"Everything works badly, everything can be turned against you, and everyone else has fled"

The end of America's political influence on foreign affairs is already here and it isn't coming back. The only lever the country has on power now is capital and that's not going to last forever.

“The West as we knew it no longer exists,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU Commission, in April. “Our next great unifying project must come from an independent Europe.”

To hear this from the head of the EU means that it really is over. Better things might happen internally to America but in terms of our influence with other countries? It's on the way out.

But Europe’s issues with American platforms are no longer just about ads and cookies; they’re about the very future of its democracies and national security. And in the longer term, the US itself faces a disquieting question. If it no longer provides platforms that the rest of the world wants to use, who will be left—and whose interests will be served—on American networks?

I often think about this when we see the billionaires celebrating new international defense contracts. They're blowing up their own profit. Maybe not in their life time, but America, the 'arsenal of freedom' is on a clock now. A clock that is running down. These US defense contractors who sell arms abroad are going to find the market for their goods shrinking.

the Trump administration has weaponized federal payments systems against disfavored domestic nonprofits, businesses, and even US states. Contractors such as Palantir are merging disparate federal databases, potentially creating radical new surveillance capabilities that can be exploited at the touch of a button.

In time, US citizens may find themselves trapped in a diminished, nightmare America—like a post-Musk Twitter at scale—where everything works badly, everything can be turned against you, and everyone else has fled. De-enshittifying the platforms of American power isn’t just an urgent priority for allies, then. It’s an imperative for Americans too.