The American decline, and the void that is forming

Woke up today to the news of Charlie Kirk's assassination. I see it as an inflection point of significance. On its own it is shocking and deeply saddening (for reasons elaborated below), but it comes at the heel of a string of noteworthy events/phenomena.

First let me lay out these events/phenomena and then I will share my thoughts:

• Let's start with the fentanyl epidemic - I spent the summer traveling the United States and visited a handful of major US cities - NYC, Las Vegas, San Francisco and, Washington D.C. And I witnessed widespread open drug use. The visible homelessness and public drug use I witnessed - people standing hunched and drooling, shouting at no one, dancing half-naked on streets combined with the overall apathy to it is very close to the reality on much of the streets of urban India - widespread homelessness and poverty combined with public apathy, but thankfully without all the rampant open drug abuse. I witnessed many shop owners operate behind locked doors (or at least have safeguards to prevent incursion by the homeless) and the people on the sidewalks walk around the squatters who just splay out their bags of dirty clothes and other items right on the sidewalk. There's reportedly also a lot of counterfeit illegal drugs mixed with poisons that are in circulation. Clearly, there must be dead homeless people on these streets from time to time, although I neither witnessed that directly nor had other people speak of such events. I did see cops struggling to help a man who was passed out on the streets right in the middle of a busy street in Las Vegas.
• Then there is the issue of unprovoked violence on unsuspecting victims. This week alone saw some rather unusually shocking stories of a Ukrainian woman getting stabbed by a man on a train for no reason whatsoever, an Indian man getting beheaded by a coworker (who was an illegal immigrant let go by the court for prior crimes) for apparently no reason. Mass shootings have been disturbingly commonplace for a while now. School shootings continue unabated, leaving dozens dead and injured annually. The whole appeal of the US being a paragon of personal freedom is under threat because no one can safely assume the guarantee of their safety and more importantly the safety of their children.
• Then there is a more recent development of the interference into the sovereignty of academic institutions. The federal government has threatened to withhold billions in funding from universities over perspectives held by the academics in the institutions. Columbia University had hundreds of millions withheld, Harvard faced threats to billions in grants, and nearly a hundred institutions are under investigation, potentially affecting tens of billions in federal funding.
• Then there are the persistent questions about the US president's past association with Jeffrey Epstein. Trump and Epstein socialized frequently in the 1990s and early 2000s, with Trump flying on Epstein's jet multiple times. While there is (yet) no publicly documented evidence tying Trump to Epstein's crimes, and the DOJ found no "client list" or evidence of blackmail, public opinion remains skeptical. A majority of Americans believe Trump knew about Epstein's crimes before investigations began. And a lot of people suspect that he was one of Epstein's clients.
• Then comes Charlie Kirk's assassination. The 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University. He's a controversial figure, no doubt. But his presence was a demonstration of the one thing that separated America from a majority of the rest of the world - freedom of speech. He was able to move freely, speak his mind, thrive and of course a lot of people found him offensive. But he was not a deranged man whose sole intent was to offend people. You can disagree with his viewpoints, but he presented himself as an American patriot who was a thoughtful representative of a certain set of values that many believed to be important for America. His assassination is an inflection point because it changes the landscape for Americans who wish to speak their mind openly. What was sad to witness was the response to this on public social media - some people (presumably those who were offended by his views and considered his speech as hate speech) posting satirical content celebrating his death with great joy.

For me these are sufficient symptoms for a diagnosis of a spiritual, intellectual and moral decline of an empire. The intellectual decline is most concerning for me considering that was the predominant reason why the US was most appealing for some of the most foremost intellectuals of the world, and they were instrumental in building America to be what it is.

For all of our sake, I certainly hope that this not the beginning of a consistent decline and just a temporary dip that the US is going to recover from. The world has voluntarily or involuntarily invested a lot in the US and it's had its dividends for all of us. America is the birthplace of much of the technological innovations that have driven global progress the past several decades.

As unpleasant as it has been for any of us invested in human progress to witness this decline, it is only natural. History is full of the rise and fall of potent forces that shape the course of the future for humanity. At various points of human history various civilizations have taken the torch and led growth and progress forward, generating something or the other of value that propels our species to new places. But none in that long lineage of forces that have significantly shaped our history have had the kind of widespanning and rapid impact as America has over the past several decades. Under the age of the American empire, we've had the birth of some fundamentally unique technology that has changed the game for us as a species. America was instrumental in much of the technologies that we use today that offer great hope to advance our species. Today the US still maintains a top position in global innovation rankings, leads in creating unicorn companies, and continues to dominate in fundamental research. In my mind, it still presents the best hope for all of us who wish to witness the human species surge ahead to new heights. But with the trends of its decline, it is important that the world proactively explores resilience and redundancy for the cause of progressing the interests of our species.