The Future is….
President Trump with his “mishigas” views may have finally unearthed a truth.
With more and more craziness passing for policy, he has shown that America is fast losing our preeminence to China. That is right…the 21st century will be known as the “Chinese Century” just like the 20th was the “American.” What Trump did with his actions was just accelerate our decline.
At one time, the U.S. was known as the can-do nation. No problem was unsolvable. All things had an answer mostly an American one. Dams, rails, and roads could be built in record time. We were a 20th century behemoth that could manufacture and design any product. So, what happened?
Inevitability did. Americans became mystified by their own myths. We believed that the nations of the globe revolved around us. We needed no one except for window dressing and everyone else needed us.
Great Britan was the indispensable nation in the 19th century. Their glorious navy could be everywhere. Their factories turned out manufactured goods that the entire world wanted. The pound sterling was the reserve currency throughout the Empire as well as the world. The British Empire had 25% of the land mass of the earth and 460 million subjects at its peak in the early 20th century.
Then beginning with WWI and accelerating after WWII, Great Britain lost preeminence. But it wasn’t so bad because America, its upstart little brother, took on their role. As Britain pared back and reverted to a middling power, the U.S. became the indispensable nation. All economic, political, and military power ran through Washington and New York.
In the 1920s, the Coolidge/Harding slogan “a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot” was a promise to Americans that they would have the newest in transport and luxurious food. Then the inevitable began to happen. America began to miss a beat. Oil shocks, shoddy, and overpriced goods, but mostly an undeserved sense of entitlement became commonplace.
Beginning in the 1950s Americans not only wanted to have autos in their garages and chickens in their pots, but they felt that jobs should provide for more. Multiple cars traded in every two or three years for a newer model. A suburban house, a little cabin in the woods, TVs in every room and low taxes. All to be accomplished by working 40 hours without too much sweat.
The wants escalated. By the 1970s it was more “give me’s” than anything else. Factory jobs paid very well but the quality of the product was not very good…remember the 1975 Dodge Aspen? Companies paid more to stockholders and invested less in plants, machinery, and training.
Our military was and is still strong, but the military is always the last vestige of power. For proof look to Ancient Rome and even England before the “War to End All Wars.” Weapons alone do not an economy make.
America lost track of what made our nation so enviable. The ability to put the common good above our individual interest is no longer the norm. Our institutions are frayed and many of our citizens don’t even realize how close we are to losing our freedoms. I wonder how many care?
Americans in general have less general knowledge about how our institutions operate than ever. It is all top line and substance free. Platitudes for thoughts recited by rote very reminiscent of Orwell’s “1984.” Our education system is now far from the envy of the world. Trump is in the midst of destroying our colleges and universities.
As an example, when was the last time graduate students, researchers, and PhD candidates were looking overseas to pursue their careers and research? The U.S. is too whimsical now to develop big breakthroughs in science. Hell, our government doesn’t even believe in science.
China with a steady policy is playing a weaker hand and winning. The Chinese know that even free trade is a win for them. The rest of the world is being chased by the Trump government into the arms of our only adversary and competitor. If they can’t trade with the U.S., they will trade with China.
Do other nations take advantage of us at times? Certainly, one must remember that even that is baked into the American geo-economic model. I once had a boss who expected the employees would steal. To him the matter wasn’t whether but how much. It was just another expense, like the cost of food or paper goods. If it was too much, he would cut it back by firing a few employees or he would spend more time on the premises.
The Trump regime has torn apart the government. Laws and basic fairness are gone. Once that happens, it is hard to go back to the way things were before. If departments and programs are gutted, how do we rebuild them in the aftermath?
People who live in a society where the rulers are corrupt also become corrupt. It is a lot like the “broken window” theory. If the leader and his family are taking all that they can, then don’t I have the right to do the same? This is not the America I knew.
We are breaking America…not making it great again. Decency is being purged. Truth is not absolute but a manufactured concept that can be bent to resemble anything the leader wants.
There may be no coming back from this nightmare. Trump didn’t come in with bullets but ballots. It is not conservative or liberal. Ideology is reduced to whatever the leader says. What does it mean to be a Republican? In Trump’s mind, it is him substituting the free market for corporatist views. We have heard Trump tell companies what to charge for their products.
Our rival is being very cagey. Trump has succeeded in making Xi look like Milton Friedman. While many believe Trump wants to be Erdogan, I think he is closer to Peron of Argentina. In 1900, Argentina and the U.S. were economically comparable. By the time that Peron was overthrown in 1955, Argentina was an economic and democratic basket case. Their favorite economic policies were price controls and tariffs. Sound familiar?
