Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The Care and Feeding of a Superpower

Opinion

Donald Trump standing with Elon Musk and Kid rock
President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Kid Rock watch a UFC event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16.
Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

The Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, led by an unelected billionaire and supported by the Donald Trump administration, continues its bulldozer approach to our federal government. As we careen forward, an essential food for thought is an awareness of the global and historical perspectives that underscore how our current leaders' strategies align with a playbook for the final chapter of previous global powers.

When we think of global dominance, we often think of military strength and the size of a superpower’s budget. What we think less of is the importance of perception or the significance of the cultural aspects of power. The USAID spreads the impression of a peaceful and protective United States, dispersing resources and building a global community with the US at the helm. President Kennedy began the USAID in 1961 with an Executive order. Research shows that USAID has continuously had bipartisan support and a tremendous impact, makes up less than 1 percent of our budget, and is a major player within the United Nations Developmental Programme.


Military and financial power alone does not make a global power. To preserve a respectable image, we need soft power. We need to be viewed as morally good, akin to what public intellectual Slavoj Žižek calls global capitalism with a human face. The United States has leaned into this strategy. We are a military giant, and still, people worldwide view us as democratic and politically stable.

Sociologists have long shown the importance of this balancing act. When antagonistic forces are the foundation of a system, something must entice those with less power to cooperate or submit rather than revolt. Workers who receive benefits are less likely to strike. Those living in proximity to the toxic outputs of oil refineries are less likely to critique the company when it also invests in healthcare and education for the community.

The United States grew into its role as a world power politically and economically, and, like the British, Dutch, and Spanish empires before it, may be destined to lose this status eventually. In The Long Twentieth Century, the late scholar Giovanni Arrighi analyzed empires and how they transition. Their decline follows a pattern. One part of this order is that an empire’s ambitions exceed its tangible resources, and over-extension predates its decline. Trump’s colonial tendencies, for example, when he states he wants to take over Greenland, The Panama Canal, and Gaza, echo exactly the overextending vibe of world leaders pre-collapse.

We are the emperor who quickly drops clothing. It’s inefficient to waste food, medical trials, people, or allies. As a superpower, appearing secure, functional, and stable is valuable. The United States is seeking expansion, and at the same time, its leaders are dismantling its systems internally. And these things matter. We don’t live in a peaceful world, and global leaders vie for power. There are those who would appreciate the internally initiated demise of the United States.

To be sure, the waning of US global dominance is likely inevitable. The contradictions of Trump and Musk’s decisions to eliminate USAID inefficiently and dismantle the federal workforce while simultaneously making large power grabs, such as seeking additional territories and mineral rights, could speed up this descent.

There may be nothing that can make a superpower become self-reflective enough to be sustainable. It is unlikely that the Trump administration will reinstate robust foreign aid and federal workers nor invest in sustainability-oriented policies such as the Green New Deal. But we live in an era where we are increasingly aware of Adrienne Marie Brown’s emergent strategy. What if our leaders could turn towards more evolved skills and sustainable actions, such as prioritizing the care of people and our planet overfeeding a no-boundary endless treadmill of greed chasing? Perhaps the asymmetry inherent to empires is not meant to last, but perhaps humanity can. We need leaders who understand that global sustainability, and thus solidarity, are the best renewable resources.

The global political economy is not a high-stakes card game. It is the context and backbone of our only shared reality. And it’s time for its parameters to evolve from a dog-eat-dog mentality to a regenerative one. We need leaders who value non-alternative facts and our future, who believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and who trust our scientists. We need a government that can imagine and work towards a better world where education is broadly funded, federal employees keep their jobs, we appropriately tax our wealth hoarders, and at our core, we strategize for liberation for all rather than domination for some.

Our world's systems may not be a card game, but it would behoove our leaders to understand not only the art, but also the science and history of their dealings and the systemic risks of bad faith plays.

Megan Thiele Strong is a Sociology professor at San José State University, a Public Voices Fellow at The OpEd Project, and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.

Read More

Yes, They Are Trying To Kill Us
Provided

Yes, They Are Trying To Kill Us

In the rush to “dismantle the administrative state,” some insist that freeing people from “burdensome bureaucracy” will unleash thriving. Will it? Let’s look together.

A century ago, bureaucracy was minimal. The 1920s followed a worldwide pandemic that killed an estimated 17.4–50 million people. While the virus spread, the Great War raged; we can still picture the dehumanizing use of mustard gas and trench warfare. When the war ended, the Roaring Twenties erupted as an antidote to grief. Despite Prohibition, life was a party—until the crash of 1929. The 1930s opened with a global depression, record joblessness, homelessness, and hunger. Despair spread faster than the pandemic had.

Keep ReadingShow less
Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan

Photo illustration by Alex Bandoni/ProPublica. Source images: Chicago History Museum and eobrazy

Getty Images

Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan

Some 4 million people could lose federal housing assistance under new plans from the Trump administration, according to experts who reviewed drafts of two unpublished rules obtained by ProPublica. The rules would pave the way for a host of restrictions long sought by conservatives, including time limits on living in public housing, work requirements for many people receiving federal housing assistance and the stripping of aid from entire families if one member of the household is in the country illegally.

The first Trump administration tried and failed to implement similar policies, and renewed efforts have been in the works since early in the president’s second term. Now, the documents obtained by ProPublica lay out how the administration intends to overhaul major housing programs that serve some of the nation’s poorest residents, with sweeping reforms that experts and advocates warn will weaken the social safety net amid historically high rents, home prices and homelessness.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s Ultimatums and the Erosion of Presidential Credibility

Donald Trump

YouTube

Trump’s Ultimatums and the Erosion of Presidential Credibility

On Friday, October 3rd, President Donald Trump issued a dramatic ultimatum on Truth Social, stating this is the “LAST CHANCE” for Hamas to accept a 20-point peace proposal backed by Israel and several Arab nations. The deadline, set for Sunday at 6:00 p.m. EDT, was framed as a final opportunity to avoid catastrophic consequences. Trump warned that if Hamas rejected the deal, “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas,” and that its fighters would be “hunted down and killed.”

Ordinarily, when a president sets a deadline, the world takes him seriously. In history, Presidential deadlines signal resolve, seriousness, and the weight of executive authority. But with Trump, the pattern is different. His history of issuing ultimatums and then quietly backing off has dulled the edge of his threats and raised questions about their strategic value.

Keep ReadingShow less
From Fragility to Resilience: Fixing America’s Economic and Political Fault Lines

fractured foundation and US flag

AI generated

From Fragility to Resilience: Fixing America’s Economic and Political Fault Lines

This series began with a simple but urgent question: What’s gone wrong with America’s economic policies, and how can we begin to fix them? The story so far has revealed not only financial instability but also deeper structural weaknesses that leave families, small businesses, and entire communities far more vulnerable than they should be.

In the first two articles, “Running on Empty” and “Crash Course,” we examined how middle-class families, small businesses, and retirees are increasingly caught in a web of debt and financial uncertainty. We also examined how Wall Street’s speculative excesses, deregulation, and shadow banking have pushed the financial system to the brink. Finally, we warned that Donald Trump’s economic agenda doesn’t address these problems—it magnifies them. Together, these earlier articles painted a picture of a system skating on thin ice, where even small shocks could trigger widespread crisis.

Keep ReadingShow less