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

by Ben Rhodes

The globalized spread of profit-seeking capitalism accelerated inequality, assaulted people’s sense of traditional identity, and seeded a corruption that allowed those with power to consolidate control.

To be American in 2020 was to live in a country diminished in the world, unwilling to control the spread of disease or face up to our racism, and looking over the precipice of abandoning the very democracy that was supposed to be the solid core of our national identity.