Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal ran a feature piece called “Americans Are Leaving the US in Record Numbers.”
It’s about… well, emigration obviously, but the subtext is that Americans are fleeing for greener pastures in Donald Trump’s “Golden Age.” As the Journal put it, “the new American dream, for some of its citizens, is to no longer live there.”
Growing up in the American south, I’m all too familiar with the redneck rejoinder: “If you don’t love it, leave it.” With whatever respect’s due to ol’ Merle, that tag line’s even more ignorant today than it was in 1970, and it was pretty ignorant back then.
If people are voluntarily leaving a place like America — the most prosperous nation the world’s ever known, the issuer of the only universally accepted money and a country that’s for all intents and purposes immune to foreign conquest — you’re doing something horribly wrong if you’re the government.
The Journal did an admirable job of toeing the line between staying on the right side of a litigious administration and assigning blame where it’s surely due.
“Some commentators have labeled this wave of American emigrants the ‘Donald Dash,’ but the phenomenon has been building for years, fed by the rise of remote work, mounting living costs and an appetite for foreign lifestyles that feel within reach, especially in Europe,” Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson wrote.
I think that’s a fair assessment. Everything’s not Trump’s fault. With apologies for employing a NSFW word, he’s too goddamn stupid to be the source of all the country’s problems. In fact — and this certainly isn’t to defend his administration’s policies — Trump the politician is an outgrowth of America’s preexisting problems, not a wellspring of new ones. You get a Trump (or for that matter a Hitler) when too many people think the situation’s desperate, not when things are going swimmingly.
Anyway, I bring all of that up to say that on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, there’s a palpable sense of decline, where I emphasize “palpable” to distinguish the debate as it’s unfolding today from the “sunset” claims that’ve persisted more or less uninterrupted since 2000, typically without much in the way of evidence to support them.
As you ponder the possibility of a sunsetting American empire, it’s worth noting that “nothing lasts forever” is more than a pithy aphorism about the inevitability of death. Empires do decline, although I dare say most “good” ones tend to last more than a quarter millennium (hold that thought).
The figure above’s from BofA and I gotta say: It’s not especially useful other than as a colorful stage prop to break up the monotony of plan text, which is pretty much the only reason I’m including it.
The problem with the visual is that it purports to illustrate 2,000 years of economic history, but it really only shows 225 years.
If you want to gain for yourself an encyclopedic knowledge of how macroeconomics, finance and money developed prior to that 1815 marker in BofA’s chart, I highly recommend Sven Beckert’s Capitalism with the caveat that it’s 1,100 pages long.
If you read it side-by-side with David McWilliams’s (much shorter) The History of Money, you’ll come away surprised — no matter how much you thought you already knew — at the extent to which quite a bit of what we identify today as uniquely modern, or even uniquely American, is in fact neither.
Capitalism is an ancient phenomenon, and publicly-traded companies like Nvidia are actually small — or small-ish — compared to some of their earliest foreign predecessors. No CNBC segment extolling the many virtues of capitalism would’ve come across as especially original to an eleventh century merchant in Yemen, for example. And although this statistic’s notoriously debatable, the VOC at its peak had a market cap larger than Nvidia and Apple combined. If there were a way to calculate current-dollar market cap for even older enterprises which predated the advent of corporations and public listings, there’d invariably be more such examples.
The point — and this brings us quickly full circle — is that if we are in fact witnessing the real-time disintegration of American empire, we should remind ourselves that it really wasn’t that special in the first place. Or at least not on some of the vectors we typically cite while glorifying our accomplishments.
Indeed, the most remarkable thing about American empire, if it is indeed sunsetting, is how fleeting it ultimately proved. “Some empire,” a Roman might quip.
We have the best empire ever, but we are so used to the freedoms we enjoy, that we take them for granted. Coming home from overseas business trips was always my favorite part of that trip.
I think that’s valid for most people, regardless where they live.
I’ve updated that to “If you don’t like it here, grow a beard and move to Iran!”
I vividly recall those bumper stickers in the late 60s when they were aimed at anti-war protesters. They replaced the always popular “Get US out of the UN”
As you noted, these sentiments are not new. Hell, do a little reading about George Wallace.
Maybe the best way to navigate not only what is going on in the USA, but also in Europe and throughout the world is to adopt the mindset of a rambler. That way, one can enjoy so many beautiful and amazing places and if “things” stop being agreeable in one location; simply move on.
Your lead reminds me of a family living in southwest VA that cut “Pence” out of a Trump-Pence campaign flag in Jan 7. Then raised it up and let it fly for years. If you don’t love it, leave it. Thx for building a high level piece on that opening.
W called the peak with the Iraqi adventure post 9-11.
Yep. I mention that in the new Monthly, which is nearly done.
During Revolutionary War times some 20-30% of the colonist-americas were Loyalists (to the Crown) while somewhere near that percent were Patriots (revolutionaries), the remainder being on the fence or too busy with life to worry about such things. Apparently there was both a rhetorical (Fox news vs CNN perhaps) and sometimes physical battle between the two extremes. Eventually a third or so of the Loyalists left our new country and headed mostly to Canada or Britain.
It is just hard to reconcile differences. Half the marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. And even inside my own head, if I weren’t permanently attached to my self I would have up and left a long time ago.
The USA is great for many reasons and I am happy that I am an American and grew up in the golden age of Pax Americana. However, there are now many other places I prefer to live due to various reasons such as quality of life, safety and affordable healthcare. America is now a great place to visit for me but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Yes it is happening indeed, and although it certainly started prior to 2016 the deterioration of Empire and the increasing exodus of American citizens to other lands has certainly accelerated post Trump, so it is fair to categorize it as a “Trumpexit.” I write this comment from a Pescheria in Napoli while sipping wine, I now live in Italy part time, likely to be full time when Trump enters his third term. I could list many reasons for leaving the US and while Europe certainly has its issues, suffice it to say everything here is cheaper and the food is superior. Add to that Trump and well, the balance tips towards leaving for me, but I do understand it is not an option (or the best decision) for everyone.
IMHO the Supreme Court 5-4 commandeering of the 2000 Presidential Election has been the turning point of the American Empire…
…though I’ve wondered since if Ford’s pardoning of Nixon was the exact moment when the Empire turned…
That, 9/11, two ill-advised wars, the housing collapse, and then the GFC. Could Al Gore have saved us? Perhaps, but the real lesson there was that being leader of the free-world is a damned serious job, and it should never — under any circumstances — be handed-over to a fool. (Sound familiar?) And recall, George “W.” actually won his second term: that one is on us (as it always is!)