American Shrinkage
American Shrinkage
The American shield is down, Europe is on its own, isolationism is back, protectionism is preferred, xenophobia is rampant, paranoia prevails. This is the new world order under Trump. Europe will have to save Ukraine, if anything can. Canada hates America. France, Germany, and Great Britain have had it with the American government. How long before US troop withdrawals from around the globe come into effect? South Korea will get nervous, and even Germany, not to speak of the Baltic states. The American presence will be greatly reduced. All this is pretty obvious and generally recognized (though not widely admitted in America itself). We will be living in a fragmented world with a global power vacuum at its center. What happens will be up for grabs.
A country is more than its geographical boundaries; there is also its culture, its reputation, its attraction. American culture has dominated for the last eighty years as America has exercised a (mostly) benign foreign policy, both economic and military. This is now over, or is beginning to be over. America was everywhere—its sphere of influence was global. The world was largely an American world, culturally, politically. America was respected, if not always universally loved. Individual Americans were world-famous. This was a cohesive world, a reassuring world. But it is over. From now on we will be living in a broken world, in which other lines of power and influence will be drawn. America will shrink. It will become small. It used to be small and it will be small again. Making America great again will result in making America small again (MASA). The world is turning against America; it wants nothing more to do with America. Hence, American shrinkage.
What about the universities? Again, the situation looks bleak. Overzealous DEI was bad enough, but overzealous anti-DEI is worse (why must Americans always overdo everything?). Fewer foreign students will study here; international academic exchange will dwindle; intellectual life will suffer. American universities used to be mediocre—will they become so again? The country will become stupider and more philistine. American philosophy is already in bad shape and it is bound to get worse as American isolation kicks in. The American accent will grate on everyone’s nerves (isn’t Trump’s voice the ugliest ever?). A general chill will set in.
How will all this affect the internal state of America? This too is perfectly predictable: there will be domestic division, even hostility. States will become alienated from each other; people will not mingle; distrust and dislike will be the norm. There will be two Americas: the part that yearns for old alliances, and the part that is happy in its isolation. The America that Trump is trying to create will be a very small America, even within the landmass it occupies. America will no longer be a unified country, as the world will no longer be unified by American ideals and American power. To break alliances is a recipe for self-impoverishment. What kind of country will America be? What kind of world will exist if things keep going as they have been? A warring world (military and economic), a world without unity and shared purpose, a world of squabbling superpowers? Perhaps America will be a country of gold-plated toilets and diamond-studded chainsaws, owned by the fortunate few, but will it be a country worth living in?
“American culture has dominated for the last eighty years as America has exercised a (mostly) benign foreign policy.”
The U.S. had a benign foreign policy with respect to Europe, but not with respect to North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chile, Panama, and Grenada, all of which the U.S. invaded or overthrew their governments during the last eighty years. I listed those countries off the top of my head; there may be others.
Yes, as we all know–it’s why I said “mostly”. And even those were motivated by the need to stifle communism or terrorism. You might as well say the US had a malign policy towards Germany and Japan. Aggressive expansionism has never been the motive, as it was with Germany and Russia.
I am waiting for Trump to appoint Black Sabbath’s Iron Man to some office in his administration. I agree, the USA will never be the same. I always thought however that historical trajectories are never as easy to foresee as a ball rolling down an incline in a high school physics experiment. What would have to happen for the bleeding to be stopped if not the damage to be undone? Nobody predicted Trump fifteen years ago. I know this is a ridiculous way for an empire to end but you treat it as a Deus ex Machina. I always thought that Trump would prompt a crisis or crises, and that one outcome would be a refutation or rebuke of the man and that his regime would witness a race between his power garb and his destructive wrath. It doesn’t look good, he is the equivalent of a major war, but history has a cunning, doesn’t it? There’s an element of if not chance, then of surprise.
I don’t know what most of this means.
So it’s like America is a patient rushed to the ER, (or which should be rushed to the ER) and nothing can be done to save her? It’s just time to move on? What will America be like after Trump? Admittedly it looks bad. I know empires have fallen if not quite in such an absurd way; once Trump is gone, there might be some way for America to recover and have some respectable place in the world. Though it looks bad, and I can’t imagine a restoration, I can imagine some kind of recovery from Trump. America might be a humbler power, and a more pleasant place to live. It won’t happen on its own, people have to take action; but what are the reasons for your pessimism?
I don’t think that’s impossible, but four years of this is going to take its toll. It will then take years to reverse it. People have long memories. America will be an outcast (an outlaw) for many years to come. Of course, in a hundred years things could look very different.
Howard, you seem remarkably sanguine given the state of affairs we are witnessing. Are you envisioning waiting it out hoping for better days? The widening societal divisions and flawed institutional systems currently shaking American (and world) stability to its foundations don’t bode well for ‘recovery’ any time soon. I have to share McG’s sobering predictions here. – Massive social unrest, calls for state secession, even civil war, could all too soon become realistic possibilities.
I’ve been through hard times. I feel the threat like everyone else, but as the Stoics say it is not up to me. That I have a vague idea that is happening helps. It is not entertaining. Trump unfortunately is a world historical figure. When the time comes to act, I’ll either deal with it or cope with things beyond my control.
The stock market is already falling- it might tank. Outraged voters are already accosting Republican Congressmen. Trump is a glib salesman who wiill try to slither out of his lies- he’s going to sell the American public that an America First economy on tarrifs that hurts everyone in America and cuts off markets is worth the trouble of negative growth and his approval ratings are not going to plunge precipitously, and the Republican leadership is not going to squirm and no Democratic Leader will take advantage of this home run pitch, because people think this is what it takes to make America great again? Americans will put that “USA! USA!” feeling over as you say shrinkage? Because of Donald Trump?
The stock market nosediving and the crisis it sets off is our last best hope, not on earth but in America.
My feeling is you’re probbaly right; but people have an instinct for self preservation and he might end up with the fate of say Mussolini. Maybe Fox and key Republicans turn on him- they are enjoying the ride, but they are using him just as he is using well… evryone
I think it is likely he will suffer a great fall in due course, but massive damage will have been done by then.
Tthe political system is tottering and in a massively gun-obsessed population the danger is real.
Indeed it is.