The Primacy of Domestic Politics

Greetings from Hong Kong International Airport, where I attended a worship on infrastructure — broadly understood — and international politics. tl;dr: American academics and policymakers need to be explicitly focused on post-hegemonic foreign policy. No more stupid euphemisms like “great-power competition.” No more fantasies about reconstituting a great-power concert.

But, of course, none of that can happen until we achieve the Third Reconstruction. Everything else depends on whether the United States consolidates as a fascist, oligarchic, rentier state. And despite Trump’s collapsing poll numbers and apparently deteriorating health, the wrong people still control the U.S. government and, along with it, the security services. To wit:

Once again, inevitable question: if this is what they’re doing to Senator Kim in front of cameras, what are they doing to the detained people inside that facility bsky.app/profile/davi…

[image or embed]— Anjali Dayal (@anjalikdayal.bsky.social) 7:16 AM · May 26, 2026

The United States enjoyed myriad advantages over other great powers, including a world-historic alliance system; the demographic and economic benefits of immigration; global leadership in higher education; decades of investment in promoting American values and prestige; and its accumulated expertise in global health, development, and regulatory policy. Most of these were already eroding before the Trump administration took a chainsaw to them. I suspect much of the damage is irreparable. But winning the fight against fascist oligarchy is our best shot at some kind of recovery.