250 Years of the World’s Attachment to the American Idea

Over the course of two and a half centuries, the United States has achieved what no other nation has accomplished in modern history. From a peripheral colony on the fringes of the British Empire, it rose to become the world’s foremost economic, military, and cultural power. From the wheat and corn fields of the American Midwest to the automobile industry, the personal computer, the Internet, Hollywood, television, jazz, rock music, contemporary art, social media, fast food, and blue jeans, an entire civilizational model gradually took shape, turning the “American Idea” into a model with which the world identified for 250 years.

History, however, teaches that greatness is never a permanent condition. Empires rise and eventually recede when they fail to renew the foundations of their strength. Today, the United States faces an existential question: can it lay the foundations for another two and a half centuries of global leadership, or is it entering the phase of decline that has overtaken so many great powers before it?

History offers three particularly illuminating examples. The Byzantine Empire enjoyed immense wealth, remarkable scientific advancement, and a highly educated population. Yet it weakened itself by showering privileges upon the elite while granting sweeping tax exemptions to the wealthy, ultimately triggering financial collapse and eroding its capacity to govern. Spain, meanwhile, saw the riches of the New World pour into its coffers, yet squandered the opportunity to build a productive economy by deepening social inequality. Had those resources been invested more wisely, the Industrial Revolution might well have begun there before it reached Britain. Britain’s own decline, by contrast, came not through sudden collapse but through the gradual loss of the technological leadership it had established during the Victorian era with the steam engine, textile machinery, the railway, and the telegraph, as the world’s principal centers of scientific and engineering innovation shifted toward the United States and Germany.

It is in this light that the philosopher George Santayana’s famous observation seems more relevant today than ever: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The lesson shared by these historical experiences is unmistakable. Whenever a nation allows its institutions to weaken, social inequality to widen, and its universities and research centers to lose their vitality, it gradually begins to forfeit its place in the international order. That also means the United States has every opportunity to remain prosperous by the time it celebrates its five-hundredth anniversary, provided it confronts these challenges.

Despite maintaining its technological and economic edge, America’s current crisis appears to be more internal than external. Public confidence in political, judicial, and media institutions has steadily eroded, accompanied by a growing conviction that the system no longer serves all citizens equally. It was in this climate that Donald Trump emerged, presenting himself as an outsider capable of “draining the swamp,” capitalizing on popular anger and the rise of populist currents.

At the same time, social and cultural divisions within American society have deepened along racial, religious, and economic lines, making national consensus increasingly difficult to achieve. The framers of the Constitution, in The Federalist Papers (1787-1788), designed a political system capable of accommodating diversity and disagreement. Yet what once served as a safeguard for liberty has gradually evolved into a form of polarization that now threatens the system’s ability to generate consensus and preserve stability. It is as though a vast trap had slowly closed around American society. This helps explain why the United States appears to be drifting toward a more authoritarian direction and into what might be described as a post-scientific society.

At the heart of this crisis lies an old cultural and moral question concerning the very nature of the American Idea. From its inception, the United States has been shaped by a permanent tension between the values of the Enlightenment and rational inquiry on one hand, and religious faith together with moral tradition on the other. Two influential thinkers embodied this debate. John Dewey, identified here with political realism, believed that democracy could ground its public morality in reason, education, and human dignity, and that universities were capable of cultivating responsible citizens. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, associated with pragmatism, adopted a more pessimistic view. He argued that human nature could never easily free itself from selfishness and racism, and that society therefore required a moral framework capable of restraining power and competing interests.

Despite their differences, both thinkers agreed on one essential point: society requires a shared moral framework capable of protecting the public sphere and providing common ground for resolving political conflicts. Yet that common foundation has steadily eroded with the rise of populism, the declining regard for public service and ethical reflection in favor of media-driven emotionalism, and the spread of the moral relativism that Allan Bloom famously examined in The Closing of the American Mind. As a result, political authority has become increasingly inclined to attack the press, universities, and intellectual elites instead of reinforcing their role as pillars of democratic debate.

America’s divisions no longer revolve solely around political disagreement. They now extend to the very definition of truth itself. Each camp has constructed its own version of reality amid declining trust in institutions, the weakening of traditional political parties, the growing influence of money in politics, and the shift in campaign financing away from party organizations toward wealthy donors and pressure groups, diminishing the parties’ ability to structure and regulate political life.

Ironically, American history itself offers a striking counterexample to these developments. In the summer of 1754, the young George Washington committed serious military mistakes during the Battle of Jumonville Glen, and his recklessness helped ignite the French and Indian War. Yet that defeat became a defining moment in his personal development. From it he learned discipline, caution, flexibility, and self-restraint, qualities that later enabled him to lead the newly founded republic. The episode demonstrated that failure is not the opposite of leadership but one of the conditions that makes mature leadership possible.

Many observers believe that the United States is now moving along the opposite path. The growing erosion of institutional independence, the weakening of checks and balances, and the expanding role of the executive branch in both the economy and public administration reflect a conservative nationalist tendency that is redefining neoliberalism in the service of a more centralized state. These developments coincide with profound global transformations marked by the restructuring of supply chains, intensifying competition for capital and talent, and strategic rivalry over technology and energy in a world steadily evolving toward multiple centers of power.

The United States is no longer the world’s only major actor. China has firmly established itself as an economic and technological powerhouse, the European Union is striving to preserve its strategic weight, Russia seeks to reassert its spheres of influence, and India continues its rise as an emerging global power. As the international system becomes increasingly fragmented and competitive, American influence can no longer be taken for granted as it was in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Two hundred and fifty years after its independence, the United States still possesses the assets needed to renew its global role. Yet that renewal cannot rest on military power alone. It requires stronger institutions, reduced inequality, restored confidence in democracy, and the revival of the American Idea as a project grounded in the common good, faith, and the rule of law. The destiny of nations is shaped not only by their wealth or their armies, but also by their enduring capacity to reexamine themselves before history rewrites their ending.

The world’s attachment to the United States has never rested solely on its status as the greatest military power. Before anything else, it was attached to an idea. From the Declaration of Independence onward, the American project was never simply about building a new state. It sought to create a political, cultural, and economic model that would redefine modernity itself. From that idea emerged a succession of transformations that reshaped the world, to the point where American influence often extended far beyond America’s own borders. The question today is therefore not whether the United States remains the world’s leading power, but whether it still possesses the moral and institutional foundations that once inspired the world to believe in the appeal and enduring promise of the American Idea.

Perhaps the greatest challenge lies in the rapid erosion of those very foundations. Politics has increasingly become an exercise in emotional mobilization rather than reasoned judgment. Public debate has fallen captive to populism, while universities, the media, and the institutions traditionally responsible for cultivating the political elite, including increasingly hollowed-out political parties, have steadily lost their role as places where a shared understanding of truth can be forged. The disagreement dividing Americans no longer concerns only which policies to pursue, but the very definition of reality itself, arguably the deepest fracture any democracy can face.