I never thought I would witness the decline of the United States. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I remember watching on television as the Berlin Wall fell, heralding what was supposed to be the end of history, the collapse of communism, the triumph of liberal democracy, the uncontested supremacy of global capital. Yet, as night follows day, the fall of the mighty US empire was inevitable, wasn’t it? For most of my life, the United States has been the undisputed global hegemon, an empire in all but name. After 1945, it remade the world in its image: exporting capital and culture, embedding its economic model into the fabric of global trade, enforcing its will through military power and covert interventions. By 1991, it seemed unchallengeable. The Soviet Union had collapsed, China was still playing the game of economic liberalisation, and Europe largely bent the knee to Washington. The ‘long American century’, which began in the early 20th century, looked like it might stretch on indefinitely. But cracks were always there. Imperial arrogance breeds overreach, and overreach breeds decline. The tragedy of 9/11 (and global sympathy) quickly gave way to neoconservative hubris (and global condemnation). The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were supposed to cement US dominance; instead, they exposed its military limits. The 2008 financial crash shattered the illusion of US economic invincibility, revealing a system built not on production but speculation, debt, and spiralling inequality. And while US elites fixated on their so-called ‘rules-based order’, China and others built alternative structures—economic, political, and military—that now threaten US supremacy.
From Nixon to the Neoliberal Turn
But this decline did not begin in 2001, or 2008. It was already in motion by the 1970s. Mark Fisher saw this decade as the key turning point, when the post-war social contract collapsed, the American working class was abandoned, and neoliberalism took root. Nixon’s presidency was mired in scandal and paranoia. Watergate shattered illusions of stable, functional democracy. At the same time, the economy began to shift: the industrial heartlands were hollowed out, inflation and oil shocks exposed US economic vulnerability, and capitalists launched an offensive against labour. The ‘hard-hat riots’ of 1970, when pro-Nixon construction workers violently attacked anti-war student protesters, symbolised the fracture within the working class, one that would later be exploited by the right.
Then came Reagan.
Reagan’s election in 1980 sealed the deal. The labour movement was crushed, manufacturing was shipped overseas, and finance capital became the new centre of the economy. A working class that had once been the backbone of US imperial production was now restructured into a precarious, service-based workforce. This was the moment when the US dominant class made its choice: instead of reforming, it doubled down on extraction, speculation, and debt.
Reaganism’s Logical Successor
If Reagan built the foundations of neoliberalism, the tech oligarchs finished the job. The billionaire class that now dominates the American economy—Musk, Bezos, Thiel, Zuckerberg—did not emerge as a break from the past but as its natural extension. The neoliberal economy no longer innovates; it extracts. The tech giants, for all their claims of ‘disruption’, are simply monopolists. They do not produce, they control, surveil, and extract rent. Fisher’s capitalist realism warned that the future had been cancelled, that capitalism was no longer about progress but about managing decline. This is exactly what the billionaire class represents: an economy where speculation is more profitable than production, where ‘innovation’ means financialising every aspect of daily life, where workers are transformed into precarious gig labourers at the mercy of an algorithm.
“The neoliberal economy no longer innovates; it extracts. The tech giants, for all their claims of ‘disruption’, are simply monopolists. They do not produce, they control, surveil, and extract rent.”
And just as Nixon and Reagan weaponised culture wars to fragment the working class, today’s billionaire elite use reactionary politics to distract from their consolidation of power. Musk positions himself as a ‘free speech absolutist’ while crushing unions and censoring dissent on X. Thiel openly funds the far right while advocating for the end of democracy. The same libertarian fantasies that were cultivated in the Reagan era, where government is the enemy, and heroic entrepreneurs are the future, are now used to justify a new era of corporate authoritarianism.
The Grotesque Final Stage of US Hegemony
If the 1970s and 1980s set the conditions for neoliberalism, Trumpism represents its death spiral. Trump’s return to power is not a new movement but the logical conclusion of an empire in decline. His politics are not about renewal but revenge, not about economic reconstruction but about punishing perceived enemies. Yet, as Fisher argued, capitalist realism does not mean the smooth functioning of capitalism, but the management of decay. The US dominant class can no longer deliver rising living standards or stable employment, so it must rely on culture wars, myth-making, and outright authoritarianism. The ‘slow cancellation of the future’ is nowhere more evident than in Trumpism’s obsession with an imagined past, when America was ‘great’, when the white working class was secure, when empire was unchallenged.
“Yet, as Fisher argued, capitalist realism does not mean the smooth functioning of capitalism, but the management of decay.”
Today, the signs of decline are undeniable. Domestically, the US is a fractured society: paralysed by political dysfunction, gripped by social decay, and devoured by its own contradictions. Its infrastructure is crumbling, life expectancy is falling, and the ‘beacon of democracy’ it once claimed to be now flickers uncertainly. Internationally, it finds itself increasingly unable to dictate terms. Biden’s capitulation to Israel over Gaza has exposed its diplomatic impotence. The rise of BRICS+, the growing rejection of dollar hegemony, and its humiliating retreat from Afghanistan all point to a declining empire struggling to maintain its grip. And now, the new Trump administration has pivoted away from Europe, embracing Putin and aligning itself with reactionary forces across the continent. No longer satisfied with NATO as its primary tool of control, Washington is now actively bolstering nationalist and far-right movements, seeking to weaken the EU from within. This is not a sign of strategic strength but of desperation, a declining empire grasping for new alliances as its old ones fracture.
What Comes After the American Empire?
And yet, we already know the direction the US dominant class is heading. When empires collapse, they turn inwards, directing their violence at their own people. Their political crises become existential crises, and authoritarianism emerges as the ‘solution’ to the chaos they themselves created.
Trump, as ever, says the quiet part out loud. His message on X (formerly Twitter) was chilling in its simplicity:
“He who saves his Country, does not violate any Law.”
Elon Musk, ever the court jester to American fascism, quote-tweeted it with nothing but a string of US flag emojis.
This is where we are. The final, desperate stage of capitalist realism: where law is replaced with loyalty, democracy is discarded as an inconvenience, and the nation is reduced to a cult of personality. The US dominant class can no longer justify its hegemony with promises of prosperity, so it pivots to brute force. The ideological mask has slipped. The lesson from history is clear: declining empires do not go quietly, and fascism is always waiting in the wings. If we do not build a new alternative, then this will be the future, a world where law is nothing but the will of the powerful, and reactionary billionaires wave the flag as democracy burns.
Artificial Intelligence (5) Authoritarianism (5) Books (6) Capitalism (8) China (4) Class (5) Climate Change (5) Conservative Government (34) Conspiracy Theories (4) COVID-19 (5) Creeping Fascism (12) Crime and Punishment (4) Donald J Trump (11) Economics (5) Elon Musk (6) Film (7) Finance (4) France (9) GB News (4) Imperialism (6) Israel (5) Keir Starmer (5) Labour Party (8) Marxist Theory (8) Messing Around (6) Migrants (10) Palestine (5) Police (5) Protest (12) Russia (6) Social Media (6) Suella Braverman (8) Trade Unionism (5) United States of America (25) War (9)
