Twilight of the American Century

In January, historian Niall Ferguson argued that the decision before Americans in the 2024 election was a stark choice between republic and empire. A Trump restoration presented a special menace to the American system at home while the Democrats’ feeble brand of global leadership—for which Harris was a faithful servant and ardent surrogate—would usher in a post-American global order. This was not an especially palatable choice, but if anything, Ferguson’s pessimistic assessment was too sanguine given the converging crises facing the United States and the wider world. Domestic and foreign policy are rarely discrete realms.

We will never know how Kamala Harris would have governed had she won—she was careful to keep her plans and ideological commitments (if she has any) concealed during the campaign. But it is unlikely that she would have done much to either reverse the stagnation of American liberalism at home or close the yawning gap between rhetoric and strategy in American statecraft abroad. Donald Trump’s return to the White House, meanwhile, is likely to fundamentally alter American foreign policy as well as America itself. The United States is, and always has been, what Jefferson called “an empire of liberty”—a democratic republic that sought to build a global order conducive to its own interests and ideals. It is hard to imagine the nation shedding either half of that identity while remaining true to its distinctive character and the international order.

Trump’s first term ended with the prospect of a full-blown constitutional crisis that was only averted by an improbable show of nerve from his otherwise craven vice president. The scandalous assault on the US Capitol incited by the sitting president was a terrible self-inflicted wound to the country that deliberately aggravated Americans’ faltering trust in their own public institutions. But it also undermined global confidence in America’s abiding purpose, as well as its staying power as a liberal hegemon.