Opinion | America is at a tipping point. Will it regain its stature or spiral further into decline?

There are many signs that America is in decline, exacerbated and self-inflicted by none other than its elected president. Trump’s greed sets a bad example for his countrymen. Ordinary Americans who pay their taxes are contributing to the unpresidential expenditure of the Trump family and buddies, some of whom pay almost no taxes.

Is it ethical for Trump to host foreign dignitaries (including President Xi Jinping) at his private resort? Trump’s confusing and incompetent leadership has resulted in a dramatic loss of respect from traditional US allies. His penchant to withdraw from international institutions (the World Health Organisation, for example) leaves America isolated. People are fed up and angry.

The pandemic has revealed American’s institutional inadequacies, in health care in particular. The US is the only industrialised country that has no universal health care. Its system is an exemplar of wastage and maddening complexity that frustrates people seeking medical services.

As George Parker’s article in The Atlantic says: “We Are Living in a Failed State. The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.” A failed state? Failing is probably more accurate. Still, the contrast with success stories in East Asia is striking, particularly South Korea and Taiwan.

The pandemic has accelerated the decline of America’s leadership on the world stage, giving China more opportunities to assert itself. Two major forces are at work in this decline. One is the misguided belief in the supremacy of personal liberty over collective good.