America Is Not Living Its Greatest Days

Many people watched the back-and-forth between American President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin closely. Those who were following noticed a difference in the two leaders’ political cultures when President Biden gestured toward journalists and mumbled in affirmation when asked if Putin was a killer.

Putin, however, considered Biden to be a killer, and he did so without a single person realizing it, when he indicated that everyone sees others through his or her own eyes. He went further than that, however, and accused Harry Truman of genocide with his decision to drop the atom bomb on the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and did so without mentioning his name.

This development in relations between Washington and Moscow is not good news. In the shadow of the pandemic and the worsening economic situation all around the world, it was expected that world leaders would join hands to help the world get out of the troubles that it is experiencing. However, the winds are blowing in another direction.

On the other hand, Biden’s attack on Putin is reflective of the dissatisfaction that the United States feels toward Russia. The same is true for China. The meeting with China, which the Americans hosted in Alaska last week, failed. The meeting was intended to mend relations between the two countries. Accordingly, we can expect increased tension between Washington and Moscow as well as between Washington and Beijing. America is not enjoying its greatest time. For the purposes of this brief report, it is sufficient to point to two issues.

First, from the economic viewpoint, the coronavirus pandemic led to losses in America that nearly equal the losses America incurred in all of the wars in which it was engaged, as the number of victims from the pandemic in the United States may exceed the number of victims from the wars that they have fought over the course of the past 75 years. For this reason, the economy, which has been strained since 2008, has made the United States impatient with countries that are trying to benefit from the difficulties that they are facing in order to assume America's global leadership position. In this respect, relations are tense with China, its economic rival, as well as with Russia, its military rival. Russia and the United States possess nearly 90% of the world’s existing nuclear weapons, with Russia being superior in this regard.

Second, there is the presence of influential American figures who came to the United States after World War II. The problem is that some of these people try to squeeze America into the shape of the countries from which they came. Such was the case with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who forced America into a straitjacket modeled on Poland, which affected President Jimmy Carter and ruined his chances of reelection. I call out these immigrants who manipulate American politics like puppeteers from positions of power, who continue to utilize American tyranny to serve causes that are not as important in the United States as they are in the countries from which they originate. This is harming America.