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Ending the American Dream by 2029?
Last edited Tue Jan 13, 2026, 12:32 PM - Edit history (1)
Free Speech TV/Democracy Now had Alfred McCoy on this morning. I highly recommend supporting Free Speech TV/Democracy Now, and PBS. They are some of the few media outlets telling the truth about what the fuck is going on in America right now and how utterly destructive Trump is and precisely why.
The segment was excellent. Look for it online tomorrow or later today: https://democracynow.org
Also read Alfred McCoy's article from December 2025: https://tomdispatch.com/ending-the-american-dream-by-2029/
. . .
In just 11 action-packed months since his January inauguration, President Trump has already demolished the fundamental geopolitics that have undergirded U.S. global hegemony for the past 80 years. Even if he simply persists in his policies for another 37 months, his impact on the American version of a world order will undoubtedly prove so profound that it will strain the limits of language.
. . .
til recently, it was the world’s leading donor for public health and poverty eradication, sparing many millions of the world’s poor from the worst kinds of hunger and disease. All of those significant improvements in the human condition had complex causes, but the fundamental fact remains that they were products, direct or indirect, of Washington’s world order.
Then came President Donald Trump. From the first day of his second term in office in January 2025, he set out to tear down the U.S. global order and transform America’s place in the world. With billionaire Elon Musk serving as his in-house wrecking ball, he quickly demolished the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), slashing more than 80% of American nutritional and medical aid in ways expected, by 2030, to lead to a staggering 14 million extra deaths globally (including more than 4.5 million children).
. . .
Just as Trump’s “America First” foreign policy is damaging the country’s diplomatic relations with Asia, Europe, and Latin America, so his domestic policies are likely to cripple this country’s economic competitiveness. Despite his stated commitment to building “the world’s most robust industrial base,” his energy policy is damaging, if not destroying, the country’s largest industry — automobile manufacturing. In 2024, the U.S. automobile industry produced 3% of the country’s gross domestic product, created more than 8 million jobs, supplied transport for 92% of all American households, and accounted for $1.6 trillion in consumer finance, second only to home mortgages.
. . .
With the U.S. global retreat leaving China and what’s likely to become its satellite state, Russia, dominant on the Eurasian land mass, home to 70% of the world’s population, Washington will be forced to fall even more fully back on the Western Hemisphere (where its welcome is already wearing ever thinner). With its presence certain to shrink across the planet, the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency will, as J.P. Morgan noted in a recent study, certainly “come into question.” With erratic U.S. government policies undermining “the perceived safety and stability of the greenback” and U.S. tariffs causing “investors to lose confidence in American assets,” there are already clear market signs of a global “de-dollarization” that will raise the cost of servicing this country’s national debt and cut into every aspect of the American economy. By 2030, the sum of those changes — compounded by a 20% increase in household electricity prices, soaring health care costs, and a “white collar bloodbath” as AI kills off half of all entry-level jobs — will have distinctly begun to reduce the quality of life in this country.
As Shakespeare’s witches saw the future in their cauldron’s bubbling brew and said of Macbeth, a man who would be king (whatever the cost), “Something wicked this way comes,” they also caught our Trumpian moment so many centuries later.
In just 11 action-packed months since his January inauguration, President Trump has already demolished the fundamental geopolitics that have undergirded U.S. global hegemony for the past 80 years. Even if he simply persists in his policies for another 37 months, his impact on the American version of a world order will undoubtedly prove so profound that it will strain the limits of language.
. . .
til recently, it was the world’s leading donor for public health and poverty eradication, sparing many millions of the world’s poor from the worst kinds of hunger and disease. All of those significant improvements in the human condition had complex causes, but the fundamental fact remains that they were products, direct or indirect, of Washington’s world order.
Then came President Donald Trump. From the first day of his second term in office in January 2025, he set out to tear down the U.S. global order and transform America’s place in the world. With billionaire Elon Musk serving as his in-house wrecking ball, he quickly demolished the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), slashing more than 80% of American nutritional and medical aid in ways expected, by 2030, to lead to a staggering 14 million extra deaths globally (including more than 4.5 million children).
. . .
Just as Trump’s “America First” foreign policy is damaging the country’s diplomatic relations with Asia, Europe, and Latin America, so his domestic policies are likely to cripple this country’s economic competitiveness. Despite his stated commitment to building “the world’s most robust industrial base,” his energy policy is damaging, if not destroying, the country’s largest industry — automobile manufacturing. In 2024, the U.S. automobile industry produced 3% of the country’s gross domestic product, created more than 8 million jobs, supplied transport for 92% of all American households, and accounted for $1.6 trillion in consumer finance, second only to home mortgages.
. . .
With the U.S. global retreat leaving China and what’s likely to become its satellite state, Russia, dominant on the Eurasian land mass, home to 70% of the world’s population, Washington will be forced to fall even more fully back on the Western Hemisphere (where its welcome is already wearing ever thinner). With its presence certain to shrink across the planet, the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency will, as J.P. Morgan noted in a recent study, certainly “come into question.” With erratic U.S. government policies undermining “the perceived safety and stability of the greenback” and U.S. tariffs causing “investors to lose confidence in American assets,” there are already clear market signs of a global “de-dollarization” that will raise the cost of servicing this country’s national debt and cut into every aspect of the American economy. By 2030, the sum of those changes — compounded by a 20% increase in household electricity prices, soaring health care costs, and a “white collar bloodbath” as AI kills off half of all entry-level jobs — will have distinctly begun to reduce the quality of life in this country.
As Shakespeare’s witches saw the future in their cauldron’s bubbling brew and said of Macbeth, a man who would be king (whatever the cost), “Something wicked this way comes,” they also caught our Trumpian moment so many centuries later.
MORE at the link: https://tomdispatch.com/ending-the-american-dream-by-2029/
I strongly suggest reading the entire article. The short of it is that DONALD TRUMP IS DESTROYING AMERICA'S WORLD LEADERSHIP on numerous fronts in numerous ways, and once it's done, we will never see it return in our lifetimes, if ever.
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