WHAT comes to mind when we think of America?
To most people, and I include myself in that, I think of a country that leads the world in most things.
Knowledge clearly comes to mind first. The well-manicured lawns of Ivy-League institutions like Harvard University is often a mental picture one associates of knowledgeable America, where the world’s best minds come to teach, study and learn together; and where the most important discoveries originate, for the benefit not only of the country but also the whole world.
Political maturity is up there too, certainly. Where else is there a form of government where the will of the people is supreme, where a system of carefully refined checks and balance exists and everyone’s will is heard and respected? Surely, the country led variously by great men like Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy has to be the model for the rest of the world to follow?
And most definitely, global leadership has to be top of mind as well. After all, not since the British Empire relinquished its mantle of world leadership to the United States at the end of the Second World War, has one nation managed to lead the world in an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity, preaching the gospel of international law and order and free and open global trade.
Today’s America is, however, looking anything but like the America most people imagine it to be.
For a country where the logic of science is always expected to prevail, it now leads the world in terms of Covid-19 infections and deaths. Currently, it reports more infections in two days, than the entire country of Japan has recorded so far in this pandemic. That is considering that its population is not even three times that of Japan’s, but it has more than 87 times the number of Covid-19 cases. And this despite the latter’s small and densely populated area lending itself more likely to the spread of infection.
Moreover, when one sees what is happening in the streets of America’s large urban centers these days, one can be forgiven for thinking that they are no different from what we normally expect to see in the more lawless countries of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Racial tension never before seen in any modern nation has taken center stage in recent months, exacerbated no doubt by the challenges and pressures brought about by the ongoing pandemic. The result is a clash of two Americas, often erupting into episodes of violent and chaotic confrontations.
And what of the global leadership it once held? Perhaps our readers remember that iconic picture taken during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in 2019, where a number of world leaders were shown seemingly talking and laughing about US President Donald Trump behind his back? Well, that picture is now emblematic of how the world sees the US – the nonsensical rumblings of its childish and egotistical president, the bickerings of its once-hallowed institutions and the failure of its citizens to comply with even the simplest of social etiquette for the common good – all giving the collective impression that the United States does not anymore deserve the mantle of world leadership it has held for almost a century now.
As Dr. Pamela Jolly said in reference to wealth creation, “It takes three generations to build legacy wealth, and only one generation to lose it.” While she was obviously referring to the difficult task of economic accumulation and the seeming ease with which it can be squandered away, the principle also applies to a nation’s standing in the world.
If America is not careful, the next four years is not going to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Instead, it could make this once mighty country a pretty mediocre one, all in the space of a presidential second term.