Donald Trump Is the End of the Modern Era
The post-WWII world order of American dominance is over. Donald Trump proves it.
In February 1941, Henry Luce, the influential publisher of Time and Life magazines, penned an article heralding the “American Century,” a post-war era in which the United States would apply its newfound standing as the “dominant power in the world” to spread “free economic enterprise” and “the abundant life” around the globe. Luce envisioned the United States as “the principal guarantor of the freedom of the seas” and “the dynamic leader of world trade,” and saw in this future “possibilities of such enormous human progress as to stagger the imagination.”
The next several decades would prove Luce right, as the United States emerged from World War II as one of two global superpowers and, arguably, the world’s preeminent cultural and economic force. Luce, who was a Republican, intended his broadside to serve as a template for conservative internationalism — in effect, a powerful response to the party’s isolationist, America First wing. But this concept — of America as a friendly goliath, the “Good Samaritan of the entire world,” promoting democracy, capitalism, trade and international order — guided the thinking of most policymakers and politicians across the political spectrum for the better part of a century.
Until now.
Donald Trump’s second presidential victory represents a sharp break, and perhaps a permanent one, with the American Century framework. It’s a framework that rested on four key pillars:
A rules-based economic order that afforded the U.S. free access to vast international markets.
A guarantee of safety and security for its allies, backed up by American military might.
An increasingly liberal immigration system that strengthened America’s economy and complemented military and trade partnerships with the rest of the non-Communist world.
And finally, in Luce’s words, a “picture of an America” that valued — and exported to the rest of the world — “its technical and artistic skills. Engineers, scientists, doctors … developers of airlines, builders of roads, teachers, educators.”