From founding order to utopian drift: How America lost its centre

The US-led international order is unravelling. While much of the disruption is often attributed to the perceived arrogance and missteps of US President Donald Trump and his team, deeper structural forces are also at work. If these underlying dynamics persist beyond the 2028 US elections, today’s volatility may become the new normal — a scenario worth close attention.

Executive power above all

Unquestionably, the US has been a key architect of the global geopolitical order since 1945. The establishment of the “petrodollar system” in 1974 cemented the hegemonic status of the US dollar within the international economic and trade system, such that the US became the undisputed centre of global politics and economics. 

For more than half a century thereafter, the world’s top talent converged in the US, collectively nurturing a dauntlessly enterprising and highly liberalised commercial civilisation. 

Unfortunately, American society as we knew it, once brimming with hope and innovation, has devolved into its current state. Its social consensus has been shredded. In its place are identity politics framed through Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), the grassroots fervour of the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, and the political fragmentation left in the wake of Trumpism.

How did all this come about? There were three cornerstones supporting America as the beacon of modern civilisation. In my opinion, it is the gradual crumbling of these cornerstones since the September 11 attacks that has led to the current havoc. 

First, the erosion of the separation of powers (as a system) by executive power. Following September 11, US President George W. Bush pushed Congress to pass the Authorisation for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution, by which the constitutional power to declare war was consequently transferred from Congress to the White House. The president was thereby granted virtually unlimited military discretion, so he could decide the timing and scale of military action “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” (this piece of legislation was formally repealed at the end of 2025). 

Such concentration of power on the executive branch found theoretical support from legal elites represented by John Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the US Department of Justice. The “Unitary Executive Theory” as advocated by Yoo provided a legal basis for the expansion of executive power. It paved the way for subsequent administrations, such as Barack Obama’s, to launch drone strikes overseas and issue excessive executive orders domestically. 

Yoo’s most controversial legacy — the Torture Memos — provided a veneer of legality for the CIA’s methods of extreme interrogation overseas through a narrow legal interpretation of the definition of “torture”. This pattern of circumventing legal restrictions through legal interpretation is also evident in how the current Trump administration operates.

Notably, the Bill Clinton administration still sought to bargain with Congress and secure compromises across party lines. From the Bush Jr. era onwards, however, the White House found shortcuts within the system that allowed it to ignore bipartisan disputes in Congress and do as it pleased. The separation of powers was thus greatly weakened. 

In the years to come, both Obama (with his “pen” and “phone”) and Trump (“My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”) would habitually employ similar tactics.

Money equals freedom of speech

Second, the distortion of the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression by the politics of money. This goes back to two landmark rulings by the US Supreme Court. In the 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court established the legal principle that “money is speech”, and held that restrictions on campaign spending amounted to a suppression of free expression.

The 2010 ruling for Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was an even more far-reaching turning point. Elevating the right of legal entities to free speech to unprecedented heights, the ruling essentially says that corporations and labour unions may invest unlimited funds for political expenditure. This directly catalysed the expansion of “super PACs (political action committees)”, political grotesqueries created specifically to amass funds for election campaigns. With donations no longer subject to limits, vast amounts of anonymous money (“dark money”) flood into the electoral process, effectively reducing “freedom of speech” to a contest of wealth and completely reshaping the power structure of US general elections.

No wonder then associate justice of the Supreme Court John Paul Stevens issued an ardent and profound warning in his 90-page dissent on the case in question. He candidly pointed out that the ruling severely underestimated the destructive impact of large corporations on democratic processes. After all, by virtue of their overwhelming financial advantage, large corporations are able to establish a monopoly in media dissemination, completely squeezing out the space for ordinary individuals to express themselves. This would lead to the demise of genuine democratic debate.

Third, the collapse of the traditional liberal values that form the bedrock of the nation. Caught between the twin forces of extreme individualism and the ideologisation of institutions, contemporary social movements such as DEI and MAGA have slipped into an abyss of anti-common sense.

They are fundamentally different from the civil rights movement of the 1960s in that they no longer appeal to the universal values of modern society, but instead emphasise a tribalistic, “us-versus-them” division. According to American writer David Brooks, contemporary political movements are, at their core, driven by a search for a lost sense of communal culture. In this view, they reflect a broader backlash against the social atomisation produced by decades of intensified individualism.

In any case, in seeking belonging within a group, people should not be required to reject historical experience or religious traditions. While it is the responsibility of a modern, civilised society to speak up for minority groups and safeguard their legitimate rights, the definition of “rights” should remain grounded in historical and religious traditions. Whether Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or Confucian, these traditions converge on a common point within the framework of modern civilisation: respect for the right to life, personal liberty and private property.

There can be no claim that comes at the expense of the legitimate interests of others. The attainment of social consensus must involve a careful balance between respecting the rights of the majority and protecting the rights of minorities.

Delusions of a utopian society

We must acknowledge the limitations of reason, abandon our delusions of a utopian society, and instead locate the bounds of compromise. As the 18th-century British political theorist Edmund Burke sees it, society is not the estate of the people who exist currently, but a grand cooperative contract spanning the past, present and future. Any radical social change initiated for the interests of any particular group here and now, with no regard for consequences, is a betrayal of this cross-generational contract. 

From the gunpowder-smoked French Revolution of 1789 that Burke wrote about, to the Chinese mainland of the 1960s consumed by the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution, history has repeatedly demonstrated a sobering lesson at great cost: radical attempts to build paradise on earth, even when they seek to uproot the foundations of civilisation in its pursuit, often risk descending into the chasm of absurdity.

Lessons from the reshaping of America

The US is currently mired in the turbulence of a broader remaking of its civilisation. As the forces of technological optimism and multicultural tension continue to intensify, the question remains: in which direction will this great reshaping unfold?

The answer to this momentous question of our age remains very much up in the air. For Brooks, the remaking underway is, at its core, a shift in the paradigm of thinking, with “cultural change preceding political and social change”. Culture, in this view, encompasses the full range of the subjective world — “perceptions, values, emotions, opinions, loves, enchantments, goals and desires” — forming the invisible crucible that “shapes the spirit of the age, the moral and intellectual moment, which constitutes the shared water in which we swim”.

The ongoing upheaval also reveals the many temptations and missteps that can arise in periods of social transition, ranging from the unchecked exercise of administrative power to the distortion of democracy through money, and to the erosion or rejection of tradition by radical currents of various kinds.

It thus suggests that a more stable path may lie not in the pursuit of utopian visions, but in the preservation of certain essentials within the rational framework of modern civilisation — including historical experience, common sense, and broadly shared human values. 

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “美国文明重构震荡的启示”.

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