“…a narcissistic, ignorant convicted felon whose rambling speeches and incessant lies make you think he’s slipping into dementia. Backed by his craven administration and assorted billionaires, his regressive policies and actions have reduced the country’s standing on the global stage from shining beacon to an absurdist version of a tinpot dictatorship, albeit a nuclear-armed one.”

David Suzuki

Diminishing the world view of the United States of America has become more than the trite “Ugly American” label which has been so conveniently (and tongue-in-cheek) employed by others for the past half century or more (I can only speak from my limited personal knowledge arising from my first encounter of the slur when I was 14 years old in Europe) to describe what is again and again now perceived as the incremental decline of the country as a whole. Generally speaking the enchanting image of the Statue of Liberty has survived until recently like foam above the mounting turbulence below. But people throughout the world are now questioning – as my caffeine partner iterated today – to what exactly is the USA returning to make it great again?  Is it the era of southern plantations and slavery? Is it the era of voting restrictions against women? Is it the era of racial discrimination? Is it the era of the Vietnam war? Is it the era of embracing God’s will to inflict AIDS upon homosexuals? Is it the era of demonizing vaccines against pandemics? Is it the era of blaming immigrants for the nation’s ills?

This rhetoric has evolved before having ventured into the strictly factual realm of public debt which now approaches a figure beyond comprehension. Some have wildly suggested it is an insurmountable peril.

Putting aside the past and the volatility of economic projections, the American visage has distinctly become obstructed by numerous questions of morality – social, cultural, religious and political. In every major avenue of the American way of life there persist contradictions with its publicly espoused morality. No longer does the government pretend. Constitutional law – the putative foundation of the country’s legal system – has become the vehicle not for the protection of individual rights; rather for the limitation of those rights, including the public contamination of the judiciary and its former independence. The barriers are slowly crumbling. Republicans openly mock the legitimacy of its own laws.

Meanwhile the rest of the world has written off the United States of America as a place to go. Airline passage, tourism activity and vacation bookings have markedly dwindled. There is a growing animosity against Americans who – while maintaining their entitlement to republicanism – seem unwilling to remove themselves from the MAGA platform otherwise than ostensibly for what are perceived as token (and scarcely credible) reasons.

At the same time resistance is mounting. Foreign countries are side-stepping the United States of America as untrustworthy – a condemnation more punishing than any political or popular surveys. Like it or not, deceit is a harmful trait; and it most certainly doesn’t support accommodation or cooperation on a global scale.

Finally there is an indisputable element of revenge at play. For too long foreigners have tolerated the presumption and absurdity of the “World Series” and similar American pretence. If indeed Americans wish to insinuate the globe, unfettered nationalism, oligarchy and dictatorship are not the way to do it.

A leader of the country such as Trump poses serious questions of rationality and design by almost any account. Every day with Trump is “Hang onto your hat!” reflected most recently by the mercurial behaviour of the stock market. If – as many speculate – Trump is doing only what he believes will confound and confuse the public so that he may devote himself more meaningfully to escaping imprisonment, then his rampant governance will only continue until he can employ the language of pardon or abandon its necessity.