23.11.2025
The Walking Chaos IV
The Fall
Klaudia Grote

The downfall of Trump and the US-Government is, in political psychology, less a question of if than of when and how. Personality structures built on grandiose self-overestimation, denial of reality, and exploitation inevitably collide with limits that can no longer be explained away: economic constraints, institutional counter-power, political fatigue, international isolation.
From a clinical-psychological perspective, one often observes an internal pattern described as a “narcissistic injury cascade”: slights accumulate, an inflated sense of entitlement increasingly clashes with reality, previously loyal individuals withdraw, loyalty turns into fear and fear eventually into resignation. The leader responds with escalation rhetoric, threats, and ever more extremist announcements. Paradoxically, this overcompensation accelerates his loss of power.

For the US, the damage is already substantial. Trust in institutions - media, science, the judiciary, international partnerships - is deeply undermined. A political culture that has learned to orient itself toward noise rather than arguments loses its capacity for sober analysis. Even if a new leadership credibly distances itself from the Walking Chaos, its shadow remains: institutional erosion, a delegitimized center, a society accustomed to permanent agitation.

On the international stage, such a collapse functions as a reputational rupture. A hegemonic power once seen as a stabilizing force now reveals its vulnerability to destructive leadership styles. Its normative radiance fades, and other actors begin to claim leadership roles or develop alternative normative systems. Historically, such a stain cannot be erased in a few years. Just as Germany carried the consequences of a leader who drove the country into moral and political catastrophe for generations, a democratic derailment shapes external perceptions for the long term.

Trust is lost in an instant, but rebuilding it takes years of consistency

At the same time, one must not overlook that the fall of an empire is never purely domestic. It is a systemic shock. The Pax Americana - contradictory, imperfect, at times hypocritical - nonetheless provided genuine stabilizing functions: predictable alliances, secure global trade routes, containment of conflicts. When this order erodes, it does not create a space of new freedoms but a space of heightened vulnerability. In this transitional zone, regional powers test boundaries, revisionist regimes sense opportunity, and within the sinking empire, the temptation to distract outward grows.

The most dangerous illusion in such transitional phases is the belief in a “short, limited” conflict. In WW1, WW2 and in today’s war games in the Western Pacific, one finds the same error: the assumption that wars can be precisely controlled. Yet wars often begin in apparent order and end in total loss of control. China had to overcome a painful era of chaos and fears nothing more than a return to it. A military confrontation among the world’s largest economies would not be a regional event but a global shock, shaking supply chains, financial systems, and political alliances.

Against this backdrop, the fall of the Walking Chaos is not the end of a disturbance but the beginning of a dangerous transitional period. A politically damaged, internally polarized empire projects uncertainty, attracting external scrutiny and internal temptations. Whether such a country can regain its role through reform, institutional resilience, and cooperative foreign policy remains unclear. What is clear is this: the phase after the collapse is politically and psychologically more delicate than the collapse itself.

The crucial point, therefore, is this: a society can rid itself of a destructive figure yet retain the destructive logic. Escaping that logic requires institutional healing, political self-restraint, and a culture that civilizes conflict rather than emotionalizing it. If this work is neglected, the fall of the Walking Chaos produces not renewal, but the breeding ground for the next one.