There was a time, not so long ago, when America was the greatest country in the world.
Not just because it said so on the telly, not because it could nuke you from space, or because every high school film ended with a slow clap and a national anthem. No — because it led. With ideas, with invention, with democratic ideals (however hypocritically applied), with a swagger that came from real cultural capital, real global respect. America didn’t just show up to the party — it built the damn house.
But not anymore
And I don’t say this with glee. I’m not some sanctimonious Brit revelling in Uncle Sam’s decline while sipping tepid tea in a London kitchen. I say this because facts matter. Because rhetoric isn’t reality. And because under President Donald J. Trump — not once, but now twice elected as Commander-in-Chief — the United States has taken a chainsaw to its global reputation, its domestic integrity, and its long-term prospects.
Let’s be clear: America hasn’t been ‘great’ in the aspirational, post-war, Statue-of-Liberty sense for a while. But this time, it feels terminal. It’s not just decline. It’s wilful decay.
The environment? A joke. Trump’s ghoulish love affair with coal has been re-consummated. In a flurry of pen-strokes that would’ve made a 19th-century industrialist swoon, he reopened the gates to coal-fired power plants. Actual coal, like it’s 1902 and we’re all still clapping at the lightbulb. His executive order gutted environmental protections that were already on life support, essentially telling the EPA to sit down and shut up while we choke on soot.
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