In times of political, economic and geopolitical uncertainty, great powers often resort to narratives capable of reorganizing social fear and offering simple explanations for complex problems. In the United States, this phenomenon seems to have intensified. A few days before publication of new Pentagon files on unidentified aerial phenomena—the ancient UFOs—the country seems to be immersed once again in a politics of spectacle where visible and invisible threats compete to capture public attention. The problem is that, behind this permanent theatricalization, a deeper question emerges: are we witnessing the unequivocal symptoms of a declining power?
The perception of American attrition does not arise solely from its geopolitical adversaries. It also feeds from within. For an important sector of the population, The promises of national restoration associated with Donald Trump’s project do not seem to have fully materialized. Foreign policy continues to be marked by growing tensions, the economic situation continues to affect the pockets of millions of families, and inflation—although more controlled than in previous years—remains a persistent concern. Added to this is a sense of institutional exhaustion and extreme polarization that cuts across virtually every issue in American public life.
The trade policy promoted from Washington has also reconfigured historical alliances. Tensions with former partners, such as Canada and Mexicoas well as constant friction with Europe, have coincided with a growing international perception that China projects an image of greater stability and strategic predictability. Beyond ideological sympathies or antipathies, the political effect is difficult to ignore: while Washington seems to go through permanent cycles of confrontation, Beijing presents itself as an actor willing to occupy vacant economic and diplomatic spaces.
However, perhaps the most serious challenge for the United States lies not abroad but within its own borders. The country is experiencing political polarization without recent precedents. Disputes over migration, tariffs, international wars, and domestic immigration operations—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids—have deepened deep divisions over the very meaning of citizenship, security, and civil rights. In this context, the midterm elections acquire a determining weight for the future of Trumpism and the Republican Party.
It is precisely in moments of political vulnerability that external threats tend to take on a central role. Throughout history, empires in tension have resorted to real, exaggerated or symbolic enemies to unite internal support. Today, The so-called “Western Hemisphere” seems to once again occupy a strategic place in the American political narrative. Venezuela, Cuba, regional migration, transnational criminal groups and, increasingly, Mexico, reappear as scenes of political dispute and securitization.
Mexico occupies a particularly delicate place within this equation. Considerable commercial partner, geographical neighbor and central axis of the immigration debate, the country has also become a recurring actor within threat narratives constructed by some political sectors in Washington. In recent months, accusations about alleged links between Mexican political actors and criminal networks, speculation about a greater presence of US intelligence agencies in Mexican territory and speeches that present Mexico simultaneously as a considerable ally and a threat to national security reflect this contradiction.
More recently, sectors of the MAGA movement have pushed a particularly striking narrative: The idea that the Mexican consular network could be trying to politically influence the US elections. Signals of this type, accompanied by calls to review Mexican diplomatic operations in the United States, evoke a logic that is increasingly common in contemporary politics: when the internal crisis deepens, the temptation to seek external enemies intensifies.
It is still paradoxical that, in a period dominated by misinformation, suspicions of conspiracy and collective anxiety, the American public debate oscillates between extraterrestrial threats, invisible enemies and geopolitical ghosts. The problem is not discussing unknown phenomena or evaluating real risks to national security. Every great power does it. The problem emerges when the spectacularization of the threat replaces the serious discussion about inequalitypolarization, institutional deterioration or loss of political legitimacy.
Great powers rarely acknowledge their attrition as it occurs. The decline, when it exists, does not usually manifest itself abruptly, but gradually: in the loss of the ability to build consensus, in the growing dependence on narratives of threat to politically unite fragmented societies, and in the difficulty of distinguishing between symbolic demonstrations of power and real capacity for influence. History shows that, in times of uncertainty, states often turn to external enemies—real, magnified, or imagined—to reaffirm internal legitimacy.
Perhaps the question is no longer whether the United States can “become great again,” but whether a deeply polarized democracy can still sustain a public debate based on verifiable facts, or whether the permanent spectacularization of threats will end up turning fear into a political instrument and truth into another victim of polarization.
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