American newspaper The Washington Post published a comment article by David Feith, a senior researcher at the Hudson Institute, attempting to awaken American society's confidence in facing the competition with China.

He pointed out that a series of policy mistakes made by the United States over the past few decades not only allowed China to rise, but also caused deep doubts and weariness among the American people.

The article warned that if the United States cannot regain its belief in its own system and strategy, it will be difficult to win the long-term competition with China.

The article emphasized that the United States should not幻想 changing China's system, but rather focus resources on safeguarding its own strengths, while promoting domestic reforms, restoring industrial capacity, and rebuilding public confidence.

U.S. media called for the United States to redefine the meaning of victory, shifting from unrealistic ideological exports to pragmatic competition, and firmly believing that the U.S. still has the potential to defeat China.

This commentary, although superficially uplifting, actually describes a crisis of collapsing confidence at its core.

Trump

At present, the domestic mood in the United States is quite complex; there are still strong voices on the surface, but in reality, anxiety, fatigue, and disillusionment are widespread.

From the upheaval of the global order to the imbalance of the domestic economy, from political polarization to the breakdown of social trust, a strong sense of self-doubt has been spreading between elites and the general public.

On one hand, Americans have discovered that the systems they once believed in did not win historical victories as expected, but instead repeatedly fell into dilemmas;

On the other hand, the rise of China continues in a way that they find difficult to understand, yet cannot deny.

The result is that Americans no longer believe we are the best, but begin to ask where we went wrong.

This emotion has gradually evolved into a collective loss of direction, knowing they are dissatisfied with the current state, but not knowing where to go to win.

This is the fundamental reason why the article attempts to awaken confidence — to maintain the nation's self-identity that has not yet completely collapsed.

The American Dream is over

So what made America lose its former confidence? The answer is simple — it was their own doing.

After the Cold War, the United States believed it could shape the global order, export so-called values to every corner, and make all countries follow the American path, thus ensuring continued leadership.

However, the result was chaos and wounds left in Iraq and Afghanistan, the collapse of order during the Arab Spring, and a stronger opponent in China.

Americans once believed their system was inherently superior, requiring no reform, just copying and pasting it to other countries. Now, however, they face a reality of aging infrastructure, unbalanced education, and widening wealth gaps.

All of this ultimately converges into a collective confusion: when China is advancing rapidly, the United States is stuck in many meaningless things.

It can be said that the decline of the United States is due to being too full, which is also a historical law — when you become the top, you stop striving, divert your energy to many unnecessary things. When you realize something is wrong, it's already too late to change.

America is seriously divided

It can be seen that the United States also has such reflective types, and more and more of them. They are often elites in American universities, think tanks, and media, who have long been immersed in the logic of institutional criticism and moral self-reflection.

When the masses are generally confused, these voices calling for reflection will continue to emerge. These people stand on the position that the United States is wrong, emphasizing repentance, correction, and redefining values.

They are enthusiastic about reflecting on colonialism, criticizing ideological exports, deconstructing hegemonic logic, but in reality, their words amount to nothing because they cannot solve the problem.

In their view, all problems can be reflected back onto the United States itself, eventually shaping a sense of noble failure.

This kind of reflective expression is actually more like telling Americans: we need to accept failure, because that is the "civilizational height" of America.

In other words, even though it says it wants to revive the confidence of Americans, it actually makes Americans less confident, because all the blame falls on themselves, how can they regain confidence?

Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7562084756741980712/

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