The Decline of America

Alan Dowd wrote an article in 2007 titled "'Three Centuries of American Declinism", which explored the idea of american declinism that has once again come to the forefront, with issues such as the growth of china and the other BRIC countries, and involvement in wars in the middle east stimulating speculation. Dowd however has taken the view that a lot of others seem to have online, that America is not in fact decline at all. Dowds argument is based around the idea that people have been predicting the decline of america for centuries and that it has yet to happen. He states that often it is actually during periods of american prosperity that declinists often begin hypothesising. The bulk of the article provides examples of when people falsely believed the US to be in decline. However towards the end he does state that "US primacy is neither inevitable nor a birthright", but again in conclusion dowd states that he feels that the USA is stilll far from the declining superpower that people make it out to be.

Whilst many people do seem to be talking about America declining, especially from a political standpoint, there seem to be just as many who feel that it is yet to have faced any serious opposition and that american exceptionalism is still prevalent.