Abstract
America’s leading position among nations has been accepted as fact for a century, especially since the demise of the Soviet Union. A global majority did not vote for disproportionate American power, but that majority might well have been less comfortable. Rich and powerful nations are rarely loved, but America was for decades admired or warily accommodated by most nations. This widespread comfort ceased abruptly during the presidency of George W. Bush. The global empathy following September 11, 2001 quickly turned to widespread distrust.1 There were many reasons for this abrupt shift, but one was central.
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Notes
See, for example, Greg Grandin and Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
See, for example, Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
Racism plays out in local politics as well. For example, a Republican leader in Atlanta recently (in 2013) made clear that he did not want to see public transit moving Atlanta city residents to a possible new suburban baseball stadium of the Atlanta Braves. See Ed Kilgore, “Take MARTA to Cobb and Rob,” www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal (November 12, 2013). Urban governance failure in Detroit also has roots in racism.
See George Galster, Driving Detroit: The Quest for Respect in Motor City (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).
Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols, and Ben Scott, “Congress Tunes In” (May 5, 2005 at www.thenation.com). Needless to say, this assessment is provided by a media source in a magazine that has been published for a century. The point is not that information and progressive framing are kept from Americans, only that one must work hard to find it where neoconservative frames and trivia are literally in everyone’s face.
See Gary May, Bending Towards Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy (New York: Basic Books, 2013). For a conservative voice in support of voting rights, see Norm Ornstein, “The Right to Vote,” www.nationaljournal.com/washington-inside-out/the-right-to-vote-20131030.
A good summary of what has been done is offered in Ian Reifowitz, “Obama Has Done Nothing to Address Income Inequality. Right?” www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/03/1251386/-Obama-has-done-nothing-to-address-income-inequality-Right? Accessed November 3, 2013.
Roger Cohen, “A Court for a New America,” www.nytimes.com (December 4, 2008).
See Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality (New York: Norton, 2012).
Paul Krugman, “Graduates versus Oligarchs,” www.nytimes.com (February 27, 2007).
See Emmanuel Saez, “Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States,” www.elsa.berkeley.edu (September 3, 2013).
The electoral implications of the demographic shift are intelligently discussed by Ronald Brownstein in “Bad Bet: Why Republicans Can’t Win with Whites Alone,” www.nationaljournal.com (September 5, 2013).
See, for example, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Public Sees U.S. Power Declining as Support for Global Engagement Slips,” www.people-press.org (December 3, 2013).
The importance of these speeches in this context came home to me reading a column by Leonard Pitts, Jr., “The Speech that Defined and Challenged Us,” www.miamiherald.com (November 16, 2013).
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© 2014 Robert C. Paehlke
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Paehlke, R.C. (2014). From New American Century to Global Age America?. In: Hegemony and Global Citizenship. Philosophy, Public Policy, and Transnational Law. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476029_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476029_4
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