America has been a world leader since World War II, when we were the last major power left standing. We’ve done this with varying levels of engagement, but we’ve mostly enjoyed the role. Until recently, anyway.
For all my adult life, the US positioned itself as the leader of the free world and the arbiter of human rights. We preened, pretending we were completely different from any nation on earth, now or any time earlier. Anyone with an ounce of modesty blushed, but most American leaders seemed immune to shame or irony.
Honestly, it’s been a mixed bag. We’ve been good at defending human rights, sometimes, and amazingly crappy other times. We’ve been idealistic and breathtakingly hypocritical. For all of our failures and questionable actions, there’s no question that we’ve been a huge influence across the world. There really is no other nation like the U.S.
One question that we asked ourselves over and over was whether it was worth it. Did America’s world leadership really make the world better? Were we a force for progress, or just arrogant bullies? There were arguments on both sides. I know I’ve felt myself on different sides, depending on what good things we did or the newest scandal we’d uncovered. I didn’t have a firm, unequivocal answer to our role. We did good things in places, but it’s hard to tell where things balance. It wasn’t like we would stop doing good things just to find out.
What did I know about it? President Crazy Pants decided that America really, really needed to stop all that ‘good work’ stuff. Think of it as an experiment. Trump loves on every despot and autocrat where he owns property. He doesn’t just step aside, either, openly celebrating the crumbling of basic democratic principles abroad even as he unravels America itself. He’s been gleefully gutting the State Department and withdrawing from every international treaty he has heard of while expanding troops in nations we simply don’t hear about. I’ve never seen a world leader so fond of unauthorized acts of war.
It’s working. Once tyrants around the world realized that America wouldn’t stand up for anyone, they rubbed their hands gleefully and got to work. Leaders in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, the Philippines, Burma, China, and of course, Russia all decided that this was a great time to crack down. The White Supremacist movements in the US and Europe made similar calculations. Skinheads, Nazis, KKK, anti-Semites, all grinning and cackling. And we’re only at the beginning.
So that answers the question, I suppose. Yes, America had been a force for good and a surprisingly effective one. The moment we stopped trying to lead, world freedom began to fall crumble. And it happened so fast! It’s barely been a year. I hadn’t realized we were doing so much and that the tides pushing us into darkness were so strong.
As a world leader, America was a strong force for human rights and progress. Now we know that we mattered. I just wish it didn’t cost so much to find this out. And I hope we can get some of that back. It’s not just America that suffers.
