It's not globalization vs nationalism, the question is whether power will be constrained and accountable, or openly transactional and exempt.

People are demanding: Predictability. No carve-outs. Accountability.

Without them we don’t have governance. We have theater.

The dollar is a major channel through which world trade settles and reserves are stored.

If the world begins to see the U.S. as unstable or politically erratic, countries diversify. Payment routes and settlement agreements shift.

Even a gradual increase in distrust can raise borrowing costs.

When policy becomes volatile, lenders and investors demand more compensation to take risk. Bond yields rise. And when bond yields rise, your mortgage rate rises.

It shows up as rent, housing, and hiring.

When leaders use economic tools as a first resort, and do it unpredictably, they force everyone else to plan for worst-case scenarios.

That planning costs money.

Interdependence, once sold as a mutual win, is being repurposed as leverage.

Tariffs as leverage, financial plumbing as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to exploit.

When leaders have to justify themselves in the language of rules, they pay a price for naked coercion. The public story acts like a guardrail.

That guardrail is collapsing.

Build institutions. The public cannot out-tweet concentrated power, but it can build durable organizations. Democracy is a set of strong and dependable institutions that constrain private power.

If you care about democracy, amplify spending records, policy changes, enforcement decisions, rule-making, contracts, and credible investigative reporting. Make boring facts socially contagious again.

Meaningful action starts with refusing to feed the machine for free: don’t share the bait. don’t amplify humiliation content.

Outrage is monetized. Your anger is converted into attention, attention becomes revenue, and revenue funds more outrage. The system absorbs criticism and sell it back to you.

The more people fight about symbolic enemies, the less time they have to follow the quiet stuff: regulatory decisions, procurement and contracting, enforcement priorities, lobbying influence, rule-making.

Culture-war content is high-yield. It polarizes. It humiliates. Creates an “us” and a “them” and turns politics into identity defense, the most addictive form of politics because it feels personal.