Has anything out of the ordinary happened to the US
as an imperialist power since the ascent of Trump to office? While the
continuities between Trump and his predecessors are considerable, have
there been any significant discontinuities that mark the first year of
this presidency? Is there any reason to think that the rise of Trump
could still become a historical turning point in the fortunes of the US
empire, one that accelerates its continuing decline?
Before proceeding any further I want to assure the
reader that none of what follows is meant to validate those who lament
Trump because they think he is not imperialist enough, not sufficiently
sanguine about maintaining a US-dominated “world order,” because for
them these are essentially positive values worth maintaining.
It is neither my intention to donate free labour to provide confirmation
bias for any activist cause, nor to caress any of the prevailing
political sentiments of the moment.
For reasons that differ from the imperial advocates
of the legendary “liberal international order,” one can still make the
case that Trump — added to an array of other actors and forces,
both national and international — is far from an ideal figure for
empire, and one can make that case without having to praise the virtues
of empire. Similarly, it would be irresponsible to reduce analysis to
one single actor, one single ideology, divorced from the web of social
and global relations that always move together, even (especially) when
at odds, in reshaping if not undermining empire.
For the complete report click here : A anthropologist explains what happened to the American Empire
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