I'm going to be charitable and say, I understand why during the Great Recession this narrative of "flailing and falling America" took hold. But for the last ten years, I think we can all look with some self reflection and say it has not borne out. And if it becomes true now, it very much can be remedied, no matter how horrible and worst case the next few years are.
I don't know how but we need to take pride on the fact that we have gotten thru it - today is better than yesterday, and if tomorrow is hard than let's take pride the day after that we got thru it. That needs to be our narrative.
Additionally, some self love - this can again be the same country that elected Barack Obama. A country of hope and love, a country that embraces the change and belief in a better tomorrow. A country for all people, built on liberty and wealth. That is a big part of this country's history- bringing a globally diverse group together and shooting for the moon - and it can be the narrative thst inspires is to bring everyone together for an even better tomorrow.
Well, right now Trump is wreaking an impressive amount of destruction. The question of whether America can be restored after he's finished with it remains to be seen...I expect there will come a time when I'm optimistic, but right now I'm just watching the self-inflicted damage continue!
Theres no doubt we will be a differenf country. With apologies to Kamala, we can't go back to 2024 or 2016. And in an alternate universe...well that's a waste of time.
But we can build an America on freedom, justice, truth and wealth. Basically, superman's vision, with a little bit of compromise with Lex Luthor or Bruce Wayne ;)
We may not be able to project power to Taiwan and Ukraine - but hopefully, the sacrifices of previous generations will allow those free and rich democracies to stand strong. I dunno what the future holds, but twenty years from now I'm optimistic we can hold our heads high and say "we did it" and be proud of the country we've built in the wake of trumpism, one that is true to the ideals of our founding
The problem with Harris' campaign was arguably that she thought that it would be enough to 'go back' to a better time, rather than proposing real systemic reforms that could lead to a better deal for average people. I found it remarkably small ball that most of her proposed policies were simply things she knew might be able to realistically accomplish in the reconciliation budgetary process with a narrow majority in Congress. Responsible and realistic? You bet. Visionary leadership? Hardly. 'Where there is no vision, the people perish' has never been truer than the election of 2024. Trump's might have been a nightmare for most of us, but it was the only real 'vision' on offer.
Trump's self inflicted damage can be undone quickly, but it can't be undone permanently until his political faction convincingly loses power. The real problem is the decades of self inflicted damage the pre-Trump political establishment did in creating the bureaucratic monstrosity that is preventing anything from getting done. This self inflicted damage is what allowed the Trump faction to gain power in the first place.
I don't know what the future holds, but I do think that right now there's a tit for tat attempt at escalation (to be clear, it's mainly Trump and his ilk who are looking for revenge, not Dems, but the rhetoric seems to get heated by the minority wverytime they become the minority).
Really I think there is no better momwnt for a group of moderates to basically eschew the social and cultural questions and just get down to governing for the middle class and making business and core industries (including manufacturing) work. A cross coalition of workers and business focused on good government, business, prosperity, justice and freedom.
Yes. Luckily he seems quite content to simply slam the system with easily reversed EOs rather than seeking more permanent changes through a narrowly held Congress. He doesn't have the patience to do lasting harm --- so far.
To be clear: I am not discounting at all the long term damage his is doing to the federal government, workforce and our international standing. I am only commenting on the legal permanence of his assaults.
The Great Depression or some similar calamity was arguably necessary for the US to build the modern administrative state needed to manage the complexity of the 20th century economy, but I doubt that it felt like the US was heading for unprecedented prosperity when people were eating zoo animals to survive. I believe that we occasionally make enough progress in both technology and society that we exhaust old paradigms and ironically open the door to immense instability and suffering that we ultimately need to work through to establish a new age. I don't think there is any grand pattern of history, I just think it's a built in tragedy of human nature that we struggle to collectively grow and change unless forced. Our system is worn out, tired and has been for a very long time. Only now are we beginning to imagine truly radical changes.
The US is not fated to survive the crises of the new millennium anymore than Rome was fated to survive the crises of late antiquity, it wasn't and it fell. I do, however, take comfort believing that the advent of the digital age and a multiethnic mainstream were both the right steps forward and inevitably going to trigger a heaping pile of bullshit one way or another. We might not dig our way through but by god we will try. Something we can't even dream of might be on the other side
Absolutely right. But we are better resourced in terms of wealth, social capital, and institutional strength than any prior world system. I am still optimistic.
People have a great desire to build. We will rebuild. It’s hard to say if it will be better but it’s unlikely to be worse because we will have the example of the past to learn from.
Nice comments and great charts and illustrations, too.
I recall reading (James Fallows, maybe?) after his time in Japan and Malaysia and China that America's superpower is its ability to assimilate and yet have room for differences - you can come here and be Italian, you can come here and be Mennonite, you can come here and be Muslim, you can come here and be Vietnamese - or be whatever you want to define yourself to be. There is room to be different from each other, and out of those differences new solutions arise. And those 1st and 2nd generation immigrants are links back to those parts of the world, so help build bridges and networks and trade.
So siloing into only one cultural heritage is a losing game.
Even China doesn't have one heritage. Dozens of languages across the country, sometimes I'm amazed it can even be considered one country. And after nearly committing cultural suicide in the Cultural Revolution, they adopted a lot (a LOT!) from America, even if they won't admit it.
It's very much a hybrid culture.
Much power in having multitudes within. When you can embrace it, it gives great flexibility and strength.
A man wrote me and said: "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American." - President Ronald Regan, 1989
I wonder how much of that culturally assimilative special sauce is due to the idée fix in American culture of an open frontier and unlimited resources. Now that we no longer have such an attitude, I wonder if we will see a more permanent turn toward xenophobia that has always been a reaction and minor theme in the American story?
I believe, maybe have to believe, that that there will eventually be a turn against xenophobia.
In part, it's because some resources are less limited than ever, and the open frontier is not physically rooted, so it can be a mainstream thought again.
America has always experienced cycles of xenophobia ascendant alternating with openness ascendant. The difference between us and almost everyone else is that openness is ascendant roughly half the time, as opposed to a tiny fraction of the time.
In the current cycle, it's very easy to see why the public turned from openness toward xenophobia. It should therefore be fairly easy to push the pendulum the other way again.
Why did the public turn toward xenophobia this time?
In the US, it wasn't immigration levels, because those have been higher. Proportion of foreign born was nearing (but not besting) a historical peak.
Support for immigration dropped across the settler states at virtually the same time. Canada's famously high support for much higher immigration rates than the US shattered in the face of a nation-wide housing affordability crisis. But that crisis is mostly limited to a dozen or so cities in the US.
That suggests to me that the root cause is technological change: social media, and/or the decline of shared truth.
I don't see that as particularly easy to push the pendulum the other way.
Polls suggest that the majority of Americans still have a positive view of legal immigration. The turn this time around was caused by the Biden administration's feckless border policy that led to an explosion in illegal immigration, combined with a relentless focus on illegal immigration in the right-wing media.
If we had negotiated a compromise immigration bill four years earlier that actually secured the border, I doubt the pendulum would've swung against us at all.
They do admit they adopted a lot from America. Just read America Against America by Wang Huning, currently one of the top guys in the CCP, who took a long trip to study the US during the 90s. China has quite intentionally studied the US and many members of their top leadership speaks English and studied in the US. How many top US officials speak Chinese and studied in China?
And the Nazi's closely studied the Confederacy and Jim Crow legislation. I see no real sign that CCP has taken aboard any positive lessons from us.... the opposite in fact.
Haven't they essentially perfected mass manufacturing and growing a consumerist society? While these might not be considered positive lessons, they sure look familiar. They turned American business' hunger for cheap labor and bigger profits into a new China.
But who can read Chinese writing, which is a major barrier to broader use of spoken Chinese. For years Americans did not have the freedom to travel pretty much wherever they chose in China. In fact, I recall a pretty famous case of an American researcher arrested over uncovering forced abortions. He became a cause celebre in the US because the right-to-lifers got involved.
If China has an Achilles heel it is the cultural ethic superiority complex of the Han ethnicity. And it's historic disunity and resource limits... I don't think China will as a unified state will see 2050. In this, I am very much persuaded by Ziehan and those like-minded re China's stability as a global power.
30 years ago, I thought the south and north would separate, but as long as economic growth ticked along, it worked well. Now we'll see how much pain the Chinese are willing to put up with under the CCP again. My bet is they will stomach rather a lot, but not an infinite amount.
I love when people reclaim pride in their history — especially those from places the world often overlooks. But sometimes that pride turns into romanticizing the past, and that can do more harm than good.
When i was talking to a friend of mine (we are both Ghanaian-American) he was romanticizing the Ashanti Empire.
He said things like "We were Kings! We built a centralized bureaucracy, had gold for days, and ran a powerful military state!"
All of that is true, but its romanticizing the good and ignoring the bad.
He got carried away. “We were kings! We had palaces! We were untouchable!” — as if our empire was some kind of utopia. But that’s not the full picture.
What gets left out is that Ashanti society was deeply hierarchical and unequal. A few families held power & wealth while most people were illiterate subsistence farmers. There was widespread use of enslaved people among the empire(not the same as american slavery but you better believe people beat their slaves for misbehaving). We had a system of pawning which is like debt bondage of children. The Ashanti King profited heavily from the transatlantic slave trade and begged the British to maintain it. Even offering gold and prostitutes to keep it.
Ordinary life was tough then: no medicine, no electricity, high infant mortality, and most people couldn’t read or write. If you were a poor farmer or a woman outside the royal court, you weren't living a golden life — you were grinding to survive.
Yes, it's meaningful to know your ancestors ruled kingdoms. It means if some ignorant kid in elementary school said "black people never had civilization!" You could inform them instead of crying at home feeling ashamed of yourself for not being white.
But the day-to-day life of 99% of them was hard, short, and unequal. Not being colonized — yet — didn’t mean we were free of oppression or suffering. Also, that isn't just true for The Ashanti, All of human history pre-industrial revolution sucked. No one wants to live in 1700s Persia, China, Ethiopia, or even 1700s France. It was a world of high birth and high death rates. The world population in the 1700s was 600M.
Here’s the thing: There’s no shame in complexity. Our history doesn’t need to be perfect to be powerful. You can take pride in your people’s resilience — their ability to build, to govern, to fight and adapt — without turning the past into a fantasy.
Because once we do that, you can't really learn from history.
I like your comment and totally agree. This is one of the pieces from Noah that I didn’t make it to the end because I just don’t know if it’s worth my time.
Perhaps my Igbo pride is showing, but part of my parents imbued confidence in me and themselves is their rich history. Not all good but rich nonetheless. I don’t submit to the idea that people celebrating their cultures turns into a zero sum game where we run all our cultures into some revisionist mud.
I think history is something so often dismissed that any intellectual contributing to that dismissal just rubs me the wrong way.
I appreciate his stuff but this is a piece I’m just not interested in spending my time exploring. But I am glad it led me to your comment.
It has always been intriguing that rearward-facing nations are stuck in the past and cannot anticipate a better future. Some relieve the past again and again. Serbs still bitterly relive The Field of Blackbirds, a battle which occurred in 1389 when the Ottoman Empire defeated the Serbs in a battle in Kosovo. The Palestinians and the Jews have not relinquished their adulation of the miseries of the past and are doomed to relive them again and again. The anticipation of a better future was what I grew up with and always believed that at their core, Americans believed in their own future. Today that does not seem to be the case. A sizable portion of Americans believe that the past represents their glory days and that today is nothing but misery and darkness. And now their president will help them fulfill their dreary expectations. We must get back to once again, being Americans.
Indeed my Yugoslav-American ex-brother-in-law brought this up 35 years ago as Yugoslavia broke apart. He delivered a screed on how awful non-Catholic Yugoslavs were and I suggested that maybe WWII was a long time ago and it was time to at least figure out how to live together. He responded that he was not speaking of WWII but the Battle of Kosovo of 1389.
As an American I was absolutely gobsmacked that anyone, anywhere would hold on to such a deadening notion.
May I retort? Jews have been persecuted for 2000+ years. “Christians,” Muslims since Mohammed’s time, ca. 640 C.E., expelled from more places than I can count. Let’s not forget the expulsions from England, Spain in 1492, and many other places. The Holocaust.
We don’t have an ongoing persecution of anyone, at least since Biblical times, I.e., being allowed by the king of Persia to take vengeance on our enemies in the book of Esther, and canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites in the Bible. So your time frame is a bit off. The PLO was formed in 1964 before, I thought, any lands of Post 1948 Israel were “occupied” by Jews. People say “Never Again” but the brilliant Eve Barlow pointed out today that there will always be people who hate us. I guess it keeps our heads on a swivel…
yes, retorts are welcome. My examples are but two in a long list of immiseration. Since time immemorial, humans have declared the other to be the enemy. Akkadians and Sumerians are but one example. It invariably turns out badly and this time, under Trump, will be no different. A forward-looking, informed citizenry is an ideal which is difficult to achieve and is essential for democracy to survive.
Noah, I love the way you're thinking. Escaping the inherent tribalism inherent in our ruling classes seems a fools errand. But your article gives this old guy hope.
I've spent the better part of my (admittedly short) life listening to various individuals lament American decline, whether it was Paul Krugman during the despondency of the Bush years, Glenn Beck under Obama, or the cacophony of criticism (including Krugman redux) that followed after Trump so haphazardly descended that golden escalator. At some point you get tired of it; either we are in decline, in which case there are some things about the "American project" we need to rethink (I have a few thoughts, but I've leave that for another discussion), or we aren't, in which case all this ballyhooing by the chattering classes is a bit much.
For the record, I think we are in decline, partly because all civilizations decline; decline is a largely immutable part of the human condition (like aging). I also think that hegemony and world empire have been corrosive to our national character: nobody likes a know-it-all, especially one who lectures others about the splinter in their eye while ignoring the wooden beam in their own. Other than that I think it was a decent piece, though I think Noah underrates the role that history and tradition play in motivating human decisionmaking (the Mad King himself won't shut up about American decline and his dream of "national rejuvenation," whatever that means).
"For the record, I think we are in decline, partly because all civilizations decline; decline is a largely immutable part of the human condition (like aging)”
For the record, no political entity (state, nation, empire, etc) ever both created and defined itself at its inception until we did. There’s a very good reason for that phrase of few of us ever notice on our currency, Novus Ordo Seclorum (A new order of the Ages). We are exactly that, the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted. Our Constitution is, among other things, a living counter to your suggestion because unlike any nation before us, it laid us out a entirely new kind of ongoing challenge which we can accept or deny as we choose.
Many state and national leaders through history have talked to their people about what they ought to be doing to ‘make us great again’, but Abraham Lincoln understood it in that new way when he talked of ‘the great task remaining before us’, a task which had nothing to do with glory or conquest or racial purity or great buildings, or pretty much any other goal any other leader had ever set for any other people,”That government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth".
I think the Trump era will certainly inject a caveat of caution and independence into our traditional alliances. That, ultimately, might prove a good thing. We Americans need to grow the fuck up politically and understand the extraordinary benefits our international institutions and alliances have afforded us.
I’ve always felt that the obsession with civilizational grandeur—especially in the Chinese context—can become more of a burden than a source of strength. This “Middle Kingdom” narcissism, rooted in the idea that China is the eternal center of the world, distorts its engagement with modernity. It doesn’t encourage reflection or collaboration—it encourages hierarchy, historical entitlement, and a dismissiveness of other paths to progress.
Yes, China industrialized quickly—but it did so on the shoulders of global knowledge flows, just like every civilization has. What the West achieved in 200 years was built on prior foundations: the Enlightenment, Arab mathematics, Indian numerals, Chinese printing, and many other contributions that traveled across borders long before they were “owned” by nations. Human progress has never been a solo act—it’s been a relay.
The future won’t be defined by who had the most glorious past. It’ll be shaped by how we work together to solve real problems—climate, inequality. That requires humility, not hubris. The notion that one nation will rise simply because it once ruled is misguided. Civilizations don’t entitle you to the future. People do. Collaboration does. Shared ambition does.
What also stands out is the brittleness in China’s strategic mindset—this need to “defeat” the West rather than coexist with it. That framing is not just outdated; it's self-limiting. The world 20–25 years from now won’t be a binary contest. It’ll be multipolar, unpredictable, and collaborative by necessity.
As someone from India, I’ve never felt we grew up with this idea of needing to dominate anyone. Sure, someone might say, “Well, you say that because you don’t have the power.” But even so, I’d counter that our ethos, our books, our stories—none of them taught us that the world is binary, or that we’re the center of the universe destined to rule others. The cultural mindset has always leaned more toward coexistence than conquest. We were taught “वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्” (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam)—the world is one family, that was the last G20 slogan as well. That may not be grand, but it feels more honest—and maybe more durable—in the kind of world we’re heading into.
Certainly, there is a pearl of cultural wisdom in India as to the limits and consequences of power that seems absent from that of the Chinese tradition. That is an interesting point that would be fruitful to expand upon with more detail and evidence, I think.
I certainly agree, Noah. As Steven Pinker has ably pointed out, the past century (even including world wars, cold wars, revolutions, and genocides) has been a veritable paradise compared to the entirety of prior human history. I would certainly extend that analysis to include the plainly true proposition that Americans have it better, in absolute terms, right now than ever before - there is not even a 'recent' Camelot for us to be nostalgic over or try to 'reclaim'.
We collectively need to metabolize the belief that so long as we stick by the central principles that got us here (scientific method, free and fair markets, rule of law, collective decisions and course correction through some form of democratic consultation, a liberal international order that rewards cooperation greater than violent conflict, as perhaps chief among many others) that Americans can count on tomorrow always being much better in absolute terms than yesterday.
Unfortunately, the electorate doesn't always think in absolute terms, but in relative terms: they rightly see that the prospects of many of us seem (and are) more problematic than many of our elders. Growing wealth and income inequality, persistent democratic dysfunction as regards the needs of the vast majority of us (largely due to the distortions of unlimited money being legalized within the system), and the slow dismantling of so many meritocratic means of advancement, have led many to despair and look to populist cant and hatreds for an explanation and a solution.
Fascism is a collective disease of despair. We must do more to combat it than be generally optimistic about the future, we must also imagine and communicate a better future for the average person in relative terms. Thanks for what you are doing in your writing to help us imagine and consider that something better. Keep it up!
This is a response to Max Millick (for some reason, I received the email with your reply, but I don't see it in the thread??? Yes, Noah is doing just fine. Don't cry for him (I've had a bit too much Eva Peron recently).
Surprised to not see the words "manifest destiny" anywhere in this essay. Ultimately, doesn't the ethnic/national/societal superiority complex stem from deeply ingrained human tribalism? "My tribe is better than your tribe" therefore "I'm better than you" (or, charitably, I'm going to work harder than you). It seems that manifest destiny was one important element of the US version of that... One rooted in a choice to join a tribe, rather than being born into it, but joining a superior tribe nonetheless.
There's no going back downward to exclusive empires. Together we are capable and we need to accept the obstacles we face is the way forward. We don't need to wait and limit ourselves for leaders to save us. We got to take the torch and define who we are to build a better world that is sustainable, inclusive and in harmony. We are the way forward.
It will certainly make for a poorer and less secure world that is less capable of solving collective problems should we move back toward a sphere of influence/balance of power empire model of world order.
Every post you've made for the last few months has been a rendering of your garments. You must have one hell of a laundry bill. Give yourself (and your readers) a break. The US is not collapsing. The world is not ending. Yeah, the stock market is off its Trump got elected highs, but it's still higher than one year ago, when all your posts were about how Joe Biden was the bestest president eveeer. You're going to wear yourself out. You've worn me out. I used to read most all of your posts, now I can't get pat the headline, because I already know where it goes.
OT, but we've been down in Argentina for the last month. Beautiful country, but very mush a police state compared to the US. And no one. NO ONE, gives two shits about Trump or the end of the American Empire. Or the US bond market. They have their own problems, although at least Milei has stopped much (not all) of the bleeding.
Or just carry on with lighting your hair on fire every and running around the room every other day. Whatever works for you.
No. I wrote this comment in response to the last 60 days of your posts. No doubt I chose the wrong post to finally respond. Lo siento. I just wish you'd get back to why I subscribe.
As for the future, it lies (lays?) ahead. Always has.
David, the problem with your response is that it doesn’t take into account what we were designed to be - the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. Indeed, as Noah noted, our potential greatness, our ‘American exceptionalism’ is never and can never be an achieved state. It will always be out there in front of us as long as we wish to continue the experiment.
If enough of us decide to discontinue it, as Donald Trump and his myrmidons, and the other Americans who have disavowed the experiment over our brief history would have us do, then it certainly will be discontinued. And perhaps many will not miss it, except that very few of us really understand what the alternatives would be. Indeed, it is so many of those who are trying so desperately to enter our country any way they can who understand those alternatives far better than the vast majority of us do.
The poet Robert Browning once wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for”. I’m not a believer in heavens as such, so I would alter Browning’s words as follows “A democracy’s reach should exceed its grasp, or what’s America for”.
America, as the character of President Andrew Shepherd in The American President noted, is advanced citizenship. Indeed it is the most advanced ever in the world. It isn’t easy, and so our stumbles in pursuit of it ought never to be ignored.
You may decide that Noah’s attempts to say something like that in the midst of what may be the most significant attempt so far to end our experiment, but you can’t do that without also deciding and explaining why that the experiment wasn’t worth it.
You read way, way too much into my comment. I subscribe to a handful of substacks. This is entertainiment, ultimately. If I just wanted "Trump ... RHEEEEE" no subscription needed ...
Sometimes lighting your hair on fire is necessary to attract sufficient attention in our very competitive media landscape. I don't fault any merchant of ideas for having a fire sale now and again...
Uh, David, I think you are in the wrong place. Noah doesn't write about rainbows and unicorns, just reality. It is not entertainment for you or anyone else.
We care about this stuff now, so that we can do something about it and not end up like Argentina.
Many have asked, "Who is my neighbor?" I've always answered that certainly the family who lives on my block is my neighbor, and the families in the town next door, and across my state, my country. I would not stop looking for my neighbors at the US-Canadian border or the US- Mexican border. Certainly having just recognized Earth day, I conclude that all of mankind is my neighbor.
Your line, "Our ancestors were not wise kings and majestic emperors" starts with the word, "our". If I ask, "Who is my ancestor?" just reaching back a couple hundred years, I find North Americans, Europeans and Africans. If I reach back farther, I find our common ancestry. We are all in this together. In the spirit of your words - let's look forward, together.
And even in American mythology, "our forebears" is a dexterous construction. After all, George Washington had no children, so he is *nobody's* ancestor.
And yet ... the dream he helped build was so strong that at emancipation a lot of freedmen took the surname "Washington". To this day, "Washington" is a strong predictor of being black in America. Those freedmen were uneducated (most of them) but a lot wiser than a lot of current Americans.
I'm going to be charitable and say, I understand why during the Great Recession this narrative of "flailing and falling America" took hold. But for the last ten years, I think we can all look with some self reflection and say it has not borne out. And if it becomes true now, it very much can be remedied, no matter how horrible and worst case the next few years are.
I don't know how but we need to take pride on the fact that we have gotten thru it - today is better than yesterday, and if tomorrow is hard than let's take pride the day after that we got thru it. That needs to be our narrative.
Additionally, some self love - this can again be the same country that elected Barack Obama. A country of hope and love, a country that embraces the change and belief in a better tomorrow. A country for all people, built on liberty and wealth. That is a big part of this country's history- bringing a globally diverse group together and shooting for the moon - and it can be the narrative thst inspires is to bring everyone together for an even better tomorrow.
Well, right now Trump is wreaking an impressive amount of destruction. The question of whether America can be restored after he's finished with it remains to be seen...I expect there will come a time when I'm optimistic, but right now I'm just watching the self-inflicted damage continue!
Theres no doubt we will be a differenf country. With apologies to Kamala, we can't go back to 2024 or 2016. And in an alternate universe...well that's a waste of time.
But we can build an America on freedom, justice, truth and wealth. Basically, superman's vision, with a little bit of compromise with Lex Luthor or Bruce Wayne ;)
We may not be able to project power to Taiwan and Ukraine - but hopefully, the sacrifices of previous generations will allow those free and rich democracies to stand strong. I dunno what the future holds, but twenty years from now I'm optimistic we can hold our heads high and say "we did it" and be proud of the country we've built in the wake of trumpism, one that is true to the ideals of our founding
The problem with Harris' campaign was arguably that she thought that it would be enough to 'go back' to a better time, rather than proposing real systemic reforms that could lead to a better deal for average people. I found it remarkably small ball that most of her proposed policies were simply things she knew might be able to realistically accomplish in the reconciliation budgetary process with a narrow majority in Congress. Responsible and realistic? You bet. Visionary leadership? Hardly. 'Where there is no vision, the people perish' has never been truer than the election of 2024. Trump's might have been a nightmare for most of us, but it was the only real 'vision' on offer.
Trump's self inflicted damage can be undone quickly, but it can't be undone permanently until his political faction convincingly loses power. The real problem is the decades of self inflicted damage the pre-Trump political establishment did in creating the bureaucratic monstrosity that is preventing anything from getting done. This self inflicted damage is what allowed the Trump faction to gain power in the first place.
History shows that reactionaries are always waiting to regain power. Always. We can never pretend that they are gone and will never return.
I don't know what the future holds, but I do think that right now there's a tit for tat attempt at escalation (to be clear, it's mainly Trump and his ilk who are looking for revenge, not Dems, but the rhetoric seems to get heated by the minority wverytime they become the minority).
Really I think there is no better momwnt for a group of moderates to basically eschew the social and cultural questions and just get down to governing for the middle class and making business and core industries (including manufacturing) work. A cross coalition of workers and business focused on good government, business, prosperity, justice and freedom.
That's how you kill MAGA
Yes. Luckily he seems quite content to simply slam the system with easily reversed EOs rather than seeking more permanent changes through a narrowly held Congress. He doesn't have the patience to do lasting harm --- so far.
To be clear: I am not discounting at all the long term damage his is doing to the federal government, workforce and our international standing. I am only commenting on the legal permanence of his assaults.
The Great Depression or some similar calamity was arguably necessary for the US to build the modern administrative state needed to manage the complexity of the 20th century economy, but I doubt that it felt like the US was heading for unprecedented prosperity when people were eating zoo animals to survive. I believe that we occasionally make enough progress in both technology and society that we exhaust old paradigms and ironically open the door to immense instability and suffering that we ultimately need to work through to establish a new age. I don't think there is any grand pattern of history, I just think it's a built in tragedy of human nature that we struggle to collectively grow and change unless forced. Our system is worn out, tired and has been for a very long time. Only now are we beginning to imagine truly radical changes.
The US is not fated to survive the crises of the new millennium anymore than Rome was fated to survive the crises of late antiquity, it wasn't and it fell. I do, however, take comfort believing that the advent of the digital age and a multiethnic mainstream were both the right steps forward and inevitably going to trigger a heaping pile of bullshit one way or another. We might not dig our way through but by god we will try. Something we can't even dream of might be on the other side
edit for grammar
Absolutely right. But we are better resourced in terms of wealth, social capital, and institutional strength than any prior world system. I am still optimistic.
People have a great desire to build. We will rebuild. It’s hard to say if it will be better but it’s unlikely to be worse because we will have the example of the past to learn from.
Nice comments and great charts and illustrations, too.
I recall reading (James Fallows, maybe?) after his time in Japan and Malaysia and China that America's superpower is its ability to assimilate and yet have room for differences - you can come here and be Italian, you can come here and be Mennonite, you can come here and be Muslim, you can come here and be Vietnamese - or be whatever you want to define yourself to be. There is room to be different from each other, and out of those differences new solutions arise. And those 1st and 2nd generation immigrants are links back to those parts of the world, so help build bridges and networks and trade.
So siloing into only one cultural heritage is a losing game.
Even China doesn't have one heritage. Dozens of languages across the country, sometimes I'm amazed it can even be considered one country. And after nearly committing cultural suicide in the Cultural Revolution, they adopted a lot (a LOT!) from America, even if they won't admit it.
It's very much a hybrid culture.
Much power in having multitudes within. When you can embrace it, it gives great flexibility and strength.
A man wrote me and said: "You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American." - President Ronald Regan, 1989
I wonder how much of that culturally assimilative special sauce is due to the idée fix in American culture of an open frontier and unlimited resources. Now that we no longer have such an attitude, I wonder if we will see a more permanent turn toward xenophobia that has always been a reaction and minor theme in the American story?
I believe, maybe have to believe, that that there will eventually be a turn against xenophobia.
In part, it's because some resources are less limited than ever, and the open frontier is not physically rooted, so it can be a mainstream thought again.
America has always experienced cycles of xenophobia ascendant alternating with openness ascendant. The difference between us and almost everyone else is that openness is ascendant roughly half the time, as opposed to a tiny fraction of the time.
In the current cycle, it's very easy to see why the public turned from openness toward xenophobia. It should therefore be fairly easy to push the pendulum the other way again.
Why did the public turn toward xenophobia this time?
In the US, it wasn't immigration levels, because those have been higher. Proportion of foreign born was nearing (but not besting) a historical peak.
Support for immigration dropped across the settler states at virtually the same time. Canada's famously high support for much higher immigration rates than the US shattered in the face of a nation-wide housing affordability crisis. But that crisis is mostly limited to a dozen or so cities in the US.
That suggests to me that the root cause is technological change: social media, and/or the decline of shared truth.
I don't see that as particularly easy to push the pendulum the other way.
Polls suggest that the majority of Americans still have a positive view of legal immigration. The turn this time around was caused by the Biden administration's feckless border policy that led to an explosion in illegal immigration, combined with a relentless focus on illegal immigration in the right-wing media.
If we had negotiated a compromise immigration bill four years earlier that actually secured the border, I doubt the pendulum would've swung against us at all.
Not only have we no frontier, we no longer have millions of factory jobs going begging, that could be performed by anyone with two hands.
Exactly.
They do admit they adopted a lot from America. Just read America Against America by Wang Huning, currently one of the top guys in the CCP, who took a long trip to study the US during the 90s. China has quite intentionally studied the US and many members of their top leadership speaks English and studied in the US. How many top US officials speak Chinese and studied in China?
And the Nazi's closely studied the Confederacy and Jim Crow legislation. I see no real sign that CCP has taken aboard any positive lessons from us.... the opposite in fact.
Haven't they essentially perfected mass manufacturing and growing a consumerist society? While these might not be considered positive lessons, they sure look familiar. They turned American business' hunger for cheap labor and bigger profits into a new China.
China is not a consumerist society at all. The key is to see whether they start a viable social safety net which they have not.
But who can read Chinese writing, which is a major barrier to broader use of spoken Chinese. For years Americans did not have the freedom to travel pretty much wherever they chose in China. In fact, I recall a pretty famous case of an American researcher arrested over uncovering forced abortions. He became a cause celebre in the US because the right-to-lifers got involved.
If China has an Achilles heel it is the cultural ethic superiority complex of the Han ethnicity. And it's historic disunity and resource limits... I don't think China will as a unified state will see 2050. In this, I am very much persuaded by Ziehan and those like-minded re China's stability as a global power.
30 years ago, I thought the south and north would separate, but as long as economic growth ticked along, it worked well. Now we'll see how much pain the Chinese are willing to put up with under the CCP again. My bet is they will stomach rather a lot, but not an infinite amount.
I love when people reclaim pride in their history — especially those from places the world often overlooks. But sometimes that pride turns into romanticizing the past, and that can do more harm than good.
When i was talking to a friend of mine (we are both Ghanaian-American) he was romanticizing the Ashanti Empire.
He said things like "We were Kings! We built a centralized bureaucracy, had gold for days, and ran a powerful military state!"
All of that is true, but its romanticizing the good and ignoring the bad.
He got carried away. “We were kings! We had palaces! We were untouchable!” — as if our empire was some kind of utopia. But that’s not the full picture.
What gets left out is that Ashanti society was deeply hierarchical and unequal. A few families held power & wealth while most people were illiterate subsistence farmers. There was widespread use of enslaved people among the empire(not the same as american slavery but you better believe people beat their slaves for misbehaving). We had a system of pawning which is like debt bondage of children. The Ashanti King profited heavily from the transatlantic slave trade and begged the British to maintain it. Even offering gold and prostitutes to keep it.
Ordinary life was tough then: no medicine, no electricity, high infant mortality, and most people couldn’t read or write. If you were a poor farmer or a woman outside the royal court, you weren't living a golden life — you were grinding to survive.
Yes, it's meaningful to know your ancestors ruled kingdoms. It means if some ignorant kid in elementary school said "black people never had civilization!" You could inform them instead of crying at home feeling ashamed of yourself for not being white.
But the day-to-day life of 99% of them was hard, short, and unequal. Not being colonized — yet — didn’t mean we were free of oppression or suffering. Also, that isn't just true for The Ashanti, All of human history pre-industrial revolution sucked. No one wants to live in 1700s Persia, China, Ethiopia, or even 1700s France. It was a world of high birth and high death rates. The world population in the 1700s was 600M.
Here’s the thing: There’s no shame in complexity. Our history doesn’t need to be perfect to be powerful. You can take pride in your people’s resilience — their ability to build, to govern, to fight and adapt — without turning the past into a fantasy.
Because once we do that, you can't really learn from history.
I like your comment and totally agree. This is one of the pieces from Noah that I didn’t make it to the end because I just don’t know if it’s worth my time.
Perhaps my Igbo pride is showing, but part of my parents imbued confidence in me and themselves is their rich history. Not all good but rich nonetheless. I don’t submit to the idea that people celebrating their cultures turns into a zero sum game where we run all our cultures into some revisionist mud.
I think history is something so often dismissed that any intellectual contributing to that dismissal just rubs me the wrong way.
I appreciate his stuff but this is a piece I’m just not interested in spending my time exploring. But I am glad it led me to your comment.
It has always been intriguing that rearward-facing nations are stuck in the past and cannot anticipate a better future. Some relieve the past again and again. Serbs still bitterly relive The Field of Blackbirds, a battle which occurred in 1389 when the Ottoman Empire defeated the Serbs in a battle in Kosovo. The Palestinians and the Jews have not relinquished their adulation of the miseries of the past and are doomed to relive them again and again. The anticipation of a better future was what I grew up with and always believed that at their core, Americans believed in their own future. Today that does not seem to be the case. A sizable portion of Americans believe that the past represents their glory days and that today is nothing but misery and darkness. And now their president will help them fulfill their dreary expectations. We must get back to once again, being Americans.
Indeed my Yugoslav-American ex-brother-in-law brought this up 35 years ago as Yugoslavia broke apart. He delivered a screed on how awful non-Catholic Yugoslavs were and I suggested that maybe WWII was a long time ago and it was time to at least figure out how to live together. He responded that he was not speaking of WWII but the Battle of Kosovo of 1389.
As an American I was absolutely gobsmacked that anyone, anywhere would hold on to such a deadening notion.
May I retort? Jews have been persecuted for 2000+ years. “Christians,” Muslims since Mohammed’s time, ca. 640 C.E., expelled from more places than I can count. Let’s not forget the expulsions from England, Spain in 1492, and many other places. The Holocaust.
We don’t have an ongoing persecution of anyone, at least since Biblical times, I.e., being allowed by the king of Persia to take vengeance on our enemies in the book of Esther, and canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites in the Bible. So your time frame is a bit off. The PLO was formed in 1964 before, I thought, any lands of Post 1948 Israel were “occupied” by Jews. People say “Never Again” but the brilliant Eve Barlow pointed out today that there will always be people who hate us. I guess it keeps our heads on a swivel…
yes, retorts are welcome. My examples are but two in a long list of immiseration. Since time immemorial, humans have declared the other to be the enemy. Akkadians and Sumerians are but one example. It invariably turns out badly and this time, under Trump, will be no different. A forward-looking, informed citizenry is an ideal which is difficult to achieve and is essential for democracy to survive.
Noah, I love the way you're thinking. Escaping the inherent tribalism inherent in our ruling classes seems a fools errand. But your article gives this old guy hope.
To infinity! And beyond!
I've spent the better part of my (admittedly short) life listening to various individuals lament American decline, whether it was Paul Krugman during the despondency of the Bush years, Glenn Beck under Obama, or the cacophony of criticism (including Krugman redux) that followed after Trump so haphazardly descended that golden escalator. At some point you get tired of it; either we are in decline, in which case there are some things about the "American project" we need to rethink (I have a few thoughts, but I've leave that for another discussion), or we aren't, in which case all this ballyhooing by the chattering classes is a bit much.
For the record, I think we are in decline, partly because all civilizations decline; decline is a largely immutable part of the human condition (like aging). I also think that hegemony and world empire have been corrosive to our national character: nobody likes a know-it-all, especially one who lectures others about the splinter in their eye while ignoring the wooden beam in their own. Other than that I think it was a decent piece, though I think Noah underrates the role that history and tradition play in motivating human decisionmaking (the Mad King himself won't shut up about American decline and his dream of "national rejuvenation," whatever that means).
"For the record, I think we are in decline, partly because all civilizations decline; decline is a largely immutable part of the human condition (like aging)”
For the record, no political entity (state, nation, empire, etc) ever both created and defined itself at its inception until we did. There’s a very good reason for that phrase of few of us ever notice on our currency, Novus Ordo Seclorum (A new order of the Ages). We are exactly that, the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human society and government ever attempted. Our Constitution is, among other things, a living counter to your suggestion because unlike any nation before us, it laid us out a entirely new kind of ongoing challenge which we can accept or deny as we choose.
Many state and national leaders through history have talked to their people about what they ought to be doing to ‘make us great again’, but Abraham Lincoln understood it in that new way when he talked of ‘the great task remaining before us’, a task which had nothing to do with glory or conquest or racial purity or great buildings, or pretty much any other goal any other leader had ever set for any other people,”That government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth".
I think the Trump era will certainly inject a caveat of caution and independence into our traditional alliances. That, ultimately, might prove a good thing. We Americans need to grow the fuck up politically and understand the extraordinary benefits our international institutions and alliances have afforded us.
Great comment. Alas, I have only one "heart" to give it.
I’ve always felt that the obsession with civilizational grandeur—especially in the Chinese context—can become more of a burden than a source of strength. This “Middle Kingdom” narcissism, rooted in the idea that China is the eternal center of the world, distorts its engagement with modernity. It doesn’t encourage reflection or collaboration—it encourages hierarchy, historical entitlement, and a dismissiveness of other paths to progress.
Yes, China industrialized quickly—but it did so on the shoulders of global knowledge flows, just like every civilization has. What the West achieved in 200 years was built on prior foundations: the Enlightenment, Arab mathematics, Indian numerals, Chinese printing, and many other contributions that traveled across borders long before they were “owned” by nations. Human progress has never been a solo act—it’s been a relay.
The future won’t be defined by who had the most glorious past. It’ll be shaped by how we work together to solve real problems—climate, inequality. That requires humility, not hubris. The notion that one nation will rise simply because it once ruled is misguided. Civilizations don’t entitle you to the future. People do. Collaboration does. Shared ambition does.
What also stands out is the brittleness in China’s strategic mindset—this need to “defeat” the West rather than coexist with it. That framing is not just outdated; it's self-limiting. The world 20–25 years from now won’t be a binary contest. It’ll be multipolar, unpredictable, and collaborative by necessity.
As someone from India, I’ve never felt we grew up with this idea of needing to dominate anyone. Sure, someone might say, “Well, you say that because you don’t have the power.” But even so, I’d counter that our ethos, our books, our stories—none of them taught us that the world is binary, or that we’re the center of the universe destined to rule others. The cultural mindset has always leaned more toward coexistence than conquest. We were taught “वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्” (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam)—the world is one family, that was the last G20 slogan as well. That may not be grand, but it feels more honest—and maybe more durable—in the kind of world we’re heading into.
Certainly, there is a pearl of cultural wisdom in India as to the limits and consequences of power that seems absent from that of the Chinese tradition. That is an interesting point that would be fruitful to expand upon with more detail and evidence, I think.
The opposite of the Iron Born (GOT) - the dead shall never die -- well, they ain't ever livin again
Bravo the future !
Amen.
I certainly agree, Noah. As Steven Pinker has ably pointed out, the past century (even including world wars, cold wars, revolutions, and genocides) has been a veritable paradise compared to the entirety of prior human history. I would certainly extend that analysis to include the plainly true proposition that Americans have it better, in absolute terms, right now than ever before - there is not even a 'recent' Camelot for us to be nostalgic over or try to 'reclaim'.
We collectively need to metabolize the belief that so long as we stick by the central principles that got us here (scientific method, free and fair markets, rule of law, collective decisions and course correction through some form of democratic consultation, a liberal international order that rewards cooperation greater than violent conflict, as perhaps chief among many others) that Americans can count on tomorrow always being much better in absolute terms than yesterday.
Unfortunately, the electorate doesn't always think in absolute terms, but in relative terms: they rightly see that the prospects of many of us seem (and are) more problematic than many of our elders. Growing wealth and income inequality, persistent democratic dysfunction as regards the needs of the vast majority of us (largely due to the distortions of unlimited money being legalized within the system), and the slow dismantling of so many meritocratic means of advancement, have led many to despair and look to populist cant and hatreds for an explanation and a solution.
Fascism is a collective disease of despair. We must do more to combat it than be generally optimistic about the future, we must also imagine and communicate a better future for the average person in relative terms. Thanks for what you are doing in your writing to help us imagine and consider that something better. Keep it up!
This is a response to Max Millick (for some reason, I received the email with your reply, but I don't see it in the thread??? Yes, Noah is doing just fine. Don't cry for him (I've had a bit too much Eva Peron recently).
Surprised to not see the words "manifest destiny" anywhere in this essay. Ultimately, doesn't the ethnic/national/societal superiority complex stem from deeply ingrained human tribalism? "My tribe is better than your tribe" therefore "I'm better than you" (or, charitably, I'm going to work harder than you). It seems that manifest destiny was one important element of the US version of that... One rooted in a choice to join a tribe, rather than being born into it, but joining a superior tribe nonetheless.
There's no going back downward to exclusive empires. Together we are capable and we need to accept the obstacles we face is the way forward. We don't need to wait and limit ourselves for leaders to save us. We got to take the torch and define who we are to build a better world that is sustainable, inclusive and in harmony. We are the way forward.
It will certainly make for a poorer and less secure world that is less capable of solving collective problems should we move back toward a sphere of influence/balance of power empire model of world order.
Noah,
Every post you've made for the last few months has been a rendering of your garments. You must have one hell of a laundry bill. Give yourself (and your readers) a break. The US is not collapsing. The world is not ending. Yeah, the stock market is off its Trump got elected highs, but it's still higher than one year ago, when all your posts were about how Joe Biden was the bestest president eveeer. You're going to wear yourself out. You've worn me out. I used to read most all of your posts, now I can't get pat the headline, because I already know where it goes.
OT, but we've been down in Argentina for the last month. Beautiful country, but very mush a police state compared to the US. And no one. NO ONE, gives two shits about Trump or the end of the American Empire. Or the US bond market. They have their own problems, although at least Milei has stopped much (not all) of the bleeding.
Or just carry on with lighting your hair on fire every and running around the room every other day. Whatever works for you.
Did you really just write this comment in response to a post about how the future will be much better than the past?
No. I wrote this comment in response to the last 60 days of your posts. No doubt I chose the wrong post to finally respond. Lo siento. I just wish you'd get back to why I subscribe.
As for the future, it lies (lays?) ahead. Always has.
Well, if you're looking for some optimism, here's one recent post I can recommend!
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/you-are-the-heir-to-something-greater
Thanks for engaging. My wife says have a skill for interjecting at exactly the wrong moment.
David, the problem with your response is that it doesn’t take into account what we were designed to be - the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex ongoing experiment in human society and government ever attempted. Indeed, as Noah noted, our potential greatness, our ‘American exceptionalism’ is never and can never be an achieved state. It will always be out there in front of us as long as we wish to continue the experiment.
If enough of us decide to discontinue it, as Donald Trump and his myrmidons, and the other Americans who have disavowed the experiment over our brief history would have us do, then it certainly will be discontinued. And perhaps many will not miss it, except that very few of us really understand what the alternatives would be. Indeed, it is so many of those who are trying so desperately to enter our country any way they can who understand those alternatives far better than the vast majority of us do.
The poet Robert Browning once wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for”. I’m not a believer in heavens as such, so I would alter Browning’s words as follows “A democracy’s reach should exceed its grasp, or what’s America for”.
America, as the character of President Andrew Shepherd in The American President noted, is advanced citizenship. Indeed it is the most advanced ever in the world. It isn’t easy, and so our stumbles in pursuit of it ought never to be ignored.
You may decide that Noah’s attempts to say something like that in the midst of what may be the most significant attempt so far to end our experiment, but you can’t do that without also deciding and explaining why that the experiment wasn’t worth it.
You read way, way too much into my comment. I subscribe to a handful of substacks. This is entertainiment, ultimately. If I just wanted "Trump ... RHEEEEE" no subscription needed ...
Sometimes lighting your hair on fire is necessary to attract sufficient attention in our very competitive media landscape. I don't fault any merchant of ideas for having a fire sale now and again...
Sure, but every post (or most of them) over a long stretch gets boring. It's all tiresome...
Uh, David, I think you are in the wrong place. Noah doesn't write about rainbows and unicorns, just reality. It is not entertainment for you or anyone else.
We care about this stuff now, so that we can do something about it and not end up like Argentina.
Apparently, I struck a nerve with the Department of Internet Comments, Division of Content Policing.
Well yes, David, you did. If you call free speech, policing.
Many have asked, "Who is my neighbor?" I've always answered that certainly the family who lives on my block is my neighbor, and the families in the town next door, and across my state, my country. I would not stop looking for my neighbors at the US-Canadian border or the US- Mexican border. Certainly having just recognized Earth day, I conclude that all of mankind is my neighbor.
Your line, "Our ancestors were not wise kings and majestic emperors" starts with the word, "our". If I ask, "Who is my ancestor?" just reaching back a couple hundred years, I find North Americans, Europeans and Africans. If I reach back farther, I find our common ancestry. We are all in this together. In the spirit of your words - let's look forward, together.
And even in American mythology, "our forebears" is a dexterous construction. After all, George Washington had no children, so he is *nobody's* ancestor.
And yet ... the dream he helped build was so strong that at emancipation a lot of freedmen took the surname "Washington". To this day, "Washington" is a strong predictor of being black in America. Those freedmen were uneducated (most of them) but a lot wiser than a lot of current Americans.