American decline is real, though the apocalyptic vision reflects the familiar ruling class perception that anything short of total control amounts to total disaster.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
America has always had an apocalyptic strain. Yet it also seems to believe that if, or when, The End comes, it will still come out on top.
What people recognize is that there's a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward.
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
We will either bring on another American century, or we are doomed to witness America's decline.
Every generation has a macabre notion that wars, government prohibition, natural disasters or mankind itself could be the downfall of society and the world as a whole.
Russians clearly perceive America's global influence as being in irreversible decline and American society shattered by major political, economic and ideological crises.
It could fairly be said that America, during the Bush years, has entered an Age of Denial - arguably the first stage of a nation's decline.
The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years.
These days I wonder more and more why people are pessimistic when American history actually supports optimism.
America is not in decline.