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The American Age Is Over
- toomuchtodo 18d agohttps://archive.today/4L2NN https://archive.today/4L2NN
- dopple 18d agoIt only took twice electing a mendacious and profoundly dangerous buffoon to bring about the end of American hegemony. Good riddance.
- polonbike 18d agoThe same was said about W. Also elected twice. We then saw 8golden years, before the orange president. So I would wait a bit before being able to say "good riddance, everything will be ok now, USA is saved"
- cowboylowrez 18d agoYeah, wierd how much better W's administration looks when compared to you know who.
- spwa4 18d agoSssshhhh stating this for his whole life was one reason Warren Buffet got villified. His point was he's an old guy. And Reagan was better than Nixon who was better than Bush junior who was better Trump ... but they all sucked and all of them were the worst thing ever to happen to America. So yeah, Trump is the worst that has happened to America ... so far. (and if you point out that "The American age ending" what so many people seem to want will obviously lead to democratic presidents sucking up to Putin as well ...)
- cowboylowrez 18d agoYeah, Buffet is right, the trend has been downward, although I think Bush Sr. might have been the exception. And I do agree that the American age is ending. With trump tho, it just seems worse. Course the only thing I have to go on is evidence and "walk like a duck-isms" but with Bush jr and before, it seemed like these guys at least appeared patrotic and they didn't look so malignantly treasonous and I think they put forth the idea that while they were conservative, at least the pretense was that they honored the office and the constitution. so since that is gone the progress toward national decline now seems to be a deliberate operation on behalf of people who are no longer interested in democracy. This is new to me.
- fuzzfactor 17d agoWhen Bush Sr was in the White House, Barbara Bush was there too with her own unique love of what made America great. Things would have been much worse without Barbara. The exact same things that have been trashed by Trump while Melania doesn't seem to have any deep-seated concept of America either.
- cowboylowrez 17d agoYes but if Bush Sr listened to his wife, and additionally, his wife loved him enough to not leave him, thats something right? Or do you think someone with Barbara Bush's elevated love of america lost that love long enough to marry Bush Sr given that there's a theory that he was a bad person too? I still offer the alternate theory that Bush Sr. was indeed a pause in the GOP's descent into the current realm of evil and contempt for the population of our country. Hell, I read trump doesn't even like his own voters and that rings so true haha
- fuzzfactor 17d agoThe GOP got so devoid of patriotism so fast it put the Democrats to shame. I haven't been able to trust any political parties for a while. After Obama, the GOP couldn't elevate anybody, all they could do is sink so low that only the worthless attention-getting blowhards were left standing. I was in Texas before during and after Bush Sr was Governor, and distinctly remember the way he was not good enough for Texas before he became not good enough for America. But who is? The further back you go, a political figure is more like a normal person, usually. The parties have always been the bad influence over the man until they got so bad that Trump made the boldest example as the party dropped the ball and let the man be an even worse influence on the party. I watched both parties prove their incompetence in my lifetime and witnessed the outcome on a daily basis in real time. Confirmation all took place in the last part of the 20th century. Well first a warning shot from offshore when the Communist Party of Cuba proved their incompetence. Mao was an echo in the distance. Then after a number of years comes the GOP, China picks up the ball the first time, and not that many years later the Democrats. In there somewhere the Soviet Communists gave up the ghost, and where substitutes exist they're still pretty sketchy. The Chinese Communists are incompetent as ever, that hasn't changed for the longest time, but now they look like a bastion of stability compared to the chaos other parties seek out or tolerate. The thing in common with the shithole approach is when there's anything like a dictator no matter what they call themselves. We may already have the hindsight needed to pinpoint the extent of the "American Century" as we knew it. Hard to drag it into the 21st century very far when the parties which built it haven't been with us for so long. One thing nobody can deny from any party today, I've said it before and that's a big thing that makes people talk about the death of the American Age not just outside the borders or overseas but domestically. Every single day Trump comes on TV and hammers home the fact that Obama was the final President to be recognized as the "leader of the free world". And the party has packed the government with minions in lockstep who can only iterate "what's a Free World?" You can't paint a pretty picture here. The American Age either likely paused, perhaps quite a bit before Obama, or definitely right afterward, and whether this was a near-fatal injury or a morbid conclusion, it's been quite a while and it's starting to smell too far decomposed for as many people to ignore as there were.
- pragmatic 18d agoEh? Forever wars, the Patriot Act and a financial crises that took years to recover from under another president?
- cpburns2009 18d agoAh yes, the golden age of extrajudical assassinations of American citizens, forever wars, the rise of the surveillance state, imprisonment of journalists amd whistle blowers, and the deterioration of race relations. Tell me more of this golden age.
- mcphage 18d ago> The same was said about W. Also elected twice. Well, he certainly gave it the ol' college try—and it did take quite a while to recover from his presidency.
- rbanffy 13d agoIt took two turns of one excellent president. Kind of a miracle, really.
- giardini 18d agoYeah, Clinton and Obama were the max!8-(( But did you omit Biden (or did you not)? IOW shouldn't you have said "THREE dangerous buffoons"?
- dmm 18d ago"you aren't going to like what comes after America " - Leonard Cohen https://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-what-is-coming-21603-annotated https://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-what-is-coming-21603-annota...
- bryanlarsen 18d agoYou're probably right, but it doesn't have to be. The news today about Canada and the EU is heartening.
- KetoManx64 16d agoThe countries overrun with third world migrants, over regulation and less individual rights than the crumbling US?
- thefz 18d agoUp until WWII - maaaybe. After that, hell no, I don't want any of that.
- MarkWayneNewton 18d agoThe fire of the Empire is beautiful at night.
- cjs_ac 18d agoThe European empires were commercial ventures, extracting raw materials for the workshops and factories at home. These empires were already weakening in the nineteenth century, because social changes at home meant that practices like slavery were no longer acceptable, thus increasing the cost of administering the colonies, and decreasing profitability. The solution was what we now call the rules-based order, and means that European-style legal systems control business across borders, so armed force need not be used to enforce contracts. It also pooled all the European empires into one system, so everyone could buy resources from anywhere, and the local elites (like my ancestors) who once had to be bought off can become corrupt politicians, so the West can disclaim any responsibility. The MAGA movement's foreign policy forsakes this extraordinarily convenient system for the older system of explicit, militarily-defended empires. It brings the US into conflict with every power that matters in the world except Russia. The US will have to spend an awful lot on the Department of War to maintain its economic exclusivity arrangements, of the sort it is currently building with Venezuela. Theodore Roosevelt said, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick,' but MAGA has chosen to scream into the void about how big its stick is instead.
- paleotrope 18d ago"The solution was what we now call the rules-based order, and means that European-style legal systems control business across borders, so armed force need not be used to enforce contracts." I wonder how Europe got there? Maybe they all decided to talk through their problems.
- cjs_ac 18d agoThe rules-based order was first proposed in late Victorian Britain, as part of a wider debate as to how the British Empire should evolve, but yes, the World Wars made the idea a lot more attractive to much more of the world.
- glimshe 18d agoThis article is 56 years late. "The End of the American Era" was published in 1970: https://www.amazon.com/End-American-Era-Andrew-Hacker/dp/B000GQRIPI https://www.amazon.com/End-American-Era-Andrew-Hacker/dp/B00... There were many other books/articles/documentaries with the same doom-and-gloom published since. I think most people don't understand America. So maybe an immigrant like me can help: the United States isn't an enduring superpower because it's an eternal and permanent amazing place free of problems. Its unique power of self-healing and course correction, combined with its plentiful resources and human capital, is what makes it great. When everything seems lost, when everybody says "this time is different, it's the big one that will end America", our system finds a way out. I won't argue about whether the current administration and wars are good or bad. I'll just say that we'll overcome, like we always did, our problems.
- bryanlarsen 18d agoThere are two very different positions: - America will stop being a superpower - America will stop being the superpower, the only one There was a point after the fall of the Berlin wall and before China joined the WTO (and for an indeterminate number of years after) where America's status as the sole superpower was indisputable.
- rbanffy 13d agoThe moment the US can no longer rely on the Dollar being the most popular reserve currency to finance its internal debt, it risks ceasing to be A superpower. Its military might was built on debt and that’s not sustainable.
- throwfaraway4 18d agoAgreed. We've been in much much worse positions in the past. We will fix ourselves and _hopefully_ learn from our mistakes.
- JohnFen 18d agoIt will take generations, if it's even possible, for the US to recover its standing in the eyes of the world, and that standing was the core of our power. "Fixing ourselves" is critical, but just the first step. There's a huge amount of additional work after that.
- pregnenolone 18d agoWhat a bunch of nonsense.
- Jamesbeam 18d agoGlobal dominance is an unreachable goal in the first place. Even with AI. All the article does is recognise the shift in Grand Strategy, but comes to all the wrong conclusions, because they completely miss what the current US Grand Strategy is. There is a consensus across all factions in the US Government to secure the US “backyard” in the Western Hemisphere as an exclusive zone of interest where the US can regenerate its strength. That’s the primary goal for this current US administration and they are making pretty good progress. Basically everyone is afraid they are going to be the next Venezuela, including Canada. Hegseth’s recent revival of the century-old “Greater North America” security perimeter underlines where the US locates its vital security interests. You just need to listen. From Greenland in the North through the Panama Canal all the way to the littoral states of the “Gulf of America” north of the equator. The Iran war is a setback, and I doubt Trump and Bibi will be friends any longer after this because the Israelis dragged him into that mess and now Bibi is literally fighting for his life in an election and so is Trump. But it’s just a blip in the grand scheme of things. How the US should secure its interests in its traditional spheres of influence in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East is important, but not essential to the US Grand Strategy. If the US Army wanted to end the Iran war, it could do it within an hour. Iran cannot compete with the level of Escalation the US is capable of. Using a tactical nuclear weapon to atomise their government in session and asking for an unconditional surrender or they are going to continue, nuking desalination for example to make Iran permanently uninhabitable and therefore inoperable for the IRCG, is an option that is always on the table for the president. It would come with serious repercussions though, but can he do it? Any time of the day. So the question is not if they can win the war and project power across the region with an iron fist, but if they should. And the answer to that is no. Especially now that their Middle East logistics have been shredded by the Iranians. You cannot rule the Middle East with an iron fist, only by soft power. All the conflicts in the zone over the past century of modern warfare have shown violence leads to a direct loss of power and influence over time. You can either win them over or kill ‘em all. You cannot stay in these countries. The natives will grind you down, and then you have to evac with your tail between your legs. The president maneuvered the country into a problem that is really hard to solve, and the only people I am aware of who would have been capable of solving this from inside the army have either been replaced by loyalist baboons with stars, or simply are not available for this administration because solving problems for Trump means, you make millions of Americans life’s worse and not better. And if you serve, you serve the people, not a single man who holds office for anywhere between four and eight years.
- tim333 18d agoA lot of the issues mentioned in the article seem specific to Trump who should be gone in a couple of years.
- seanmcdirmid 18d agoThat's what we thought 8 years ago.