The United States is not being defeated by external rivals but is systematically dismantling the internal foundations of its own statehood.
The Choice of Decline
To be a superpower, one must first be a power; and to be a power, one must be a state. The fundamental crisis facing the United States today is that it is no longer being run as a state. Instead, it is being treated as a money-making or prestige-generating enterprise for a small group of people—an international oligarchy whose interests are often detached from the American public. This is the essence of 'superpower suicide.' It is a voluntary process where we are choosing to be far less powerful than we could be, systematically cutting our own hamstrings in education, research, economics, and war.
This suicide is most visible in the crumbling of our most basic institutional mechanisms, specifically the problem of succession. For thousands of years, the survival of a state has depended on the peaceful transfer of power from one ruler to the next. During the Cold War, we boasted that democracy had solved this ancient riddle. Today, that solution is in doubt. When a leader claims an indefinite right to power based on personal grievances, the state’s survival is sacrificed to the individual’s ego. Democracy is not just an ethical ideal; it is a vital succession mechanism that ensures the institution outlasts the person.
The Myth of the Lone Nation
There is a pervasive and dangerous rhetoric suggesting that the United States is being held back by an international order that favors others. This is historically illiterate. The United States did not inherit the current world order; we built the casino, dealt the hand, and decided how many cards were in the deck. We created these institutions to project our power and stabilize our influence. By whimsically mocking long-term allies or abandoning international law, we are not 'going it alone' in a show of strength; we are destroying the very system that put us at the center of the world.
Rules do not inherently constrain power; they can amplify it. When a great power exports rules, it creates a predictable environment where it can thrive. Breaking those rules is akin to a driver deciding to ignore the laws of the highway. You might feel a momentary burst of 'freedom' as you veer into oncoming traffic, but you will not end up more powerful. You will end up dead on the side of the road. Our current amnesia regarding why we built these norms is leading us toward a series of self-destructive, whimsical conflicts that lack both procedural rigor and strategic purpose.
The Erosion of the Information Commons
A functioning democracy requires a shared reality, yet we have allowed our information infrastructure to desertify. The rise of 'news deserts'—counties with no local reporters—has left the average citizen vulnerable to appeals to raw emotion rather than reason. We have replaced fact-finding journalism with a monopolistic media circus that filters and spins reality until it is unrecognizable. This is why, for example, the American public can remain largely ignorant of significant shifts on global battlefields or the nuances of international corruption.
When people are cut off from the facts of their own lives and the world around them, they look for shortcuts. This is where populism finds its foothold. It is an appeal that works best when social mobility craters and the 'game' feels rigged. If the state fails to provide the basic infrastructure of truth, it cannot expect its citizens to vote reasonably. We are making it harder for Americans to be sensible by depriving them of the tools necessary to understand their own interests.
The Fallacy of Negative Freedom
The dominant American concept of freedom is 'negative freedom'—the idea that liberty is simply the absence of government interference. This view is not only philosophically incoherent but politically self-destructive. If you believe freedom is just the removal of barriers, you never ask what that freedom is for. Eventually, this mindset shifts from viewing 'the government' as the barrier to viewing 'other people' as the barrier. It transforms a collective ideal into a divisive 'us versus them' struggle, where immigrants or political opponents are seen as obstacles to be cleared.
True freedom must be 'freedom to'—the capacity to act and flourish. This requires collective action to create the conditions that enable human agency. It is difficult to believe in freedom if you lack healthcare, education, or the prospect of social mobility. Just as doctors liberating concentration camps realized that survivors needed more than just the removal of barbed wire to be truly free, a society requires a supportive structure to sustain liberty. Without the values of dignity, honesty, and compassion, the 'tent of freedom' is empty. To save the superpower, we must move beyond the rhetoric of grievance and rebuild the practical conditions that make freedom possible for everyone.