It was a good ride, I guess. Depending on when you start the clock, Empire USA has been either on top or heading rapidly towards the top for about 150 years. I put the start at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia. That was when the world got a great glimpse into the industrial and technological might that the USA was developing. Not long after, our imperial ambitions came into stark view with the Spanish American war and Teddy Roosevelt.
It took a while for us to edge out Great Britain, but their descent was clearly evident in the Boer War and then amplified by their fragility in WWI, the unraveling of their colonial empire, and the decay of their industrial economy after WWII
Our empire has been teetering for some time. We had what appeared to be rather glorious years in the 50’s and 60’s, though our original sin of slavery and our inability to address major social issues sowed the seeds for future distress even during those supposedly halcyon years.
The wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated both our hubris and our growing vulnerability. The almost gleeful outsourcing of our manufacturing capabilities by management consultants and the resultant middle-class malaise accelerated the process. Our dominance in computer and Internet technology shielded us from a more rapid decline, but the benefits accrued more and more to a fairly small part of our population.
So here we are today, with a deeply divided people, a sly but completely amoral and unhinged president, and a cabal of plutocrats, one of whom has been given carte blanche to wreak whatever havoc he chooses on our government and institutions.
Trump may believe he is a master negotiator, and perhaps he was in real estate, where a no-holds-barred approach and lack of ethics can apparently bring great success. But his style on the world stage can ultimately only bring isolation and pariah status to our country. Other countries will find new allies, new ways to conduct business. Even his cohort of MAGA crazies will eventually tire of his posturing. In the meantime, Musk’s incoherent ravaging of our government will cause a steady exodus of talent and a rapid degradation of services and sanity.
The US empire will fade away, but the Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple and Tesla empires will continue to expand and control the world. They will gobble up potential competitors and dictate how whatever remaining governments interact with them by buying political influence and controlling information. Yes, China will become the dominant nation, but it may soon find itself controlled more and more by its own technology companies.
There was a movie back in the mid-70s called Rollerball, where corporations were the most powerful entities on earth and made all the decisions. The individual corporations sponsored teams in a brutal sport called Rollerball, meant to pacify the masses. It wasn’t the best movie in the world, but I think it is very prescient in terms of where we are headed. Most of us sit in front of screens watching series and interminably scrolling already. We don’t have far to go.
It may be that the corporations are already powerful enough to stop the idiot Trump from starting a world war, though all bets are off on that question. The next couple of years will see Trump careen from one outrageous demand to another, and there is no telling what kind of mayhem will ensue.
Everyone fears that AI will cause wars, loss of jobs and that we will end up with AI conquering and perhaps obliterating humanity. But I think the AI juggernaut will simply provide corporations with the tools necessary to completely control the world. No more nationalism, no more wars, no more populism, no more immigration, no more democracy, no more compassion, no more visible dissension.
And then the plutocrats will build a lovely colony on Mars and flee there with their retinues while the earth dies from climate disasters, plastic pollution and the inevitable revolt of a few billion very disgruntled Amazon customers.
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