As the US Empire Falls, We Must Take Care of Each Other

Days before taking office, President Donald Trump and his wife Melania launched their own cryptocurrency. His organization also plans to move forward with new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia. Eric Trump, the president’s son, oversees the company’s real estate interests and announced the expansion at a conference in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia in October. Eric also mentioned that his father will be the “most pro-crypto president in U.S. History.” A sitting president prioritizing personal capitalist expansion over the people along with the outgoing Democratic administration’s support of genocide in Palestine signals the country’s imperial decline.

For humanity to move toward genuine peace, the United States empire must end. All empires end, because they become untenable domestically and internationally. Anti-imperialist freedom fighters have noted this extensively. The British Empire receded because it couldn’t survive fighting in WWII and violently maintain colonies as liberation movements won independence. The French and Haitian revolutions ended France’s imperial rule as it overextended itself working to cling to its colonies in the Caribbean and Africa.

Even imperial proponents have noted that the U.S. imperial decline is visible on the horizon. The U.S. has seen an incredible amount of domestic social and political unrest, specifically in the last six years. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed fatal and obvious flaws within the U.S. for-profit healthcare system that is still killing and disabling scores of people daily. The pandemic—along with the continuing crisis of anti-Black police violence—saw the nation explode with uprisings.

his nation-state and its imperial hegemonic misdeeds are a hindrance to the quality of life for the vast majority of people within the country and the world.

Houselessness in the U.S. rose in the last year 18% with over 770,000 unhoused (certainly an undercount). Rising rents, climate disaster, wealth inequality, declining life expectancy, and corporate theft (inflation) are major markers of an unsustainable future for U.S. residents. Bipartisan U.S. policy seems to be greater investment into military and policing rather than a cohesive social safety net.

A further indicator of U.S. imperial decline is the considerable resistance to the idea of capitalism as a viable economic system. The U.S. remains the wealthiest nation in the history of the world with the largest military and surveillance apparatus by a large margin. Its ability to control the United Nations is unmatched. The social, economic, and political hegemonic domination appears impenetrable.The world economy still centers the dollar because of the aforementioned factors. The issue for the U.S. empire is that it markets itself, both home and abroad, as a bastion of freedom. That marketing of U.S. brand “freedom” is evaporating in the U.S. public psyche. It’s why you see desperate measures to control social media, like banning TikTok, ending DEI programs, or not teaching accurate U.S. History.

The decline of the U.S. empire scares most people for many reasons, but the idea needs more interrogation. This nation-state and its imperial hegemonic misdeeds are a hindrance to the quality of life for the vast majority of people within the country and the world. While the most marginalized suffer first and worst, the widening net of wealth inequality consumes more humans daily.

In the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw communities fill in gaps where the state and capitalist-based healthcare failed us. People worked tirelessly to keep their families, friends, and neighbors safe. Strangers became community, and informal networks were built and helped folks survive. We see this continually with climate catastrophes hitting different parts of the country. That sort of collective consciousness is needed along with making sure that we don’t have a state and socioeconomic system geared toward harm. In the midst of imperial decline, Americans have a hard road ahead of us working to create a future that is more humane and just, for ourselves and future generations. We deserve better.