Has America Lost Itself Forever?
In 1935, Oswaldo Aranha, the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States bore witness to a scene he described as an “interesting spectacle” and “only possible in the United States.” The Ambassador looked on as a European academic delivering a lecture attempted to “justify Mussolini, defend Stalin, and accuse Hitler.” Aranha explained that the professor was soon buffeted by questions and challenges from his American audience until he was “forced to confess” that “the three were all the same, tyrants, enemies of liberty and democracy.” This was an upsetting turn of events for the Ambassador. Brazil’s President, Getúlio Vargas was slowly laying the groundwork of a quasi-fascist and anti-communist dictatorship of his own. He and his Ambassador wanted to avoid running afoul of the United States. After watching the professor be embarrassed by his American questioners, Aranha complained in a letter to his president “These people understand neither dictatorships nor revolutions.” He continued to bemoan the supposed inferior American understanding of government types and concluded “These people do not understand other regimes and hate all anti-democratic ones.”[1] Aranha’s insults are surely one of the greatest and most sincere compliments ever spoken of the American character. The Americans around Aranha had exposed him to a simple but beautiful truth, authoritarianism is anathema to Americanism.
In his 1998 book, The Populist Persuasion, Michael Kazin explains that the reason would-be revolutionary ideologies such as “socialism, fascism, and anticolonialism” have struggled to take root in the United States is that since “early in the history of the United States, speakers and writers transformed the country from a mere place on the map into an ideology.” Kazin describes that ideology he calls Americanism saying, “In this unique nation, all men were created equal, deserved the same chance to improve their lot, and were citizens of a self-governing republic that enshrined the liberty of the individual.”[2] Throughout its history, the United States has fallen short of the values of Americanism but they constituted an ideal against which the country frequently measured itself and which it strove to achieve. Deep-rooted beliefs that women, immigrants, and Black Americans were not entitled to the benefits of Americanism slowly withered away over time (Though they have had their resurgences). As Kazin argued, ideologies like communism and fascism struggled in the United States due to this profound cultural aversion to anything that seemed to contradict or undermine the exceptional features of Americanism. Indeed, Americanism so conceived is what allowed the United States to survive, progress, and eventually develop historically unprecedented levels of global power and economic prosperity.
Now Americanism suffers near-constant assaults from the left and right. Trumpists and “social justice” progressives eagerly await its demise. On the far-left, individuals deride the United States as a manifestation of “the oppressor” in a comically simplistic worldview that lacks any nuance and fails at every turn to describe history or politics anywhere on earth accurately. Across the country, individuals have taken to the streets to parrot the propaganda of terrorist groups whose murderous rampages and mass rapes they excuse as the rightful actions of freedom fighters. The primary institutions of the American right have now fallen in line behind a narcissist would-be dictator whose entire vision is built upon self-aggrandizement and the undermining of individual liberty, capitalism, and free democratic governance. The Republican Party and conservative media openly advocate for authoritarianism and praise foreign dictators that have successfully imposed draconian systems on their populations.
Just how widespread these cancerous attitudes have spread remains to be seen but it is already far more common than I ever thought possible. If you would rather live under a dictatorship of your party than a flawed presidency of your opponent, you are part of the problem. If you believe America is in decline because it is possible for someone to live a lifestyle completely different and even contrary to your own, you are part of the problem. In a liberal democracy, a commitment to universal values cannot disappear as soon as someone does something of which you disapprove. If a majority of Americans now have now truly lost faith in the core American ideals of individual liberty, free markets, and democracy then the country has not only lost the key to its own success, but it has lost the raison d’etre for its very existence and it is doomed to fail.
Hamas and the Houthi Movement are terrorist organizations that openly commit crimes against humanity and are backed by Iran, one of the world’s most tyrannical regimes. Dictators and their regimes in countries like Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are tyrannical and enemies of liberty and democracy, and the United States and the world are better off when they fail. Donald Trump is a would-be dictator who is openly plotting to implant an authoritarian regime in the United States. Until a majority of Americans can accept all of these truths (without incoherently picking among them — lest you defend Stalin as you accuse Hitler) and until Trump and his movement are defeated, the American constitutional system remains imperiled.
In his seminal text, The Constitution of Liberty, the economist Friedrich August von Hayek wrote, “If old truths are to retain their hold on men’s minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations.” That is precisely what this article aims to accomplish.
Hayek further argued, “It is only since we were confronted with an altogether different system that we have discovered that we have lost any clear conception of our aims and possess no firm principles which we can hold up against the dogmatic ideology of our antagonists. . . If we are to succeed in the great struggle of ideas that is under way, we must first of all know what we believe.” Written in 1960, these words are remarkably applicable to our day.
Americanism and its core values have been a boon to the country and the world alike, particularly since the twentieth century. The US created and led Liberal World Order that emerged following World War II is not without flaws or hypocrisy, but it is better than anything that preceded it and undoubtedly better than some amoral authoritarian system run out of Beijing or Moscow. Liberalism and its emphasis on the individual have led to the first-ever global system of human rights. Democratic self-governance has spread across the world and flourished. Free markets and free trade have led to massive reductions in poverty and overall human suffering while fueling global economic growth. While progress has been uneven and subject to reversal, since the end of WWII the United States has sustained an overall trend toward greater individual freedom and increased inclusion. Freedom of speech and expression is protected in the United States like nowhere else. Americans enjoy economic prosperity and cultural freedom on a level of which many others can only dream.
None of this is to say the United States is perfect or without the need for reform and change. But the country can only progress and improve itself if it is willing to again embrace the fundamental values that already make it great.
In 2016, Mitt Romney declared that Trumpism was a “brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss” and correctly explained that Trump himself was “playing the American public for suckers.” As a historian who has studied countless cases of democratic collapse, I can attest that the United States now stands on the precipice of that abyss. It is no longer just Trump playing Americans for suckers, foreign dictators and terrorist leaders have joined him. So, what will you do America? Walk off the cliff or wake up and reclaim your identity?
[1] For this letter see Oswaldo Aranha, “Carta de Oswaldo Aranha a Getúlio Vargas Informando Sobre as Repercussões Do Movimento Comunista,” December 3, 1935, GV c 1935.12.03/1, CPDOC — Acervo Getúlio Vargas.
[2] Kazin’s quotations are observations of historical American attitudes not endorsements on his part.
