This commentary is by Nate Denny, a former woodworker and teacher from Northfield.
Every adult of voting age in the United States should have known that the former president’s call to regain some level of “greatness,” both empirically and reputationally, was doomed to ignominious failure and disgrace.
The role of hyperpower occupied, indeed invented, by this country upon the dissolution of the USSR was a fleeting moment on the world stage. Empires that attain such levels of dominance set in motion the failures of governance and civic-mindedness that bring about their decline or dissolution.
Only one large nation on the planet resembles its predecessors in terms of boundaries and culture: China. Yet clearly the current Chinese leader has studied the history of his nation as he seeks to crack down on dissent and troublesome ethnic groups. Is this what is required to maintain superpower status? Must minority groups be suppressed, borders be hardened and myths be believed to prevent a nation from tearing itself apart?
What is tearing the United States apart and preventing any hypothetical return to greatness is our inability to have thoughtful and respectful conversations. On all sides of our debates, one can hear the true cynical purpose of the speakers and writers. The childishness of ad hominem attacks and the insecurity of absolutism should be rejected. The odd acts of ostentatious self-flagellation by left-leaning intellectuals deserve to be treated skeptically, while the sometimes vague but often clear threats of violence by the right must be condemned.
What all of these debaters have in common is dishonesty about their purpose: They don’t want “things” to improve. Instead they just want to win the debate. And so there are no solutions, not even any compromises.
But why is the question of “greatness” even a question? Elevated to superpower status by a series of global accidents and self-interested imperialistic policy after the two world wars in the 20th century, the United States has failed to understand itself and its history. In the end, ignorance can have only one outcome: national decline.
The rest of the world is now looking on with concern and bemusement as we tear each other down in rancorous shouting matches. Dangerous to ourselves and those who displease us, we continually fall back on the one aspect of national power where we hold (for now) uncontested superiority: military strength. But look how poorly our military adventures and imperial interventions have worked out for us; arguably only the South Koreans have benefited from our hegemony and we didn’t even win that war.
So, if the nation is overextended and hollowed out, intellectually and morally, what right do we have to call ourselves a great nation? What would it take to prevent this empire from fracturing into regions and city states? Could the members of the federal government even agree on what sort of national programs might unite us? Could the vast sums of money that are spent preventing financial collapse every couple of decades be better spent on, I don’t know, some sort of national service program administered by the states?
But what is more dangerous, a fading but blowhard empire that insists on its greatness, or a resentful and resurgent nation that sets about proving it?
It is my hope that, when the smoke clears, Vermonters will be able to agree on what sort of shabby mediocrity suits us best.
