After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made

by Ben Rhodes

And while it’s easy to find major American films that are critical of the American government, try to find a blockbuster movie that takes on the Chinese Communist Party. Instead, American blockbusters are now laced at times with subplots of Chinese ingenuity helping to fend off alien invasions or to rescue Sandra Bullock from space. More subtly, they’re devoid of the admittedly simplistic Cold War storylines that I grew up with, when the good guys were fighting for democracy and the bad guys were totalitarian oppressors. It’s easier, instead, to have the bad guys be people who don’t control a chunk of the global market: Muslim terrorists, for instance, a representation that can justify both America’s War on Terror and China’s repression in Xinjiang. In this way, American companies, banks, entertainment conglomerates, sports leagues, and even the U.S. government are operating under the same social credit system that applies to Chinese citizens. The incentives and disincentives are clear. Using the leverage of money within the system of American-designed global capitalism, the Chinese Communist Party is increasingly shaping our choices, and incrementally exerting control over what we say and think.