Where is the US headed?

Trump came to power with the claim — and expectation — of restoring America’s greatness. He has only been in the White House for eight months, yet his short time there has already raised serious questions.

The first question is whether Trump can even finish a normal presidential term at this pace. If his erratic behavior and increasingly harsh actions against his opponents continue, confidence that he will serve out his mandate weakens. And it’s not just about “being tough.” Politics doesn’t always follow the logic of action and reaction. Not every crackdown leads to collapse. Many authoritarian and totalitarian regimes have managed to survive for decades under strong dictatorships.

Take Spain. Franco led the country until his death. During World War II, his Falangists shared the ideology of Nazi and Fascist regimes, but he wisely kept Spain out of the war. That decision spared him and his regime when fascism collapsed. He ruled undisturbed until the end.

Portugal under Salazar was no different. A close ally of Franco, he remained in power until illness forced his departure in 1968, yet even afterward he was treated with full honors until his death. Only years later did Portugal transition to democracy.

Chile’s Pinochet is another example. He toppled Allende in 1973 and unleashed a reign of terror, but he remained president until 1991 and commander of the army until 1998. Even when put on trial later, he largely escaped real punishment. Much like Turkey’s own generals after 1980, he left this world without paying a meaningful price.

And without outside intervention, Saddam or Gaddafi might well still be in power today.

Yes, some dictators have been overthrown by internal uprisings, like Romania’s Ceaușescu. But the point of these examples is that there’s no “law of history” that every dictator inevitably falls.

So why am I less certain about Trump’s future? Because we’re not talking about Chile or Spain. This is the United States — a global hegemon. Latin dictators leaned on religion or nationalism. America, by contrast, has built its legitimacy on a carefully constructed persona: the “American Dream,” wrapped in freedom, opportunity, prosperity, democracy, and the rule of law. After World War II, the US successfully marketed itself as a beacon for humanity while masking its darker history of violence, exploitation, and ruthless capitalism.

This mask worked so well that even America’s fiercest critics have carried its influence deep within them. (Otherwise, how could so many anti-imperialist leftists turn liberal overnight after the fall of the Berlin Wall?) The harsh realities of Middle America, the Bible Belt, and racial oppression were treated as footnotes, while the “true America” was sold as the liberal, modern East Coast.

The American middle class embraced this mask too, convincing itself that this was the country’s founding spirit. Countless dark operations abroad — from Latin America to the Middle East — were justified under this image. Even when over a million people died in Iraq, Washington insisted it was bringing democracy and civilization. What happened outside America’s borders didn’t seem to stain the image at home.

What Trump is doing is tearing off this mask. He is dismantling the persona that made America a global power in the first place. The irony is that he promises to “make America great again,” but without the mask, nothing is left to sustain that greatness.

History’s dialectic is at work: in trying to restore America’s supremacy, Trump may instead accelerate its decline. Future historians will likely record that America’s collapse inward began not despite but because of those who claimed to revive it.