Travis T. Armstrong, Ed.D.

There is something almost classical about watching America's decline through Trump. The Greeks had a word for it: hubris. Followed, always and without exception, by nemesis. The country that told the world it was the "indispensable nation." The country that maintained 800 military bases in 80 countries. The country that redesigned the global financial system in its own image at Bretton Woods and then spent eight decades using access to that system as a weapon against anyone who disobeyed. The country that called this "freedom." Now watching its own cities rot. Its own bridges collapse. Its own citizens die of preventable diseases because the money that should have built hospitals and schools and water treatment infrastructure was spent maintaining the architecture of global domination that was supposed to make America great. The empire ate the republic. It ate it from the inside, slowly, over decades, diverting every resource toward the maintenance of power abroad while the foundations at home quietly failed. And now the republic is screaming at the wreckage and calling the scream a plan. Hubris. Nemesis. It arrives on schedule. It always does.