Does the election of Donald Trump marks the beginning of America’s downfall?
In the course of history, there have never
been a great civilization that reached its pinnacle and stayed so forever. And
while America is considered as one of the greatest and most powerful nations in
history, one can only wonder whether it has an expiration date, especially with
the recent election results.
That question kept repeating
itself in my head since a long time ago, so I decided to conduct a research in
which I would compare America’s situation right now with those of some of the
greatest empires right before their downfall. The civilizations that I will use
in this research are the Roman empire and the Ottoman empire.
There was a time
where the roman empire was the symbol of power, with a land that reached an incredible five million-plus square kilometers,
but this is article is not about how powerful it was rather than how did this
power come to an end. And while the reasons of its fall are numerous, I will
focus only on the internal factors as they serve the purpose of this article
the most.
There are some who argue that the fall was cause by the
roman citizens themselves, and that was due, in part, to the loss of moral
values of the city. That moral decay is explained by the spread of
Christianity, which according to some scholars, valued unproductive and idle
people. And while the traditional Roman system valued the glory of the state, Christianity
shifted that focus onto a sole deity, by giving the emperor a divine status.
The rise of Christianity in Rome also cause the pope and other church leaders to
take part in political roles, complicating a government that was already
suffering from corruption and political instability, which is another important
factor to the fall of the roman empire. In the third century of the roman
empire, more than 20 emperors took the throne in only 75 years, which meant
that their leadership was very ineffective and inconsistent. These two factors
are thought to send Rome into a civil war which thrust Rome into chaos, enabling
barbarian tribes to take advantage of its vast but weak lands.
Another great civilization that ultimately met
its end is the Ottoman empire, which reached its peak during the ruling years
of Suleiman The Magnificent. Suleiman presided
over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power,
and conquered himself the
Christian strongholds of Belgrade and Rhodes as
well as most of Hungary, enabling the Ottoman empire to
reach its furthest borders in its history. But as powerful and successful as he
was, same cannot be said about his son, Selim II, who didn’t share his father’s
political and military interests. Selim the drunkard, as he was commonly
called, is considered to be the reason of the beginning of the downfall of the
ottoman empire, and was the first the first
sultan to hand over power to his ministers. He basically gave them total
control of the ottoman empire while he focused on his wine, which he was very
fond of, along with his orgy. This neglection along with the cultural and
religious diversity, which antagonized most of European powers and some parts
in its land itself to the Ottoman occupation, only meant the decline of what
was considered once the most powerful empire at its time.
Surely
time has changed, and the same reasons of the downfall of ancient civilizations
cannot be the cause of the fall of a modern civilization. Although I cannot
help but notice some similarities. Although the American society used to suffer
from racism and sexism (which was the case in almost the whole world), American
citizen did have values such as pride, loyalty and integrity, and a man’s word
was something to count on. Those values were also considered when choosing a
president, which resulted in the election of some great men such as Abraham Lincoln,
George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Thomas Jefferson.
But same cannot be said about today’s American citizens, which was shown
in the latest electoral race, where those values that once helped great men
into the white house didn’t matter as much, instead, the race was more of a
popularity contest, and the electoral campaign were more about undermining the opponent
rather than caring about the American citizen, which resulted in the election
of a man whose leadership and political skills are very questionable.
With the very vast cultural diversities, uncontrollable gun possession,
very high crime rate, and with a president that could be America’s own Selim
II, the greatest nation might be living its final years of greatness, and Trump
might accomplish the total opposite of his slogan, so all we can do is hope for
the best, for the sake of the American citizen as well as the whole world
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