'The myth of a noble America' exposed: New Statesman
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The United States is undergoing significant change, revealing that it may never have been what many imagined, as the myth of a noble America is laid bare.
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US President Donald Trump, from left, gestures as he walks with First Lady Melania Trump to send off former President Joe Biden and Jill Biden after the 60th Presidential Inauguration, on January 20, 2025, at the US Capitol in Washington. (AP)
A New Statesman piece published Wednesday examines Franz Kafka's unfinished novel Der Verschollene (The Man Who Disappeared), later published posthumously in 1927 as Amerika. The novel follows Karl Rossmann, a 17-year-old German boy exiled to America after being seduced by a maid and fathering her child.
The article, written by Hans Kundnani, reflects on the evolution of American power, which for much of the post-World War II era was defined by lofty ideals of freedom and democracy, often contradicted by its actions. While US rhetoric resonated in Western Europe during the Cold War, where it supported democracies against Soviet influence, its behavior in the Global South told a different story.
This duality, the report argues, culminated in the Biden administration's contradictions, where Biden declared the US "was back" after Trump's first term, positioning himself as a defender of democracy.
As mentioned in the article, the image of America as a leader of the "free world" began to fracture, particularly following the war in Ukraine in 2022, and even more so during the war in Gaza.
Unlike its staunch opposition to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the US enabled "Israel's" controversial actions in Gaza, including attacks on hospitals and schools—paralleling conduct it had condemned elsewhere.
'The true face of America'
According to the piece, with Trump back in the White House, "the pretense is over." Kundani stresses that this version of America relies on raw economic and military power and seeks to intimidate allies and adversaries alike. This comes after Trump threatened to annex Greenland, take over the Panama Canal, and suggested that Canada become America’s 51st state.
The report highlights that even during Biden's tenure, while providing "Israel" with diplomatic, financial, and military support, he maintained the pretense that the US was not enabling the destruction of Gaza. Trump, on the other hand, has publicly stated that America should take over Gaza, remove its population, and redevelop it as a beach resort.
The dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – an agency that softened the harsher aspects of US power, particularly in the Global South – serves as the clearest example of this shift, Kundani says.
Read next: Trump's provocative ambitions signal broader strategy shift: WashPo
Samantha Power, the USAID director under Biden, described this in a New York Times op-ed, arguing that halting the agency's programs was "one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in US history."
As the facade of US power abroad fades, the report highlights that thousands of migrants are being rounded up in raids across the country.
As the piece notes, this development ties to the Statue of Liberty’s symbolism and the hope in Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem "The New Colossus"—inscribed in 1903—of America as a refuge for the oppressed and impoverished.
However, Kundani says that the United States is undergoing significant change. At the same time, the current moment reveals that the country may never have been what many had envisioned in the first place.
