American Decline Is a State of Mind
Victor Davis Hanson
July 8, 2010 12:00 A.M.

We are hearing all sorts of reasons why the United States is doomed to decline.

After all, America is piling up deficits at a record rate of about $1.5 trillion a year while other countries are slashing their spending. The national debt cascades over $13 trillion and is on track to reach $20 trillion within a decade.

The current recession is heading into its third year. Unemployment still hovers at nearly 10 percent.

Much of the country thinks the war in Afghanistan is as good as lost. There are more than 80,000 American troops deployed there, along with nearly 50,000 allied soldiers — facing fewer than 10,000 Taliban insurgents.

The largest oil spill in American history has been gushing up from the Gulf for nearly 80 days, with vague promises that it could be plugged in another month or so.

Between 11 million and 20 million illegal aliens currently reside in the United States. And we cannot seem to stop another half million from crossing illegally into America each year.

Politically, the fickle electorate was furious at Wall Street for the 2008 meltdown. But it is now angrier at a government that threatens to take over more private enterprise. In 2006, voters renounced congressional Republicans; in November 2010, even angrier voters will probably be more unforgiving of the once-dominant Democrats.

George W. Bush left office with dismal poll numbers. Yet Barack Obama, who campaigned on the theme that he would serve as a reset button for the prior administration, and who enjoyed an approval rate of nearly 70 percent at inauguration, has seen his own ratings dive below 50 percent in just 18 months.

No wonder this dismal news — coupled with constant predictions of a rising, all-powerful China and the emergence of new, upcoming regional powers like Turkey, Brazil, and India — prompts nonstop gloom about inevitable American decay.

Even Obama, at times, seems to envision a multipolar world in which the United States no longer is “exceptionalâ€