Empires end badly.
They just do. What's the line? If things didn't end badly they wouldn't end at all. We've seen a couple of empires hit the skids within living memory — the British Empire in the aftermath of World War II (and the Japanese right before that, if you want to count it) and the Soviets at the end of the Cold War. It wasn't a fun time for the citizens of any of those nations, from what I can tell.
The United States is an empire. I'm not going to debate this with you. (People like to debate this.) We have military outposts around the world. We call ourselves the world's superpower. We defend a whole continent that isn't even ours. We try to prevent other superpowers from rising up as rivals. Our economic might moves the world. We are the center of the universe, for now. We are empire. It doesn't look quite like the old empires, but that's because it has a little more self-awareness and better public relations, at least within the empire.
And it's been good to be a citizen of the empire, no doubt. A beneficiary of all the blessings that accrue. Blessings maybe we think we've earned.
When the empire goes away, so will a lot of the fun stuff. Ask the British.
And maybe now it's our turn?
The bill comes due
Listen, I'm a doomer. You know that. So maybe take this with a grain of salt.
But I think the presidential debate this week broke me. I've been so worried about the End of Democracy (TM) because I know what comes next will hurt a lot of people. Maybe even people I love. Maybe even me.
I've hoped maybe we could avoid all that. Or at least delay it.
Now, though, I wonder if the bill simply hasn't come due.
Watching two those old men on stage the other night — one of them cartoonishly evil, a liar and conman and a racist and a rapist; the other merely (and obviously) a bit too old for the task — and, well, it was difficult to get the impression that we're a country with a bright future ahead of us.
Polls show that Americans aren't feeling great about that future, or the economy, even though their finances are doing fine. Analysts scoff, saying that doomerish folks — folks like me, frankly — are just amazingly ignorant about how good we've got it.
And it's true, in part. I've got it fairly good right now in my own personal life. I'm not rich, but we had a couple of huge bills unexpectedly hit us lately and — unlike a few years ago — I didn't have the sense this time that we were going to have to eat ramen for a few weeks to get through.
That's nice.
But maybe the sour attitudes that the more optimistic among us like to decry reflect something real — an understanding that all of this is contingent, and that the foundations of that contingency are showing their cracks. That all of this isn't sustainable anymore.
People liked living in that Florida condo building until it fell down around them unexpectedly.
Looking ahead
Look at that CNN stage from the other night. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that there's a bright future ahead.
I'll wait.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’ll get a reprieve. But I do not believe America is exceptional. Sooner or later — I think sooner, but I’m crossing my fingers — this thing isn’t going to be this thing anymore.
Empires end, but people don't — not, at least, unless we decide to destroy ourselves with nuclear fire. (That's not entirely out of the question these days, either.) There will be a next thing. A less-fun thing. A thing where we’re fighting for the scraps. An ugly thing.
Maybe it's time to prepare, as best we can.
I'm not sure I would count as a "doomer," because, as they say, Rome didn't fall in a day. The welfare capitalist-liberal democratic promise proclaimed 70 years ago was never fully achieved and was never going to be as excellent as its boosters made it out to be in the first place, but still, it achieved an enormous number of great and good things, and people will fight to hold on to those things in their places and adapt them to whatever comes next with whatever tools they can find. So yeah, I figure the imperial American dream will pass, like all imperial dreams pass, and maybe our passing with be particularly traumatic as we go through a half-assed populist/theocratic moment while China emerges from its growing pains and truly puts its stamp on the 21st century. But that passing will take decades, characterized by a real gradual and slow and often probably more ridiculous than terrifying decline, and many of our fellow citizens may never know it. In the meantime, we have our gardens, and so will our kids.
I’ll admit that I am an optimist. I think there is a future for humanity, and it will be a good one, but as Keynes said, “In the future, we will all be dead.” Whether the US empire is part of that future depends on the choices we are about to make. I we choose wisely, the American Experiment can be revived in 10 years. If not, we may be dominated by fascists for 10 generations. (Obviously, I’m paralleling the premise of the Foundation Trilogy.)