Another war in the Middle East. A retreat from the international order. A presidency built on self-dealing and arbitrary power. It's enough to make you think the U.S. is in a steep decline — but Fareed Zakaria thinks otherwise.
You might also like
The mark of the historic is that the present moment always will have been. What we do now is irrevocable—it joins the permanent record of what has occurred, and in that sense the past is the only thing that cannot be taken from us.
José Ortega y Gasset — History as a System
Whether it was Covid, Trump's advancing age, or his attempted overthrow of the 2020 election that made Trump totally lose faith in everyone but himself, the big man now seems inclined to listen only to the voices in his own head. There's no intellectual movement here, just a cult of personality. There's no one to argue with, because nothing that's happening is based on an argument in the first place.
Noah Smith
"Dear Mr. Benjamin Franklin," wrote a seventh grader from Winterville, Georgia. "In your time, the United States hardly existed. As I am writing this letter, it is almost the semi quincentennial, and BOY does the US exist now!"
Christopher Hooks