Year of America’s Self-Destruction: Fischer on Trump’s Policies

Obvious examples are the threat to democracy and the rule of law at home; the creation of new de facto alliances with authoritarian rulers such as Russian President Vladimir Putin; the pursuit of a world order of empires based solely on force, without binding rules or multinational institutions; and the destruction of long-standing alliances and trade relations.

What has always distinguished the United States, from its founding to its emergence as a global superpower, is its deep roots in Enlightenment values. The Founding Fathers were fully committed to the Western humanist tradition and a rationally constructed constitution. The institutions they created have made the U.S. more successful than any other nation founded in the modern era. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution begins with the words “We the People,” pluralis majestatis (“royal we”), which had previously been reserved for monarchs. The assertion of popular sovereignty implied by those three words was a deliberate provocation and a powerful symbol of the revolutionary challenge of nascent American democracy to absolutist rule around the world.

Of course, during its historical rise – first as a North American continental power, then as a world power, and finally as the global superpower of our time – the United States has always demonstrated the dual character of imperial power and democracy rooted in Enlightenment values. Its initial recognition of slavery in the southern states was in constant, irreconcilable conflict with its commitment to equality and inalienable rights as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the Constitution.

But whatever its shortcomings, at least the U.S. has never advocated only hard power. Their rise to global hegemony was certainly due in large part to their economic dominance and geographic location between the two largest oceans – advantages that played a role in their military victories in two world wars and triumph in the Cold War. But it was the combination of material power and the universal appeal of Enlightenment values that proved crucial to America’s rise to the top.

By his reliance on naked force and his rejection of any limits on his power, Trump represents the antithesis of everything that made the US great. Under his disempowerment, a superpower of immeasurable economic and military power is sinking into irrationalism, self-centered nationalism and official violence.

On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the world’s oldest democracy faces an existential challenge from one man who would prefer to establish absolutist rule. At stake is nothing less than the American republic and everything it has ever represented. It is being replaced by a corrupt oligarchy dominated by billionaires with imperial fantasies of world domination and feverish dreams of colonizing distant planets and achieving immortality.

Civil liberties protected by the Constitution are giving way to comprehensive oversight and control by private companies like Palantir. Those who protest and resist risk execution by masked federal forces that are effectively immune from prosecution. The world’s leading universities and research institutions are under increasing financial pressure, and free speech belongs only to those in power.

“The Land of the Free” increasingly reminds travelers of the former Eastern Bloc. In the realm of foreign policy, America’s closest and most loyal allies, such as Denmark, are turning into adversaries simply because they resist imperial claims to their sovereign territory. For Trump and his circle, aggressive military adventurers like Putin are not the problem. The problem is Europeans, especially the European Union. This sounds absurd, because it is absurd.

Trump is implementing a radical overhaul of everything that has long made the U.S. a great country: a functioning separation of powers, an open labor market, a university system that attracted the best minds from around the world, and a value system based on tolerance, reason, and universal rights. MAGA is destroying not only the transatlantic West, but also the foundations of U.S. power.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world will continue to need the US to solve some of our biggest common problems. Unfortunately, the US itself may be one of them.