Declinism: Three centuries of gloomy forecasts about America

The Hoover Institution ^ | August & September 2007 | Alan W. Dowd

[Delacon]

This article kinda puts things in perspective as any good historical analysis should. Well worth the long read.

[HarmlessLovableFuzzball]

I have read it. There is nothing new. Liberals have been in pre orgasmic delight about America’s demise for a long long time. Hasn’t happened. Never will.

[listenhillary]

Good article.

[nicollo]

Consider John Dos Passos’s gloomy analysis of postwar Germany, which appeared in the January 7, 1946Life. The U.S. had just flattened Imperial Japan and plowed into the heart of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, yet Dos Passos could say “We’ve lost the peace. . . . Friend and foe alike look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American.”

Screw Dos Passos. I hate that socialist bitch.

[nicollo]

The one constant in America’s involvement with the world, even taking in the Revolution and the War of 1812, is that when it really counts, we can kick your ass. At no momment over its history has the U.S. been incapable of anihilating an opponent.

Now, attitude and will — that’s another matter. And that’s what this article is about.

[RC2]

Very true....Americans are a special breed. When things get tough, even the Liberals will turn to protect this country. May take a major event but piss off Americans enough and there will be hell to pay.

[Delacon]

This part jumped out at me:

“Critics warned that Truman would weaken the Constitution, militarize U.S. foreign policy, and destroy the UN. Truman’s doctrine wasn’t a ready-made road map for waging the Cold War, according to Leebaert. Instead, the Cold War’s first four years — which coincided with Truman’s first four years as president — “were filled with starts and stops rather than any considered policy or long-range goals.” The result: “a patched-together postwar order.”

Sound familiar? Replace Truman with Bush and “cold war” with “war on islamism”. Someone someday is going to get around to writing a comparison of the first president to proactively deal with cold war and the first president to proactively deal with the war on islamism.

[Zhang Fei]

Article: Declinism performs a useful historical function,” Huntington has observed. “It provides a warning and a goad to action in order to head off and reverse the decline that it says is taking place.”16 At its best, then, it is an expression of the American tendency toward self-criticism and continual improvement. This is a restless nation. Its capacity for change, its desire for change, its willingness to reevaluate and reassess itself make it easy to extrapolate periodic corrections or momentary uncertainties into downward trends — declinism at its worst. Perhaps this is why its practitioners find themselves forced to revise and defer their predictions again and again.

The Chinese media, by contrast, is extremely self-congratulatory. I far prefer declinism to false pride.

[Delacon]

“The Chinese media, by contrast, is extremely self-congratulatory. I far prefer declinism to false pride.”

I totally agree. Its a good article. I’d add that the muslim world is guilty of that same “false pride”. They can’t be wrong, its everyone else’s fault.

[Delacon]

“When things get tough, even the Liberals will turn to protect this country. May take a major event but piss off Americans enough and there will be hell to pay.”

I disagree. Would you not call 911 a major event? Souldn’t it have been enough to unite this country to fight until there was a quantifiable surrender done by the islamists?

[SnuffaBolshevik]

This is a great post! I guess the humidity still works it’s wonders.

[Popocatapetl]

I see the next major phase in the political evolution of the United States as either the collapse of the Democrat party, or its schism into a more moderate Green party and a more radical party which claims the mantle of the Democrats.

The Greens have found some success in Europe by focusing on only environmental issues, and being flexible as far as the rest of policy issues go. They please their constituency with their neutrality. And over time it has pushed them to become more moderate and results oriented rather than Moonbat.

In turn, the Republicans strongly need to purge some of its liberal members, which might form a Centrist party with more moderate Democrats.

For an election or two there might be more than three major contenders for office, but it will probably settle down to three for a while.

[Republicanus_Tyrannus]

It fit in well with this article I was reading about the Jacksonian Tradition in American culture.

Here's the link:

http://denbeste.nu/external/Mead01.html

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Our glass is still half full

[Delacon]

“This is a great post! I guess the humidity still works it’s wonders.”

LOL. The first euroweenie global warming alarmist.

[yldstrk]

Awwwwww why try society is a bunch of losers.....

[Delacon]

“We’ve lost the peace. . . . Friend and foe alike look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American.”

Shades of current Iraq commentary...

[Biblebelter]

I think America is in decline and its decline is recent. An author who used to get a lot of discussion on this forum was John Taylor Gatto. He wrote a book available to read online which outlined the decline of our educational system. He made convincing arguments that the colonists were more literate than most people coming out of today’s educational system. He also made an argument using military testing of soldiers that did not complete high school in the 1940’s, and the argument was that they were also better educated than what we are turning out today. There is a thread today, that notes that Obama referred to the leader of Canada as the President of Canada. That phrase could never come off my tongue because it absolutely sounds wrong to my brain. This Republic prospered on a population that holds literacy and education in high regard. I question if that is true today.

[G8 Diplomat]

I’ve said it several times on FR...every superpower in history, whether good or bad, has fallen—Rome, Britain, USSR...the US is next.

We’re in a state of moral decline, very similar to Rome in the days leading up to its fall. We’re already divided against each other, we’re not one nation. The cracks preceding the crash are forming.

[Delacon]

What? Are you trying to beat me on long article posts? Seriously, that was a good article. One thing I noticed that it skipped over was that toward the end of WW2 there was a dust up over whether or not there should remain a demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan in the face of the casualties that were projected for a land invasion. That so adamant were the people that the surrender should be unconditional, that when the A-bomb was shown to be workable, the pols lept at it because it would lead to less casualties for both sides and get them the unconditional surrender that everyone wanted. I was reminded of it by refs in both articles that sometimes the people are out in front of the pols in wanting to kick the bad guys collective butts. Days gone by?