Bad News for America Doomers

It’s once more springtime for America doomers, those who believe the United States will soon lose its global top-dog status. Much of this is in reaction to the poorly considered ramblings of President Trump. The Economist, for example, suggests that “the actual land of the free” has moved from America to Europe, with the Continent epitomizing “moral norms” on the climate, free trade, and rule of law.

These prophecies — or dreams — of America’s downfall conflate the United States, a people and place, with the US government. The difference between the two things isn’t well-understood, especially in Europe. Whoever controls the White House and Congress has an effect, to be sure, but the true power of America lies not with its elected leaders, but in the ambitions of its people, its remarkable physical endowment, and the constraints of its constitutional order (Trump is learning about that last — to his chagrin).

Great empires don’t fall easily. Often, they rebound from the worst setbacks. Rome suffered under the misrule of Caligula, Nero, and Commodus, but resurged under more enlightened leaders well until the fifth century AD. In the East, the Roman imperium lasted for almost a millennium longer than that. Britain, too, didn’t fade after losing American Revolutionary War; the country simply moved on, incorporating much of the world into its imperial system for the next 150 years.

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