Like most of you reading this, I’ve been watching in horror as the democratic world appears to be crumbling before my very eyes. Polarization, populism, nationalism, racial discrimination, unwarranted loss of trust in institutions, allies economically attacking allies, military alliances being questioned.
What can I do to help? I’m just a retired person in a small town in Southern Ontario, Canada. I felt paralyzed.
Then I got angry enough to think.
I’m not a diplomat, an economist, or a policy professional. I don’t have credentials that open doors or institutional backing that funds research. What I have is time, stubbornness, and access to the same information that shapes policy debates — because in 2026, that information is available to anyone willing to look for it.
So I looked. And I read. And I started asking a question: what would a practical, automated, self-correcting alliance of democracies actually look like? Not a wish list. Not a manifesto with no mechanism. A real framework with real rules that remove political discretion from the places where political discretion has failed us most.
This framework is what I came up with. Initially, I was envisioning 23 nations forming an Automatic Democratic Bloc, thus ADB-23. In my mind, the name was awkward for the average person. “The Shield of Democracy” felt much more approachable. This is my answer to that question. It took months of research, writing, and revision. It has been stress-tested against the strongest objections I could find or imagine. It is not perfect. But it is serious, and it is ready for serious conversation. If a better solution comes forward and is implemented, then I’ll switch my support to that solution. Until that time, this is the best solution I can see.
I’m sharing it because I believe that good ideas don’t require institutional pedigree to be worth hearing. The problem is getting this idea out there so that it gets the serious consideration I think it deserves. This is my attempt to do exactly that.
I’m not asking you to agree with everything here. I’m asking you to engage with it — to push back, to share it with people who might improve it, to take it to the people who have the power to act on it.
If you’re a policy professional who sees flaws, I want to hear them. If you’re a journalist who sees a story, I want to tell it. If you’re a citizen who sees the same things I see and feels the same paralysis I felt, I want you to know that paralysis is not the only option.
This is what one retired person in a small town could do.
Imagine what we could do together.