The American century is over—by choice.
The broad shoulders of America that lifted, protected, and enabled democracy to win three world wars last century (numbers I, II, and the Cold War) have shriveled. We no longer have the strength to carry on.
The Trump Administration has unleashed sweeping actions aimed at downsizing, protecting, and isolating the United States.
That is a choice, not a necessity.
In Trump’s world, America is no longer willing to shoulder the burden of global leadership. As a result, the competition between the incumbent superpower, the United States, and an ascendent China for dominance this century has been surrendered. Under ‘Trumpism’ the United States is ceding its role as global hegemon.
When nations retire
Trump is leading America into retirement. Like older folks deciding to downsize, the United States, led by a senior citizen, is moving metaphorically from the grand house on the hill to a condo in a gated community.
Think Florida and golf courses.
Up go the walls, the barriers that exclude all except residents and their select guests from the pristine sanctuary within. No to immigration and no to imports. The message: America requires protection.
It is not that America can’t compete anymore. Under Trump, it doesn’t want to compete.
Downsizing means getting rid of stuff, the detritus no longer required for smaller quarters and narrower ambition. So, no resources are now available for soft power, for social safety nets, or for judicial protections for refugees.
Nor is there room for disagreement, lest protest interrupt afternoon naps or a backswing on the first tee.
With guards at the front gate, America, nestled in its retirement community, is only open to those with $5 million. Citizenship becomes akin to club membership. It’s for sale. But only those who look like us, who share our values, our religion, and our heritage need apply.
Barriers also eliminate outside entanglements. The occupants of America-as-gated-community choose not to mingle with roughnecks, strangers, and deviants from the outside.
Just another country
There was a time, when our former youthful and willing selves earned the moniker of exceptional. Today, Trump declares that we are merely another country. In Trumpism, there are no alliances. Every nation is on its own. We have quit the belief in positive sum. We prefer the fallacy of zero sum. The world is Hobbesian. There is no room for Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
After all, or so we are told, our debt is too large. Global engagement is costly and creates messy entanglements. Other countries need to figure it out for themselves. And those that cannot or whose choices we dislike, we may simply annex.
And we also quit at home.
We no longer want a progressive tax system that redistributes to those in need. We do not want to be constrained by regulations to keep our air and water clean or to provide public education or public health for all. We deny science. We deny the enlightenment.
In our gated community, we prefer our rules. Behind walls, there is no need for administrators or judges, who only meddle or interfere. Our decision makers need no boundaries, nor quaint notions of free will or democracy. Executive decisions shall not be restrained by law or the popular will.
The world that was
Gone is the time when American economic, military, and diplomatic might, alongside American values, underwrote global free trade, which made it possible for all—including Americans—to prosper. Specialization and trade created the foundations for a great society, one that could strive to take care of those less fortunate, both at home and abroad.
Once upon a time, America helped billions achieve self-determination, find roads to democracy, and paths out of poverty. There was a time when America quashed fascism and communism.
As in any endeavor, we made mistakes. But we got so much right.
And now, we abdicate. We are tired. We choose to retire.
Does it have to be this way?
Living in a gated community is a choice. It is a decision to close ranks, to seek inward affirmation. It is an association by tribe, a huddled community reserved for those of similar appearance, customs, mores, and faith.
Conform or leave.
America has always had ‘walls’—two vast oceans that separate us from others and a hemisphere James Monroe called off limits to foreign powers. We have long been wary of the outside world. George Washington warned against foreign entanglements. America only reluctantly entered World War I and World War II.
But those calamities and that of the Great Depression, coupled with the prospect of Soviet domination after 1945, unshackled the United States from its hesitancy to lead. America’s true greatness was only revealed when it assumed a willingness to defend democracy, free expression, the rule of law, the right of self-determination, and economic freedom around the world.
To be precise, America was great from Franklin Roosevelt until January 20, 2025.
Donald Trump loves to talk about making America great again. But great countries do not retire. They do not seek refuge behind walls. Great countries, and great leaders, do not choose golf, leisure, and conformity. Greatness embraces challenge, ambiguity, and responsibility. It does not shrink from them.
America this century faces many challenges—economic, financial, environmental, and moral. But as America retires to its homemade enclave, it will soon realize that the world and its problems cannot be walled off. America has flirted with romantic notions of isolationism before, notably in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. That did not end well.
Nor will it this time.
America cannot return to greatness by squirreling itself into enclosures of protection. Greatness requires engagement. Neither man nor country can retire to greatness. Donald Trump and America are about to re-learn that lesson.
