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Although 2025 had already been poised as the worst year of the century regarding the international system established after WWII, recent days has been among the most devastating so far. The Israeli government deepened its disregard toward global agreements after deploying 10 fighter jets toward the Gulf state, bombing a Hamas delegation participating in ceasefire talks within Qatar’s capital. The final significant platform aimed at dialogue appears to have vanished completely.

No fewer than 19 Russian drones violated the territorial skies of Poland. For the first time, Nato airpower were deployed against enemy targets inside a Nato country. Regardless of if the incursion was a technical mishap or intentional testing by Moscow, according to analysts in the West, it represented “the closest we have been to outright war after WWII,” the Polish leader, Donald Tusk, said.

Subsequently, a prominent conservative voice, a firebrand conservative activist and staunch supporter of Trump, was shot dead during a speech to college students and Maga supporters on a campus in Utah. In the absence of proof regarding the perpetrator or intentions, Trump immediately blamed left-wing extremists,” accusing them of rhetoric that led directly for the terrorism occurring currently across the nation today.”

Asked how the divided nation could heal after Kirk’s assassination, Trump said he “couldn’t care less”. His explanation for that was chilling: “The radicals on the right act aggressively since they don’t want to see crime … Leftist activists are the problem – and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy.” In this manner polarisation hardens into group mentality. This is how the spiral of hatred accelerates toward irreversible conflict.

Actually, over 75% of all extremist-related killings across America over the last 10 years have come from individuals on the far right, while left-wing radicals responsible for just a small number of these incidents. Trump condemned political violence broadly a day later – yet omitted mention of the recent spate of attacks against Democrats, which involved multiple murders. From his perspective, the issue remains always “them”, and not the “wonderful Americans” who make up his base.

The political and cultural aftershocks from the assassination are certain to emerge in the coming weeks, but the biggest danger amid deep divisions is that this event becomes the Reichstag fire of our age. The deliberate burning which occurred in early 1933 marked Germany’s pivot away from democracy toward autocratic rule. Hitler, freshly installed as chancellor, seized the moment to eliminate basic rights of the Weimar constitution – free speech, press, association, assembly.

“Anyone who stands in our way will be cut down,” he said, inspecting the damaged structure. Numerous leftist activists were jailed, including all 81 Communist deputies within the legislature. With the left neutralised, the ruling party quickly cemented control.

In today’s US, the tragic killing has captivated the nation, galvanising the Maga movement and loyalists, a fact he recognizes. An extremist figure, Matt Forney, clamoured for detainment of every Democratic politician, explicitly labeling the killing as a pivotal Reichstag fire moment.

The reality is, here is the event that could rescue an increasingly unpopular presidency scarred by significant declines in employment figures, a weakening dollar, and real estate turmoil. Trump mourned Kirk like a lost relative, but the rhetoric suggested this would be as much about pursuing Trump’s enemies as justice. Right after the murder, he vowed to go after “each and every one involved directly or indirectly to this atrocity … even groups providing backing.” He singled out a billionaire philanthropist, a donor to liberal causes and political contributor. “He’s a bad guy,” Trump told a news outlet, he deserves imprisonment.”

The motive behind Kirk’s killing remains unclear. Ideological leanings belonging to the attacker, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, appear as muddled as those of another recent perpetrator, a young man who tried to kill the former president in Pennsylvania. Does this represent the radical left targeting the radical right – or rather an obscure online culture of online niches spilling into reality? The slogans engraved upon ammunition shells at the scene read less like a political statement than a crude bricolage of puerile memes and virtual world allusions.

But it is hard not to fear that the repression of dissenting scholars, legal professionals, media workers, civil servants, armed forces members, and judicial figures in the US may increase. Already, reactions on social media resulted in a wave of sackings and diplomatic staff have cautioned foreign nationals against endorsing or make light of the murder, directing embassies to take “appropriate action” toward individuals engaging in such behavior.

Trump has long thrived amid turmoil and instability. When genuine emergencies are absent, he invents scenarios – including imagined crime pandemics in Los Angeles, the capital and Chicago. Fake chaos advances his ambitions. Now he has been handed an ideal opportunity. It is understandable he couldn’t care less about national unity.

The shooting provides the perfect pretext to strengthen control, silencing dissent, and centralizing authority – enabling future leaders to assume total governmental power, regardless of charisma, qualifications or mandate. After all, any autocratic system must be established initially; once entrenched, it becomes far easier to maintain.

Liberal democracy and the rules-based global order have flaws, but they have delivered stability, advancement and prosperity – the very opposite of dictatorial rule. To suggest that the US, a founder of modern systems, could soon slide into complete dictatorship, its leaders thinking like Nazis in 1933, could appear unlikely.

However, alternatively, it is quite plausible. Authoritarian rule remained recent history when many of us even at the heart of modern democratic Europe were growing up. From Belgium to Bulgaria, most families retain memories of the death, devastation, hatred and destitution that authoritarianism leaves behind. To safeguard their near future, they may want to consult historical lessons.