leader that has embarrassed them so completely. That they cannot do so marks the US as a failed state. The rest of the world is now forced to deal with that reality.