May I ask why, if America is so racist and afraid of people from elsewhere, we accept more new immigrants each year than any other country in the world? In fact, if you Europeans don't start taking a lot more your populations are going to start declining in the middle of this century.
On my part, I never said America was racist.
I said it was MORE afraid now of migrants than it was a few decades ago.
Just look at the minutemen, the incapacity of the Congress to even pass a immigration bill. The wall. These are all signs of fear. US TV news programs often show immigrant rapist or burglar or drug dealer. Right-wing political pundits make a lot of milage (and rather good ratings) with these stories.
I don't think that America in the 1990s or 1980s were as much afraid of migrants as they are now.
You are going to have to wait a long time for the Decline of America.
Compared to the 1990s, there is already a slight decline in terms of relative world power. Think civ powergraph: China has been closing in on USA. Other nations too are growing faster than America.
USA has less influence and is less economically powerful than it was at the end of the 1990s.
The growing commercial deficit is a problem
The enormous budget deficit created by Bush is also a serious problem (Clinton managed to eliminate the deficit)
The American Dollar is not as strong as it used to be.
These are all signs of a decline. Will this decline endure or will it be just a bump along the road? That is another question to which we don't have the answer.
Do you think Marcus Aurelius knew that when he was fighting the germanic barbarians on Roman's border in the 160s and 170s (AD), it was the beginning of a trend that would ultimately participate in the Fall of the Roman Empire? Of course he did not!
He wouldn't have been able to conceive such a thing. For him and for most Romans, Rome was eternal. It had been the dominant power since the middle of the 3rd century before christ. That's more than 400 years of hegemonic power!!!!
+ It continued to dominate this part of the world for at least another 2 and a half century. That is very roughly 650 years of hegemonic power.
USA has been the dominant power for about 60 years (others say for 17 years, if they start counting after the end of the cold war), and it's already showing signs of troubles...
What will USA look in 250 years or in 600 years. Will it still exist? No one knows.