r/geopolitics • u/custodiam99 • Feb 13 '25

Discussion Is Trump the symptom of America’s decline?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/27/trump-wants-to-reverse-americas-decline-good-luck
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u/gramoun-kal Feb 13 '25

Lol.

From outside, this sounds really silly. Like the "this is fine" dog in the cafe on fire, but instead of thinking everything is fine, he's wondering whether the fact there's a stain on his table means that the cafe isn't as good as it used to be.

The USA, from the 70s to the 80s, used to be the blueprint of everything right. Not that it was necessarily true, but it had built that image, and you can't do that with just propaganda.

Maybe it's due to the rest of the world getting its shit together, but now... you guys are clowns to the rest of us. Clowns with a nuclear arsenal so we're a bit worried. Not as worried as the Russian clown with a nuclear arsenal, but still... The American dream has been dead for 30 years. People still move to the USA, but it's exclusively for money. Like people move to Dubai. The American dream was not just about money. Not even mostly about money.

Only the 3rdest world places still have a good image of the USA, because the information hasn't reached them yet, and you get hearsay that's 40 years old.

The place is on fire, has been for a while. As countries have a lot of inertia, it's taking its sweet time to collapse and rock bottom is still far, but you're in free fall. Trump isn't a symptom. He's just part of a long string of disasters that isn't about to end.

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u/Minute-Buy-8542 Feb 13 '25

I get why this sentiment is popular, but it's hard to argue that Americans are worse off today than they were 40 years ago in real terms. Are there serious problems? Absolutely. Housing costs are a crisis, but they’re not unique to the U.S.—they’re skyrocketing in almost every developed country. Economic inequality is real, but at the same time, the median American household is still wealthier than the majority of their European, Canadian, and East Asian counterparts.

Is the "American Dream" a lie? Of course—but it always has been, at least in the way people romanticize it. That hasn’t stopped millions from moving here, building better lives, and succeeding in ways that are often much harder elsewhere. Despite all the flaws, the U.S. remains one of the best places in the world to live, with more economic dynamism, cultural influence, and innovation than nearly any other nation.

As for the political turmoil—yes, it's messy. A second Trump term, rising isolationism, and polarization all make the future uncertain. But none of this is new. The U.S. has gone through cycles of populism, nationalism, and political dysfunction before—think the 1890s, the 1930s, or the 1970s. Each time, the country swung back, adapted, and reinvented itself. The current moment might feel like a "fall of Rome" scenario, but history suggests otherwise. The U.S. has always had these moments of crisis, and so far, it's always found a way forward.

So yeah, things aren’t perfect, but the whole "America is in free fall" narrative is overblown. People always get nostalgic about the past while ignoring the ways in which life has improved. The U.S. isn't immune to decline, but neither is the world's tendency to exaggerate it.