For Americans heading to Davos, recent visits to the World Economic Forum have
represented a stark reminder of how much our national stock has dropped in
global esteem.
Three years ago participants from other lands sent an unmistakable message:
“We are furious at you for your invasion of Iraq.” Two years ago, they said:
“Now we are not only angry about Iraq but also about the fact that you
actually re-elected George W. Bush.”
And last year: “We are tired of waiting; we’re giving up and moving on without
you.”
One hesitates to think what the message will be this coming week in Davos. A
veteran correspondent for a European newspaper perhaps offered a preview in
a recent phone conversation. “I have travelled all over the States and
Europe and believe that America is the worst-governed nation of any advanced
country,” he told me. “I also believe that under Bush, America has reached
the zenith of its power. It’s downhill from here.”
By now, a good many Americans who participate at Davos nod their heads in
weary resignation at some of these criticisms.
The vast majority of my countrymen are disillusioned and angry about the
prosecution of the war in Iraq and we worry that the Bush Administration may
stumble into a conflict with Iran.
Concerns also grow that for too many years we have failed to address looming
threats such as climate change, an excessive reliance upon oil, a
deteriorating healthcare system, the retirement of baby- boomers and a weak
public school system. We know all these things and are frustrated at the
lack of collective progress.
Yet it would be a serious mistake for the rest of the world — or, indeed, for
Americans — to begin writing off the United States as world leader and as a
benevolent force for good.
We have lost our way more than once in the past and have found it again.
Americans are no wiser or nobler than anyone else; we have demonstrated
repeatedly how easy it is for us to make wrong choices.
But somewhere in our national DNA, we have been blessed with a capacity
gradually to wake up to our mistakes, put them out on the table for everyone
to see and then correct them.
Some nations grow calcified, stuck in the routines of the past; America has
always been young at heart, with its face toward the future. Each time we
have gone off into trouble, someone also seems to arise from our citizenry
with fresh, visionary leadership that helps us out.
Think of the founders in Philadelphia; think of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin
Roosevelt. Otto von Bismarck once said: “God looks after fools, drunkards
and the United States of America.” There may be something to that.
The last time the US went through a rough patch something like this was back
in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as we were engulfed in the flames of
Vietnam, protesters crowded on to our streets and, for the first time in
history, scandal forced a president to resign.
A series of chief executives, stretching from Lyndon Johnson through Richard
Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, were unable to keep public confidence.
Around the world voices sprang up that the US appeared to be in decline; at
home, respected figures demanded an overhaul of the Constitution, creating a
European-like parliamentary system.
Then along came the most improbable of presidents, an actor from Hollywood,
and within days of his inauguration, the commentators said — as they had of
FDR in 1933 — “We have a leader in the White House again.”
Four years later Ronald Reagan successfully campaigned on the idea of “morning
in America”. It was the declinists who were routed.
There is no certainty that the United States will snap out again now. Fareed
Zakaria, a rising star within the US “commentariat”, argues that America is
in danger of following the path of the crumbling British Empire.
Early in the 20th century, the British were preoccupied with winning the Boer
War and keeping their colonies and did not pay enough attention to the rise
of America and Germany.
Today, our President acts as if he is the mayor of Baghdad and we are not
paying sufficient attention to the rise of China and India.
Still, the United States retains enormous staying power. The US percentage of
the world’s GDP is little-changed today from what it was a century ago —
roughly 20 per cent — even though the US population has now shrunk to less
than 5 per cent of the world’s total. The US is the only nation that can
project naval and air power into the Persian Gulf even as its army is pinned
down in two conflicts. Of the top ten research universities in the world,
still at least seven are American and arguably even more. They remain a
dynamic source of breakthroughs in science and technology. More to the
point, encouraging signs are emerging that at long last Americans are
growing serious about reforms at home and changes in direction overseas.
Big US corporations are now enlisting in the struggle against climate change.
So are evangelical preachers. Nearly 10 per cent of the graduating seniors
from universities such as Harvard and Yale are volunteering for Teach for
America — ready and willing to spend two years teaching in the roughest
public schools. State governments from Massachusetts to California are
pushing for universal healthcare.
This month, the first woman took her place as Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the second black person was elected governor. Within the
Democratic Party, the three hottest candidates for president in 2008 are a
woman, a black and an anti-war populist.
That sound you hear is the ice cracking under the ancient regime and the
emergence of a new political order.
This coming week in Davos, participants from other lands will justifiably call
Americans to account for mistakes and failures of recent years. (Just as
Americans will gently remind them of some of their own.)
But no one should be fooled that America’s best days are necessarily behind it
— or that it cannot, once again, be a force for enormous good in the world.
- David Gergen is Professor of Public Service at the John F. Kennedy School
of Government, Harvard, and director of its Centre for Public
Leadership. He has served as a senior adviser to four US Presidents —
Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton — most recently as White House Counseler
to President Clinton.
