Ozymandias simply took superheroism to the logically insane extreme that overwhelming violence could bully the entire world into not being so naughty. Since that was more or less how all the other vigilantes behaved on their smaller scale, it's no surprise that they'd bow before it - they were still punching atomized symptoms in the face and he's the Very Smart lad who stood up and said "what if we live in a society and that is the bad guy... so what if we punched society". He's perhaps not quite as far gone as the Dark Judges, but...

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Well, maybe. His scheme relies first on trusting the immediate decision-making of a couple hundred military and political types around the world, "society" is pretty much out of the loop until a few days after they avoid triggering MAD by reflex.