This morning I came across an article by Michael Hirsh whining about “America’s decline.” An Unnatural Disaster compresses the history of our great nation and draws simplistic conclusions.
In many articles and in book after book American “declinists” nowadays tend to portray America’s reduced stature as a largely natural phenomenon. Never mind that on the eve of the Bush presidency we were still seen as the most powerful nation in the history of the world. Decadent powers always wane in influence, and it seems we’ve just been doing a lot of waning very quickly. As other countries around the world partook of the ideas we pressed on them in the post-cold war era—free markets, democracy—they started to prosper and catch up to us. Meanwhile we grew fatter (literally) and more spoiled. It was all very organic.
While I tend to agree that this country is on the decline in many areas including morality, education and the stability of basic social systems, Hirsh provides no metrics for this purported decline. Hirsh is also tragically short-sighted and foolish in his conclusions.
In a nutshell, he blames President Bush for the “waning influence” of the United States.
That is the decline in America’s position in the world from where we were when George W. Bush inherited power on Jan. 20, 2001, to what he will bequeath to the next president eight months from now.
Mr. Hirsh conveniently overlooks our long history of interventionism that began in earnest after World War II. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, intervened in Kosovo. We’ve been bribing and bullying to get our way for decades. George W. Bush is just continuing a well established tradition of forcing ourselves on the rest of the world. Hirsh continues, blaming the devaluation of the dollar on poor decisions by the Bush administration (which somehow includes Wall Street in Hirsh’s mind).
Now America’s economy is in the process of “de-leveraging”—shrinking in borrowing power and thereby reducing its impact around the world as foreign funds pull their investments from dollars or redirect them into euros or “baskets” of several currencies. As European and Asian financiers and economic officials have come to learn the truth about the subprime debacle, they’ve become leery about ever trusting Wall Street’s or Washington’s advice again. Yet had anyone in Washington been paying serious attention, the worst of the credit crunch—and loss of prestige—could have been avoided.
The economic downturn has little to do with George W. Bush and much more to do with a national attitude the values instant gratification over responsible spending. Ultimately, it is the apathy, slothfulness and poor value choices of individual Americans themselves that are to blame for any “American decline.”