The U.S.’s decline started with little things that people got used to:
- Empty construction sites
- Roads and buildings that took forever to finish
- Unpredictable and enormous hospital bills
- 6% real-estate commissions
When writers speak of American decline, they’re usually talking about international power:
- The rise of China
- The waning of U.S. hegemony
To most Americans, those are abstract things.
But the most immediate cost of U.S. decline comes from the country’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic. Leadership failures are pervasive and catastrophic at every level:
- President Trump
- The CDC
- The FDA
- State and local leaders
The U.S. is suffering a horrific surge of infections in states such as Arizona, Texas and Florida.
Italy – a country that's legendary for government dysfunction – has crushed the curve of infection, while the U.S. just set a daily record for case growth.
In addition to worrying about their jobs and livelihoods, Americans must now be subjected to months of images of Italians casually walking around on the streets while they cower in their houses.
It’s a painful and stark demonstration of national decline.
The consequences of U.S. decline will far outlast coronavirus:
- High housing costs
- Poor infrastructure and transit
- Endemic gun violence
- Police brutality
- Bitter political and racial divisions
The U.S. will be a less appealing place for high-skilled workers to live. That means companies will find other countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere a more attractive destination for investment, robbing the U.S. of jobs and depressing wages. Some of the worst trends of U.S. decline will be exacerbated:
- Less tax money means even more urban decay
- Social-welfare programs are forced to make big cuts
- Anti-immigration policies will throw away skilled labor
U.S. economic advantage is under threat. Unless there’s a huge push to…
- Bring back immigrants
- Sustain research universities
- Make housing cheaper
- Lower infrastructure costs
- Reform the police
...the result could be decades of declining living standards.
[This seems an unduly pessimistic assessment. Unfortunately, it's not implausible. And the problem for those of us outside the US is that it's very bad news. The obvious new leading economy/polity is China, a ruthless dictatorship, an exemplar of the kind of social control made infamous in George Orwell's '1984'. Yet many might argue that we in the west already experience an alternate totalitarian dystopia: Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'.]
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