My book “The End of the American Century” appeared in
2009. There I argued that the
combination of domestic decline and global change had put an end to the era of
U.S. global dominance, and that American citizens would have to come to terms
with a flattening standard of living and reduced global influence. This was not necessarily a bad thing, either
for the United States or for the rest of the world.
I finished writing the book during 2008, just as Barack
Obama was mounting his stunning rise to the presidency. For the paperbound edition of the book, which
appeared just after the election, I added an epilogue called “Reality and Hope
in the Obama Era,” where I offered some hope that the new president could
temper some of the problems I had raised.
But I also cautioned that America’s problems (for example with education,
violence, debt, inequality) were so deep-seated, and the global changes so
persistent (e.g. globalization of production, rise of new powers, climate
change) that his options would be limited.
President Obama, I believe, recognized all of these problems,
and tried his best to redress or adapt to them. He rescued an economy in
freefall; got us moving on climate change; passed milestone legislation on
health care; and restored America’s battered international reputation, winning
the Nobel Peace Prize in the process. He
was on track in adapting to the end of the American Century.
Now we have a President who is intent on returning to that
era of American superiority and dominance.
Indeed, Trump rode to power by demagoguing many of the issues of U.S.
decline that I had documented in my book: the stagnating incomes of the middle
class; the decline of manufacturing; the continuing prevalence of violence;
declining trust and confidence in government; the high cost of medical care;
and infrastructure decay.
Trump knew which buttons to push, but he had no idea how to
deal with any of these problems. He
promised to “make America great again” without having any notion of what that
might entail. His vision was to go
backwards, not forward. In a world so
rapidly changing, this is no solution at all.
America needs to adapt to change—embrace it, even—and not reject it, as
Trump seems to want to do. His
presidency is a dead end.
Any progress this country made during the Obama years is
quickly being rolled back and reversed in the first months of the Trump
presidency. The most pressing and
damaging problems I discussed—debt, inequality, and climate change—are all
likely to worsen under a Trump administration.
We can not go back to the American Century (which really
lasted only about half a century anyway), nor should we. That era was bred of specific historical,
economic and international circumstances.
We are in a different era now, both domestically and
internationally. The U.S. can not and
should not dominate the world as we once did.
To think and act otherwise is to court disaster in a globalized and
interdependent world. We should bid
adieu to the American Century, and move forward.
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