America Can Seem Brutal and Cynical, but It Has a Superpower Europe Can Only Dream Of

If America’s institutions ever collapse under political sclerosis, debt and division, Jacob Mchangama argues that few peoples would be better equipped to start over and build again.

The United States may be raw and lack some of the qualities Europeans are better at protecting. But Mchangama, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, warns against underestimating the country and says its people possess a distinctive strength: the ability to begin again.

He writes that the relationship between the United States and Europe is entering a period of confrontation and change. The Trump administration’s rhetoric on Ukraine, NATO, trade and Greenland has unsettled even committed transatlantic supporters, he says.

The question Mchangama poses is whether Europe could respond to a comparable crisis with the same capacity for renewal. His argument is not that America lacks serious weaknesses, but that its resilience should not be mistaken for weakness or dismissed because the country can appear brutal and cynical.