Empire In Decline: The New America
I have spent a lot of time in the United States from the mid-aughts through the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency. With my children playing rep sports it seems every weekend was spent in some apple pie town for ball tournaments or some other sports-related function. I have met some great people and made lifelong friends but it is safe to say that the nation to the south of my home has always been different. A singular obsession with guns, violence, race and money is woven far more deeply into the fabric of American society than it is north of the 49th parallel.
The infiltration of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its companion illness COVID-19 brought both our great countries and in fact the entire global community to a standstill. The onset of the “China Flu” halted our frequent forays across the longest unprotected border in the world. While the majority of us adhered to mandatory quarantine and masking mandates public sentiment was turning. It has become clear that in my absence something was shifting in the machinations of Canada’s southern neighbour. The division of the Trump Administration policies continues to poison America, seeping into its very fabric.
Fast forward to 2023, with the world once again open for business. Most everyone has returned to an altered yet familiar normalcy of pre-pandemic times and our weekend jaunts to a very different America have once again resumed. My son now a young man has graduated from youth to beer league sports. Travel for him has ended, however, his sister has taken up the mantle, playing fastpitch with all the aspirations and promises of her youthful exuberance. One eye fixed on a future that could open doorways to grants and scholarships for both academic and athletic performance.
Who knows, maybe someday she will play in the Women’s College World Series, something that she and her teammates have followed closely during this trip. Gathering together in the hotel between their own games to watch women role models, not much older than they themselves playing their butts off for personal pride and the glory of their school.
My return to America was much different than my previous visits. On the surface everything seemed familiar, however, this time there was a tension I don’t recall being there before. This rendition of America is suspicious and deeply divided between rich and poor, black and white (and red and yellow and brown), donkeys and elephants, scientific discovery and fairy tales, Venus and Mars (and everything that falls on the spectrum in between).
I felt this tension in everything I observed and everyone I interacted with. The African American clerk at the Dick’s Sporting Goods store, tentative as I approached the counter until the tension was broken with friendly banter. The Latin American waitress at the restaurant seemed so timid serving tables of white customers, barely able to make eye contact with me or those at other tables, but had no problem interacting freely with people identifying from minority backgrounds. The gay Latin barkeep who wouldn’t dare talk back to an obnoxious white customer, waiting to unleash loud, harsh words about them the moment they walked out the door. At the same time starting arguments with Black customers he felt had “disrespected” him. These interactions drive home the hierarchical nature of race in American society.
Then there was the retail experience. A highlight for most Canadians heading to the States however I found it very different – almost every major outlet and even smaller stores had uniformed Security Guards at the doors. Some places, like Walmart forgo private security in favour of paid-duty police officers armed to the teeth. In small ways, it felt more like a police state than a constitutional republic ingrained with the ideals of democracy and freedom. I was flabbergasted to find that the prices which used to be so much cheaper were no longer a bargain. Most items after factoring in exchange rates were comparable to prices back home and in many cases more expensive. Many items are priced the same in USD as they would be in CAD. For a Canadian, that means incurring additional costs of about 25% to purchase the same products in the States as at home.
The only exception is gas, which by comparison is still cheap as f@ck, especially in Ohio. That is probably why the cars seemed bigger than ever. Navigators, Suburbans, Expeditions, Silverados and F-150’s everywhere. The only electric-powered vehicles I saw the entire trip were the ones with Canadian licence plates on them. Apparently, global warming isn’t a thing anymore.
I know America is the land of gun worship. Constitution, militia, amendment, yada, yada, yada, but this is the first trip where it seemed real. From the McDonalds somewhere between Detroit and Columbus where a teammate’s family stopped for lunch. Multiple TV menu boards were black and riddled with bullet holes that had rendered them lifeless. Another example was the car in the hotel parking lot, damaged and dented along the entire passenger side, The lines from scraped paint and dented metal lead the eye to a void where the rear bumper, ripped clean off the car, would normally be. From the front view, it sported bullet holes through the hood that were now operating as additional air vents for the engine block inside. The owner spent most of his time hotboxed in the back seat before returning to the hotel room and leaving the entire building stinking like skunk.
It takes time for government policies to work their way through the system and down to the grassroots levels. It seems to me the divisive nature of the Trump Republican years continues to bear pest-infested rotten fruit while the oblivious Democrat left concerns itself with social engineering pet projects. All the while, Nero fiddles away as the real fires rage on.
My observations point to an Empire at a crossroads, an aging Superpower quickly fading beyond the Western horizon while the morning Sun rises in the Far East. A politically savvy China tightly controls its media and manipulates the narrative to build goodwill and paint itself as a positive and cooperative international partner. It is an image that does not jive with the brutal nature of China’s totalitarian regime but Trump himself proved that if you keep telling the same lies over and over the truth becomes irrelevant. The pro-Beijing rhetoric has become a seemingly better option for our youth when juxtaposed against the outward dysfunction of a divided America. A disillusioned generation of Americans, of Westerners, willing to forgo freedom in favour of the red mirage. Not even a slim chance that they know they are being duped by a wolf in sheep’s clothes.
Without some sort of monumental upheaval that allows America’s factions to reconcile, find common ground and work towards a common vision all China and its allies need do is waits like vultures for The Divided States of America to destroy itself from the inside before swooping in to pick whatever scraps remain on the carcass.
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