By Raul Romero on February 6, 2025
Since the beginning of the process of colonization and conquest of the territories that are commonly called the United States (US), the idea of it being the land of abundance and opportunity has been promoted. Millions of people migrated to these lands with the dream of getting rich quickly. The rise and consolidation of the US as a world hegemonic power occurred some time later, just a century ago. The two world wars and the economic crisis of 1929 were the part of the context and reasons for its rise.
With its military and economic power, with its cultural industry, and by making its currency the currency of the world, it managed to prevail against the fascist option. During almost the entire 20th century, it also competed for world hegemony against the socialist alternative until it decreed, at least for a time, a unipolar world.
In its process of constituting itself first as a nation and then as a hegemon, the US claimed to uphold the most accepted ideals and values of modernity: democracy, progress, civilization, human rights, freedom of expression. In the battle for space and in sports, the US was also at the forefront. The “land of freedom” built a “consensus” to protect the world, even by creating its own institutions to do so: its economic power, its technological and military capacity, as well as its cultural industry were the pillars of this protection.
In reality, internally and internationally, its power was built with the extermination of local populations, with slavery, with the repression of internal political dissidence, the colonization and invasion of territories beyond its borders, with the financing, support, or execution of coups d’état, with the fabrication of conflicts, and innumerable other crimes and barbarities.
In the name of freedom, democracy, and human rights, the US started conflicts and coups d’état that were, in reality, imperial and colonial wars. US expansionism by dropping napalm bombs on Vietnam, or devastating Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism, are images that the world must not forget; nor should it forget that this empire is not invincible, as evidenced by the victory of the Cuban people at Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) under the banner of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism.
The arrival of Trump and his allies to power in the US, and everything they represent, marks the end of an era: the end of its hegemony. They distance themselves from the discourse and values that sustained them and show themselves in their true colours: the neo-fascist way, of managing capitalism. The “land of abundance and opportunities” to which millions of migrants arrived shows itself to be the denied land, with walls and military preventing free passage. The country that presumed itself to be the bastion of human rights shows itself to be the country of raids, publicised and transmitted in real time, the country of the hunt for the other, the different.
The so-called land of freedom shows itself to be the country of chains and shackles. The country that, just a few decades ago, boasted of being the paragon of non-discrimination and where neoliberal multiculturalism brought an African descendant to the presidency, exalts in clear fashion its racism and xenophobia. The heart of the cultural industry that seduced millions around the world shows off its most conservative and anti-scientific side, which denies climate change, vaccines, and gender diversity. Knowing that the world is now multipolar, it pressures its former allies to confront its competitors. It reinforces its actions on “its zone of influence,” Latin America, to discipline it and distance it from China and Russia. Too late: the Asian giant has entered every corner.
In its crisis of hegemony, the empire shows its true face. The ruling classes could not react in any other way: spreading fear, trying to sustain themselves by generating terror. The plutocracy aligns itself and encourages other countries to take the same path, like Elon Musk supporting the extreme-right in Germany. It remains to be seen how much of what the new government says is a bluff and how much is truth, but we must not fail to see that even this bluff changes the status quo, which Trump himself promised to dispute in his speech upon assuming power.
The crisis of US hegemony leads them to show their true face: what they always were and have always wanted to hide. This crisis is a prelude to dark scenarios that we are about to witness. The rise of the new extreme-right throughout the world also opens up the possibility of an intensification of inter-imperialist wars. In this scenario, anti-capitalist forces are called to open horizons of possibility. México and Latin America will play a central role in the resistance and in the creation of alternatives. It is the time to believe, and to create the future today.
Raúl Romero is a Professor of Sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Source: La Jornada, translation Orinoco Tribune