Getting Flushed Down the Drain Might Not be Permanent

Most people expect a Biden and Trump rematch this November.  One way to look at this is to back off from the partisan arguments and look at the big picture.  How could America have come to such a low state as to come up with candidates like this -- twice?!

Is this the same America that settled a wilderness in the new hemisphere; fought off the claims of French, Spanish, and Russians in North America; formed a government on a written Constitution; survived a bloody Civil War; grew into the industrial powerhouse of planet Earth; and brought electrical and automotive inventions to within reach of the masses?  There have indeed been many accomplishments that Americans can be proud of.

And now look at us!  It is tempting to say that the current situation is unbelievable, but actually, it is quite believable.  Let's make a short list out of spectacular "come downs" that have happened to other countries.

1.  Ancient Greece in 450 B.C. versus 150 B.C., that is, Greece after its own civil war, the Peloponessian War, and its conquest by Rome.

2.  The culture and mindset of the late Roman Empire, say, 300 AD, with that of the Roman Republic circa 200 B.C.

3.  The culture of Islam in 1000 AD compared to a couple hundred years later, after Baghdad had been sacked by the Mongols, and most of Spain and Portugal had been lost to Islam.  Worse yet, the 'Closing of the Muslim Mind' started happening near 1000 AD.

4.  The Portuguese and Spanish era of Discovery, circa 1520 AD and the age of Magellan, versus the loss of their empire in the New World 300 years later.

5.  Britain at the peak of the Victorian Age versus 1950.

6.  Germany in 1895 compared to a mere 50 years later.

The genetic material of the countries had not changed much in these examples.  What causes people to be so confident and ascendant for a couple generations, and then spiral down into a collapse?

My favorite in this list is #4.  Who changed the world more fundamentally than the sailors and discoverers of that era?  I don't think that bookish intellectuals could ever have brought Europe out of a thousand years of Christian superstition.  They would have kept rehashing the same old books, and languished in a permanent inferiority complex with regard to the Ancients.

The good news is that there is no universal law that says that a Decline is permanent.  Look at all the ups and downs China and Persia have gone through.