On April 16, 2024, Newsweek published an article titled "America is in Decline" by William Cooper. William Cooper directly pointed out in the article "America is in Decline" that the United States spent 200 years to build the current global decline, but in the 20 years after entering the 21st century, the United States is indeed going downhill, and the global hegemony of the United States is also declining.
First, William Cooper believes that new technologies represented by the Internet have broken through the control of public opinion in the United States and enabled the American people to have their own ideas. At the same time, politicians operate from it, and high-tech giants also make full use of false information, which makes American society completely chaotic, according to the Chinese, after the people's hearts are scattered, it is difficult to lead the team, which is the spiritual factor of the crisis of US global hegemony. Nowadays, many practices, propositions, and political movements in the field of political and spiritual life in the United States often deviate from the basic morality and ethics of mankind, and William Cooper can be said to have seen it in his eyes and felt pain in his heart, and he believes that the moral high ground of the United States as a global hegemon has begun to fall.
Second, the deterioration of international relations and the international political environment has also posed a more severe challenge to US global hegemony, resulting in the United States simply not having sufficient capabilities and resources to deal with challenges from all sides. Russia, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and even America's own allies, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, are challenging the United States in all areas. The United States is no longer the United States of World War II, the United States at that time can be described as the world, and no one can withstand the blow of the United States, because the United States is an all-rounder. Today, not only has there been an all-rounder like China that may replace the United States, but there has also been a very strong Russia, which has directly called out the United States with its military strength and directly said no to the United States, and half-hearted allies like South Korea and Germany have also dismantled the hegemony of the United States at every turn, which really makes it very difficult for the United States. Therefore, in the face of challenges from strategic rivals in various fields and directions, William Cooper believes that it is indeed difficult for the United States to continue to maintain its hegemony.
Third, William Cooper believes that the main reason why the United States has maintained scientific and technological innovation, global leadership, and become a veritable global hegemon in the past is because of the characteristics of the United States. This is what Tocqueville said, that the greatness of the United States lies not in being enlightened, but in the fact that the United States is able to face up to its mistakes and correct them. This ability of the United States to revolutionize itself is not possessed by other countries, which allows the United States to quickly adjust itself in the face of various challenges, find the best response, and always maintain its vitality. Today's United States does not see this kind of vitality, and the presence of extreme figures such as Biden and Trump in American politics has shown that American politics has become ossified.
It is for these reasons that William Cooper believes that the United States is in decline, and he is very sad that the sages of the United States used two centuries to establish global hegemony, and that under the leadership of American politicians, the United States has rapidly rolled the United States from the position of the sole global hegemon in only 20 years, and this trend is still growing.
William Cooper argues that the United States is in decline, and whether this is a fact is also worth discussing, judging by the United States in general, is indeed declining, and there are examples to prove it. When the United States encountered an adversary like the Houthis in the Middle East, if it had followed the violent temper of the United States before, the United States would have gathered NATO forces long ago and directly carpeted bombing with its own artillery shells in order to eliminate the Houthis. In fact, since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Red Sea crisis has intensified, and until now, the United States has not been able to find a suitable way to deal with the needs of the Houthis. From this, it can be seen that the United States is no longer the hegemon that used to fight whoever it wants, and from this simple example, it can be seen that William Cooper's statement that "the United States is in decline" is indeed a fact.
In fact, in addition to many of the factors mentioned by William Cooper, there are other factors that can provide another perspective on the United States as a basis for determining whether the United States is in decline.
First, if we want to judge whether the United States is in decline, we must look at what kind of country the United States really is. When many people talk about the United States, they tend to think that the United States is a simple country, and in a general formal sense, there is nothing wrong with this perception, because the United States has judicial, legislative, and executive organs that exercise sovereignty, and it also has its own clear boundaries. If we stop there, we can't actually understand the United States, which is a separate country, but it can exert global influence, which involves the essence of the United States, which is actually a global pivotal capitalist country. The reason why the United States can afford to play financial governance is because the United States holds the core of the industrial chain in its own hands, and transfers a large number of industries to other regions and countries, and through its own financial hegemony, scientific and technological hegemony, and military hegemony, the United States has firmly formed a central and vassal relationship with other regions and countries, which is the essence of the United States.
Therefore, the reason why it is judged that the United States is in decline is also because the original vassal of the United States has also begun to have a sense of autonomy and interest appeal. When the periphery begins to rebel, the center of the United States naturally becomes weak, and this is what the United States is most frightened about today, and this is why there are more and more hot spots around the world, and the United States is becoming more and more scrambling. Therefore, as long as we see clearly that the United States is a global pivotal capitalist country, we can know that when most countries in the world begin to have a sense of autonomy and begin to demand equality with the United States, the United States, the central country, can only settle for the second. The fact that the United States has to gradually cede some of its powers, hoping to achieve co-governance with the emerging countries in order to maintain its own dignity, is a sign of the decline of American hegemony and a key reason for the decline of the United States.
Second, the reason why the United States is in decline is that at present, the United States is indeed facing powerful opponents from various fields and directions, including China, which is regarded by the United States as an all-round competitor, Russia, which directly "flips the table" with the United States, India and Japan, which share the same bed with the United States, and a number of vassal countries of the United States. Although these countries, large and small, have a certain gap with the United States in terms of individual strength, these gaps are not fatal, nor are they irreparable. In contrast, each country has its own strengths and advantages over the United States, which is why the current national strength of the United States is dwarfed by that of the United States. In the past, other countries were in a state of development, and a poor word caused these countries to have no way to resist the United States, but now that these countries have developed economically, they have naturally begun to have their own ideas.
Third, an important factor in the perception that the United States is in decline is that it has indeed lost its ability to correct itself. At present, the United States has been founded for more than 200 years, and if we look at a series of documents written by American sages in the early days of the founding of the country, we will find that the United States of the past is not the United States of today at all, and the United States of today is not at all the ideal country designed by the American sages of the past. Today's United States has completely become a naked capitalist country where capital is supreme, and in this capitalist country, money is everything, and money can do whatever you want. Although the United States has also set up a series of social assistance policies, but behind the social assistance policies are paved with money, if you have money, you can enjoy high-quality education, medical care, if you don't have money, you can only go to the hospital to wait in line to die, the United States has vividly demonstrated the advantages of capitalism, but also exposed the disadvantages of capitalism. Taking "everything for money, everything for capital" as the logic of one's own actions is the embodiment of the loss of self-correction ability of American society. When Tocqueville visited the United States, he was full of expectations for the American polity, and the United States has lost that expectation, and when the government and society begin to lose the ability to correct themselves, no matter how powerful the country is, it will eventually decline.