The rapid meltdown of former British Prime Minster Liz Truss, who resigned after only 44 days in office and is being succeeded by former Boris Johnson Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, should alarm Americans. She is the supply-side ghost of Christmas future, a long-distance warning from an ex-empire to an aging superpower. If the American mainstream — conservative and liberal — does not pull out of its nostalgic tailspin soon, we will fall prey to the same affliction that has bedeviled the United Kingdom: wealth concentrated at the top and political aspirations concentrated on the past.
Considering the messy exit of Boris Johnson, the fall of Truss and even the royal funeral, it has been easy for Americans to get the wrong idea about the U.K. “Look at Britain,” say the complacent among us. “A Lion in Winter, all failed policies and nostalgic rituals.”
But “aging superpower syndrome” has already begun to fossilize American political culture. We, too, have been clinging to national symbols and economic policies that are shopworn relics of the 1980s. Even though the U.S. is still a top cultural, military and economic power, its position of global dominance has been ebbing for 50 years. Slow economic decline and regressive policymaking have flattened household incomes, driving too many into the arms of “Make America Great Again.”
