Donald Trump’s administration has taken another step towards authoritarianism.

Trump-backed Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has openly backed calls for federal judges who rule against the President to be impeached. This escalates Johnson’s rhetoric; he had previously called for funding cuts to judges who rule against Trump in place of impeachment.

The point of a federal judge, as with all judges, is not to agree with the President simply for loyalty’s sake. Their job is to interpret and apply the Constitution and federal law, including striking down executive orders as unconstitutional or ruling that government agencies have exceeded their legal authority.

Donald Trump is weaponising the status and influence afforded to him as President, and encouraging his supporters to lean on judges with threats to their careers, simply for doing their jobs properly.

And it is not happening in isolation. He has threatened Greenland’s sovereignty, first by force and now by “immediate negotiations”. He has also threatened tariffs against allies, which he now claims to be stepping back from.

For those who have not seen or heard Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos, do so. What he said should transcend political boundaries and force us all to wake up and realise the truth: the international rules-based order was only ever real when it benefited us. American hegemony kept the illusion alive. President Trump has not only shown us how the trick was done, but has also ensured it can never be performed again.

Prime Minister Carney spoke of Vaclav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless” essay, in which Havel described how the actions of greengrocers placing “Workers of the world unite” signs in their windows every day kept totalitarian communism alive; the “participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false“.

We have long believed that a rules-based international order exists, despite our strongest ally acting in defiance of it. We treated it as a given, never as an institution to be protected and strengthened, and this is where we are: an American president threatening NATO allies with military and economic sanctions, while calling for judges who dare to defy him to be impeached.

It is time to take multilateralism seriously. This means moving towards rejoining the EU and pushing further for a federalised Europe. It means working with democratic partners to build a global shield to protect the world from aggressors, one that a single member cannot rupture. We must adopt Alexander Stubb’s view of “values-based realism“, dealing with the world as it is and not how we wish it were.

This should not mean we compromise on our core values, however. Values-based realism can, and should, sit alongside liberal internationalism. It provides nuance where necessary and gives us the strength to face down our enemies.

This is the moment to decide whether liberal democracy is a civilisation with a spine, or merely a set of habits we hope no one challenges. Trump and his allies are challenging it, at home and abroad. The answer cannot be panic or passivity; it must be the hard work of democratic power: multilateralism with teeth, European unity with purpose, and a foreign policy grounded in both values and capability. We are entering an era where strength is the argument. Let ours be disciplined, principled, and shared.

* Jack Meredith is a member of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and an active campaigner and canvasser with Swansea and Gower Liberal Democrats. His writing focuses on democratic reform, social justice, trade unionism, economic democracy, and the institutional foundations of effective government. He has written for the Fabians, Lib Dem Voice, Liberator, Nation Cymru, Bylines Cymru, and Centre Think Tank.