United We Stand...Divided, My Money's on China

It Has Become Almost Trite to Talk About US Decline. That Doesn't Mean It's Not Happening.

I’ve missed you all. I’ve been traveling for a bit. Now, I’m back and raring to go.

To get started, let’s run through a group of related perspectives chosen because they’re both important and because they’re likely to make a bunch of you real uncomfortable. (I’m not a monster. I just think it’s a good exercise to wrap our heads around uncomfortable thoughts every so often. Mental yoga. Helps keep the old think organ limber.)

• Contrary to our own national mythology, our history is as much one of the divisions between us as that which unites us. From the earliest days of the new country when states that saw themselves as very different fought to preserve their own rights through the Civil War, battles between the agrarian slave-economies of the south and the industrializing north defined our politics. The split has, however remained an open wound in our society ever since, as reflected in our politics. Remember when a tenet of “conservative” Republican politics was “states rights?” It seems poignantly quaint given the ferocity with which the current administration seeks to impose its will everywhere. Today, when many people speak of our national divisions they address them as though they are something new. They’re not. They’re a central part of our character as a nation. Since the country was founded, however, the argument was we were stronger if we could find a way to live together despite those divisions. Even in our darkest hours of internal tension, the forces at the center of our government had as their top priority finding ways to maintain the union. (See the Missouri Compromise.) We can’t deny this. Our future is one in which cultural divisions will remain. They cannot be wished away. That said, our current government is different from any in our history in one dangerous respect. It is actively seeking to both exacerbate our divisions and at the same time to impose the will of a small minority on the rest of the country (which will certainly have the effect of increasing tensions). It is weakening the institutions that have kept us bound together, attacking the principles that helped unify us, increasing toxic economic inequality, fomenting and seeking to institutionalize racial hatred, suppression of women, fear of immigrants, etc. This not only the worst kind of populist demagoguery. It is also a formula to weaken the sinews of our society and our nation. While there have been groups within our society that have such agendas before, those atop our federal government have always stopped short of actively seeking to take a chainsaw—they symbol of this administration’s commitment to wanton destruction—to that which has made our country great and strong.

• Compounding this grim reality are a set of other actions taken by this administration that are certain to weaken us further as a country regardless of whether we remain a coherent, unified entity or not. Attacking our institutions of higher learning, turning away the world’s best minds who had once come here to study and then stay to help drive our development, waging a war against science, making us an unreliable economic partner to the world, embracing erratic and destructive economic policies—all these steps combined with the effort to divide us if continued spell the end of American leadership. They would do so even if our competitors worldwide were not otherwise gaining on us. But here is another cold, hard reality: No one who spends real time in China, for example, comes away believing in the old myths with which we comforted ourselves. (We are the world’s great innovators. We are the world’s greatest source of economic creativity. We are the most entrepreneurial nation. Our system of unfettered (vulture) capitalism gives us an edge over any other system. Etc.) Because here’s the reality: in technology after technology and industry after industry, China is beating us. Not just because of some unfair advantages based on their rigged economic system. (Which is hardly as rigged as we say.) But because they’re just beating us fair and square. Not in everything. But the level of technological innovation in day-to-day use in China is astonishing. Their leadership in certain critical technologies (such as many associated with AI) is impressive. And they are showing a good ability to learn from past mistakes. Their society has real problems, but it is a mistake for us to be complacent as we are suffering self-inflicted wound after self-inflicted wound and they are working harder than we are, showing greater creativity and leading the way on many of the new technologies of tomorrow.

• Which brings us to one of the hardest truths to deal with: We’re not the country we thought we were. We’re not the country we touted ourselves as being. Many many nations offer better quality of life. Many offer a better social contract. Many are better governed. Many are freer. Many are more innovative. Many are ahead of us in key technologies. And many of our past advantages are being squandered. Does this mean it’s over for America? Not necessarily. But we’re trending in the wrong direction and candidly, while I am optimistic about our future, I don’t see us ever regaining the leadership advantages we once had. The Baby Boom generation of our leaders have failed to build on or even maintain the role they inherited from their fathers and mothers. (I know that irritates a lot of you old coots out there who read this stuff. But, it is time that we all, regardless of our age, wake up and smell the coffee.)

• This administration is actively making our situation worse re: the above. The attacks on higher education (Harvard in particular) are heinous, indefensible and will set us back for decades. If you were a brilliant foreign student planning your next educational endeavor, would you consider coming to the US? If you knew your visa could be revoked at any time? If you knew your social media activity would be scrutinized and the wrong opinion could get you booted from the country? If you knew your parents or friends might not be able to come visit you? (See the latest State Department guidance scrutinizing all visits with Harvard as a destination.) If you knew the school you attended might have its funding revoked? If you saw images of armed, masked thugs rounding up innocent students? If you read about the war on science, healthcare, climate common sense in this country? Of course, not. And boy is this going to hurt us. (According to one study, 40 percent of the advanced AI researchers in the US have an undergraduate degree from a Chinese university.) Not only will it have a chilling effect on us for the next few years while Trump is around, even if the GOP loses in 2028, who will come in the future knowing that a political shift in the US could produce similarly hostile conditions? We’re committing national suicide and still some universities and commentators are saying, hey, let’s find a way to go along with all this. Which, for what it’s worth, just between us chickens, won’t help.

I could go on. But I will save it for future posts. For now, let’s not shrug all this off like a bad turn in the weather. Either we find ways to combat and reverse what’s happening or we’ll soon go the way of not-so-Great Britain, reverting to being a shadow of our former greatness and whining, however wistfully, about it for the remainder of time.