Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass
Ever since the United States ascended to global leadership at the end of World War II, American leaders have regularly been stricken by bouts of anxiety that the country is in decline and losing ground to a rival. The Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite prompted such fears, as did Soviet expansionism in the 1960s. In the 1980s, Washington was seized by the worry that American industry was incapable of competing with Japan’s economic juggernaut. Even in 1992, just after the Soviet Union collapsed, an article in the Harvard Business Review asked, “Is America in Decline?”
Today, this perception of decline is wedded to fears about new vulnerabilities in the U.S. democratic system and the burgeoning strength of China. Both of these concerns have merit. Although U.S. voters disagree on the sources of the threats to American democracy, they broadly express an anxiety that their country’s democratic institutions can no longer deliver on the American dream’s promises. An October Gallup poll found that three-quarters of Americans were dissatisfied with their country’s trajectory.
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