As Donald Trump ends the first year of his second term, the president who promised peace and prosperity has delivered neither. Instead, he’s threatened punitive tariffs and flirted with the idea of using force — rhetoric that put NATO on edge.

Trump’s America is not great again. It has become un-American. The country is neither safer at home nor more respected around the world. This nation that was once such a beacon for democracy and helped build the post-World War II global order is now viewed by foes and even friends as a corrupt, unreliable and immoral rogue state.

Trump’s appearance in Davos last week was just the latest shameful chapter; he threatened military action like a mob boss if he didn’t get his way, demanding ownership of a neighboring country and then saying he wouldn’t use force after all.

“Sometimes you need a dictator,” he declared, insulting his hosts and European allies in a rambling speech at the World Economic Forum and incorrectly saying NATO would never come to America’s aid, when in fact it already has, including Denmark.

Maybe this is a moment like the violence at the Edmund Pettis Bridge or Kent State or like Watergate, in which the abuse of power becomes a catalyst so sickening that citizens rise up to demonstrate American values and demand their country and their democracy be restored. That remains to be seen.

What is clearer than ever as we move deeper into a pivotal election year is that it is time for the forces of justice to start marshaling their power and demanding accountability. The country seems to be showing signs that this is already happening, but it has to be sustained.

The only thing that will stop this would-be despot is accountability. Even Trump is wise enough to know he is out of control — or at least, has gone too far in his insatiable quest for more power — and could face another impeachment if Democrats take back the House.

Trump is a bully, but he respects raw power. That means Americans must continue pouring into the streets by the millions in peaceful protests to demonstrate their opposition and call for redress of grievances. That means the news media must keep shining a light on un-American behavior and speaking out, printing the truth and refusing to be intimidated by administration threats and attacks.

Most important, that means Democrats, independents and Republicans must turn out to demonstrate their outrage and vote for candidates who will restore balance to Congress and a check on presidential power that the Founders intended.

In some areas, the tide seems to be turning against Trump. Canada and Europe stood up to him on Greenland, warding off his threat of more tariffs if they didn’t hand over Greenland — and staring down his threats of force. The collective spine of European nations stiffened in their focus on protecting Ukraine from Russia. That’s their priority, not some erratic, quixotic American play to change world maps for what appears to be Trump’s personal aggrandizement.

In a highly unusual move, three Catholic cardinals, including Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, recently issued a widely reported public statement condemning the threats of force and echoing an address given Jan. 9 by Pope Leo XIV to the Vatican diplomatic corps.

Cupich and the cardinals from Washington and Newark, New Jersey, urged the creation of a “genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation,” as the U.S. faces “the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War.”

At home, there is also a change. Trump’s approval ratings are at a new low after lawless, masked and militarized federal agents rampaged in the streets of Minneapolis, arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, using warrantless searches and terrifying people in the Twin Cities — like a not-so-secret police force. Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to tighten control at the border, which Trump, to his credit, has done, but they did not vote for these dangerous methods.

This an election year, and it may portend accountability for Trump. The administration begins its second year determined to conduct its business in lawless, unconstitutional ways repeatedly condemned by the courts and a growing majority of the American people.

Trump used the U.S. military to remove the leader of Venezuela, apparently for the oil. His reckless, ill-trained ICE agents have touched off outrage from ordinary citizens, including in Minneapolis, where one agent shot to death an unarmed mother of three. He is laying the groundwork to invoke the Insurrection Act so he can send U.S. troops into city streets to confront Americans.

My father and uncles served in World War II, and I can only imagine their revulsion if they learned that a nonsensical American leader was taking a torch to NATO — the strongest alliance in modern times that for nearly 80 years kept the peace and warded off a hostile Soviet Union.

How would they feel if they knew Trump has become a bigger threat to NATO and Europe in some ways than Russia? Russian leader Vladimir Putin is happier than ever, it seems. Trump is rupturing NATO for him.

Trump promised his voters that his focus would be America first — it hasn’t. He has spent much of his first year in office pursuing adventures abroad, from bombing Iran and Nigeria to seizing Venezuela’s leader and coveting Greenland.

Americans will eventually take back their country. The question is when.

Storer H. Rowley is a former national editor and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.

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