Chaos Addiction: How Trump’s Second Term is Normalising Global Disorder
As global norms unravel, Trump’s unpredictable leadership rewires expectations. Is the world learning to crave instability over stability?
In the frenetic dawn of Donald Trump’s second presidency, a disturbing pattern emerges that goes beyond policies and politics. As executive orders pile up, international agreements collapse, and diplomatic norms shatter, we are witnessing not just a presidency but a global phenomenon: the normalisation of chaos. The question that haunts us is not just about one man’s governance, but about our collective psychology. Are we, as a global society, becoming addicted to chaos?
The Manufactured Whirlwind
The evidence is stark and overwhelming. In his first hundred days alone, Trump has signed approximately 140 executive orders — far more than any recent predecessor. He’s pardoned some 1,500 people convicted of offences in the 6th January Capitol attack. He’s withdrawn from the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Accords. He’s threatened territorial expansion into Canada, Greenland, and Panama. And he’s initiated what Amnesty International describes as a “human rights emergency” marked by cruelty and chaos.
This is governance by shock doctrine. This is leadership by lurching from one crisis to another. This is not incompetence; it is strategy.
When Trump took the oath of office on 20th January, 2025, he promised that “from this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world”. Yet respect doesn’t come through threats and volatility. What his administration has delivered instead is what one report called “tectonic shifts in geopolitics”. The ripple effects of these shifts are being felt everywhere from Jerusalem to Kyiv to London to Ottawa.
The chaos is not accidental. It is deliberately manufactured, consistently deployed, and strategically executed. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint which Trump publicly denied but has largely implemented, aims to “reassert presidential power” and “dismantle the administrative state”. Chaos is the smokescreen behind which power can be consolidated and opposition disoriented.
The Psychology of Chaos Addiction
What’s truly concerning is not just the chaos itself, but our collective response to it. Political scientists have identified that about 15 percent of the US population gravitates toward chaos, with about 5 percent seeming to desire chaos for chaos’s sake. These “chaos-seekers” appear to derive satisfaction from disruption and destruction.
This chaos-seeking behaviour isn’t random. According to research, it may be “intricately tied to people’s sense of losing their footing in society”. The sense of status loss, in turn, has connections to rising inequality and globalisation. When people feel they’re losing control, some respond by trying to “turn the cart on its head” in an attempt to reclaim their place.
Are we witnessing a feedback loop? Trump stokes chaos, which appeals to those already feeling dislocated, which justifies more chaos, which normalises the abnormal, which creates more dislocation. Round and round we go, each cycle making the extreme seem increasingly ordinary.
Global Addiction to Disorder
The impact extends far beyond America’s borders. Trump’s trade wars have “tanked stock markets, disrupted the U.S. bond market, and destabilised the global economy”. His approach to foreign policy has been described as “Trump vs. the world”. His actions have “fractured the cohesion of Western nations”.
What happens when chaos becomes the expected state of international relations? When erratic, unpredictable behaviour becomes the new normal? We develop tolerance. We adjust our expectations downward. We begin to accept as inevitable what should be considered outrageous.
Consider the turbulence in the markets. Trump announces tariffs, stocks plummet. Then there’s a reprieve, stocks recover somewhat. Then new tariffs, another drop. The volatility itself becomes the constant. Investors become accustomed to wild swings. Economists build instability into their models. We adapt to chaos rather than demanding stability.
That’s the true danger of chaos addiction. Not just that we experience chaos, but that we come to expect it, accommodate it, and eventually need it. The adrenaline rush of constant crisis can become its own reward.
The Democracy Withdrawal
The consequences for democratic systems are profound. Chaos creates the ideal conditions for democratic backsliding. When citizens are overwhelmed by constant crisis, their capacity for oversight diminishes. When every day brings a new outrage, yesterday’s violation of norms is quickly forgotten.
Trump’s actions have been described by hundreds of political scientists as “authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, and negatively impacting free speech and the rule of law”. His administration has “targeted political opponents and civil society” and “undertook a massive expansion of presidential power”.
This is how democracies die — not with a single dramatic coup, but through a thousand cuts, each individually insufficient to provoke revolution, collectively fatal to self-governance. The frog doesn’t jump from the slowly heating water.
Breaking the Addiction
Is it too late to break this cycle? Are we already too far gone, our systems too adapted to chaos, our attention spans too fragmented, our outrage too exhausted?
Not necessarily. There are promising signs of resistance. Trump’s approval ratings have dropped significantly within his first 100 days. He’s become “the least popular president in some 80 years” and finds himself “under water even on his signature issue immigration”. The American public may be growing weary of the constant turmoil.
International partners, too, are adapting — not by mirroring Trump’s chaos but by building resilience against it. European nations are “considering how to make up for a potential U.S.-sized hole in their defence postures”. New coalitions are forming, not in the service of chaos but in defence against it.
The antidote to chaos addiction is not more chaos. It’s not fighting fire with fire. It’s building structures stable enough to withstand the flames, and communities resilient enough to rebuild after the blaze.
The Long Road Back
The path to recovery from chaos addiction will be long and difficult. It requires us to rebuild attention spans in an age of distraction. To restore faith in institutions in an era of cynicism. To re-establish norms in a time when norm-breaking has become the norm.
But it begins with recognition — naming the problem for what it is. We are not merely witnessing a chaotic presidency. We are experiencing a global phenomenon of normalised disorder, one that threatens to rewire our collective expectations about governance, diplomacy, and civil society.
The question is not whether Trump sows chaos — the evidence for that is overwhelming. The question is whether we, as a global community, have become so accustomed to the roller coaster that we’ve forgotten solid ground exists. Whether we’ve mistaken the thrill of constant crisis for the substance of meaningful engagement. Whether we’ve confused the adrenaline rush of outrage for the steady work of progress.
The world isn’t addicted to chaos yet. But the symptoms are concerning, the trajectory alarming. It’s time for an intervention.
Bob Lynn / 22-May-2025
