VDH is not as pessimistic as you suggest here.
Nor does he agree with your characterization of us as an "Empire".
Instead, VDH believes our citizens can begin to restore our Constitutional Republic in November.
I hope he's right on that.
Lots of Novembers went under the bridge to get us here. Either through fraud or voter stupidity elections as a vehicle for change only works when you have people willing to sacrifice and play the long game.
People on the right just don't do that. Almost all of the "conservative" politicians are so corrupt and self-serving they are perfectly fine with joining the democrats precisely because it means they won't have to sacrifice. An Republican voters just want to be left alone. Half of them won't even vote because 30 minutes every couple of years is too much of an investment for them.
“VDH is not as pessimistic as you suggest here.”
I did not mean to suggest, Prof Hansen was pessimistic nor did I intend to put words in his column.
The opinion that the United States is a dying empire is mine. In September of 2022, I see more similarities to the dying Roman Republic than to the dynamic USA of less than 50 years ago.