The very public on-going meltdown in Washington DC around President Trump is symptomatic of something more serious for the future of the Republic. The modern US has often been called an “Empire” like the Roman Empire, which rose and then declined and fell. This comparison is far from perfect, but at least in form Washington now reminds of late Rome. As Edward Gibbon wrote in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire: “In the dissolute days of the empire, every sense of honor and virtue had been lost in the general profligacy of manners.”
External Symptoms
For years, perhaps since 2001 if a date must be assigned, and beginning with the deceptive and criminal so-called “War on Terror”, the United States’ ruling minority has shown such duplicity, corruption and hubris in terms of foreign policy and towards the American people, that it was only a matter of time until it would break out in the capital as well, with “Russiagate” now resuscitate in the midst of the raging “Epstein affair”.
This hints at a deeply corrupt political system, not least since the messianic hegemonic US drive for world domination has never really benefited its citizens. This mafia racket that is the US foreign policy has deep roots, culminating from 2003 onwards with the invasion of Iraq, the destruction of Libya and Syria, and now the exploitation of Ukraine as a proxy against Russia. However illegal and brutal these foreign interventions were, had they at least benefited American society, then it could have been possible to argue, however perversely, that the US government was however outrageously also contributing to fulfilling its social contract towards “We, The People”.
But this is not the case, despite claims of enormous job creation by the MIC (in a freer society those people would have been employed in civil society). The US majority has been left on the wayside for a long time, hence the rise of the MAGA that pinned its hopes on Trump.
In a sense, the political decay has already been domestic for a long time; investing in foreign wars has long been preferred by the US government to investing in the US society. Of course, no money printing, no Federal income tax and no public debt would be preferred, but if $8 trillion must be spent, then they may at least be spent on making “America Great Again”, but for real.
Internal Symptoms
When the decadence of an empire really becomes serious, the internal symptoms start playing the bigger role. As Gibbon wrote, again from his masterpiece: “In the end, more was lost through internal decay than through external attack.”
The US annually makes assessments that point out foreign enemies, opponents and rivals because this justifies directing public debt into the Military Industrial Complex. But this is just pretense, though some in Washington have probably ended up believing it. Not only are there no serious malicious designs upon the US from abroad, but the US is also, uniquely among great powers, protected by two oceans. The few threats that have materialized in the past, like the burning of the White House by the British in 1814 or the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese in 1941, were reactions to Washington’s aggressiveness and bullying abroad.
The internal decay of the US federal political power center arguably started with the aftermath of the global financial crisis, which saw Republicans and Democrats work hand-in-hand to bail out corrupt financial institutions that were responsible for the crisis in the first place. The collateral damage was the failure of 465 banks and the loss of almost 9 millions jobs in the USA.
It is important to remember that the Occupy Wall Street movement was a key public opinion reaction to this crisis of decadence and corruption in which public and private interests are financially intertwined in a fascistic manner. Even though it was quelled, it was perhaps the first manifestation of smart popular resistance to the US financial and political oligarchy.
The election of Trump in 2016, then Biden in 2020 and then of Trump again in 2024, were all signs of continued political decadence. There is no possibility that in a healthy republic such indecent and incompetent old men could have become serious contender for high office. Now, the MAGA movement represents the opposition to this sick and corrupt ruling elite in Washington DC.
A similar political decadence can be seen across the Western world, but it is most acute in Washington and has been going on longer in the USA than in Europe. The particular undemocratic form of duopoly based on Electoral College votes feels outdated compared to the universal suffrage and parliamentary democracies of the Europeans. It is also in the US system where money plays an outsize role, in particular since the Citizens United ruling in 2010 when the “Supreme Court designated corporate spending on elections as free speech”.
Now, the political decadence that has been exposed for all to see, must convince even those who for years failed to see the moral grangrene eating away at Uncle Sam. Not one, but two scandals have erupted against each other; the Russiagate skeleton has been purposefully pulled from the closet in order to try to deflect attention and blame away from the President in relation to his past involvement with Epstein. In the former case, Trump was a clearly a victim of the DNC and the Intelligence Community’s machinations to discredit him and derail his presidency. In the latter case, it is Trump who is guilty of something; of lying to the public certainly; of having sex with underaged girls probably; but, most troubling, of perhaps having been blackmailed by a foreign state as recently as in June 2025?
In a way, it does not matter so much whether someone will finally have to step down or be charged. The sick circus that is unfolding in front of the public of the world will reinforce the impression and the understanding that the Washington is rotten at the core. As the Lincoln Project said, “it stinks of corruption, it stinks of extorsion, it stinks of blackmail, it stinks of pedophaelia”. Yet, what the public is seeing is still just the tip of an iceberg of government institutions that have become untethered to their supposed “obligations” towards society and towards the Constitution.
God knows there have been scandals involving the White House and the US government in the past. But the allegations in this Epstein case, and the potential ramifications including for US foreign policy, as well as the obvious attempts by a large part of the Deep State to cover it up in real time, makes it so significant and so serious, as to feel unprecedented.
The process of decline that began in the early 2000s is now clearly accelerating and could lead to events and decisions in Washington that will erode even further what remains of the fraught relationship between the People and the Federal Government. If this crisis deepens and is not controlled, something which would obviously be a welcome development, it would then be necessary to carefully watch the spectacle unfold and try to anticipate the consequences both domestically and internationally.
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