Who Can Save America? March 19 in History

Today, March 19, 2026, I read a piece in Newsweek: Donald Trump's approval rating among the MAGA base has reached a near-unprecedented 100%. The message was unmistakable — if you are MAGA, you must support Trump; if you don't, you are no longer MAGA. On specific policy questions, like whether to support foreign wars, a dissenting position is enough to get you cast out of the movement entirely. This news made me think not about American politics itself, but about history. History rarely repeats itself simply, but it rhymes with startling regularity. When a nation faces true danger, what decides its fate is rarely the enemy, or even the institutions themselves — it is whether the small number of people inside the system choose to comply, or choose to refuse. On March 19, 1945, as the Second World War neared its end, Hitler signed the infamous "Nero Decree" — officially the Demolitions on Reich Territory Order. It commanded the total destruction of Germany's bridges, railways, factories, power plants, and communications infrastructure, denying them to the advancing Allies. The logic was simple and brutal: if Germany could not win, Germany would not be allowed to survive. And yet the order was never fully carried out. Not because the Allies moved faster, but because one man inside the system chose not to fully obey. Albert Speer, then Minister of Armaments, understood that destroying all infrastructure would plunge the German people into famine and chaos after the war, leaving nothing on which to rebuild. Speer did not openly defy Hitler. He delayed, diluted, and selectively executed the orders. That quiet, incomplete compliance is what left Germany with the foundation to rebuild. Germany did not perish in its defeat — not because of institutions, but because one man, at the critical moment, chose his country over his leader. History also offers the opposite outcome. On March 19, 1279, in one of the largest naval battles in Chinese history, the Mongol-founded Yuan dynasty crushed the remnant Southern Song fleet at the Battle of Yamen. With defeat certain, the court faced a choice: surrender, negotiate, or die. They chose absolute loyalty. The child emperor Zhao Bing was carried into the sea on the back of a minister, and what followed him into the depths was not just a sovereign, but an entire dynasty. One may debate whether the emperor and his ministers had any alternative to death. But the fact remains: no one stayed behind to negotiate, no one stayed to preserve the state, no one chose to let the regime end while allowing the people to continue. This is why some argue that what we now call the Chinese nation — a concept that only gradually formed in the early nineteenth century — in a meaningful sense died on March 19, 1279. The fall of the Southern Song was not merely a military defeat; it was the failure of anyone within the system to violate loyalty at the final hour for the sake of the country itself. In 1945 Germany, someone defied orders, and the nation was reborn. In 1279 Song China, everyone was loyal to the end, and the nation vanished. History tells us again and again — nations are rarely destroyed by their enemies. They are decided by choices made from within. Today's America is not 1279 Song China, nor 1945 Germany. But it is entering a similarly dangerous condition: political loyalty is gradually superseding loyalty to institutions themselves. In this environment, opposing one's own leader is treated as betrayal; cooperating with the other side is treated as surrender; showing restraint is treated as weakness. When politics reaches this state, institutions may still formally exist — but the trust on which those institutions depend has begun to vanish. History shows that nations are most fragile not when laws are abolished, but when the laws remain while no one is willing to follow the rules anymore. Over the past decade, the political force organized around the Make America Great Again movement has not merely reshaped electoral outcomes — it has been gradually reshaping how America itself operates, and even the role it plays in the world. First, MAGA has effectively ended the Republican Party as it once existed. The old Republican Party was a complex coalition with competing factions and genuine ideological diversity, from Eisenhower to Reagan to the two Bushes. But today, an increasing number of observers believe the Republican Party is no longer that party — it has become a political organization assembled around Trump. In MAGA political culture, loyalty routinely trumps principle. Whether you support Trump has become the primary measure of political identity. Dissenters are marginalized, primaried, or silenced. When a party no longer tolerates internal dissent, it ceases to be a party in the traditional sense and becomes something else — a movement, or a personalized power structure. Historically, this is usually a signal that institutions are beginning to lose their stability. Second, MAGA is pulling America toward isolation. For decades, American grand strategy was built on a system of alliances — NATO, security commitments to allies in Europe and Asia, America as the core of the Western order. Under "America First," that tradition is being eroded. Tariffs have surged, triggering trade conflicts with allies. Aid to Ukraine has been repeatedly delayed and threatened with termination. NATO allies have been pressured to renegotiate security commitments. Long-standing international cooperation mechanisms have been openly questioned. None of these moves may immediately destroy America's position — but they are steadily undermining America's most important asset: allied trust. Historically, great powers decline not from a single defeat, but because allies gradually drift away. Third, America has been withdrawing from or weakening multiple international treaties and institutions. In recent years, the United States has exited or undermined a series of international agreements: the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the World Health Organization (joined, then left again), the INF Treaty, the UN Human Rights Council. Each decision can be debated on its own merits, but the overall trend is unmistakable — America is transforming from a builder of the international system into a country that keeps walking out of it. Fourth, "America First" is reshaping America's national identity. After the Cold War, America consistently described itself as a nation that not only pursued its own interests, but represented something universal — a set of values for the world. Ronald Reagan called America a "city upon a hill," a beacon of freedom and democracy. Under "America First," national interest has been redefined as short-term gain; international responsibility is framed as a burden; values-based diplomacy is dismissed as naïve. A nation that no longer believes it stands for something larger than itself can still be powerful. It just becomes very hard to trust. Fifth, a set of radical policy shifts are further transforming America's traditional posture. Whether it is a hard turn on Middle East policy, debates over potential military involvement in Iran, sweeping skepticism toward alliances, immigration, and international institutions — these policies are pushing America from a rules-based great power toward something more like an ordinary one: focused on force rather than norms, on interests rather than ideals, on the immediate rather than the long term. For eighty years, America was not merely a superpower — it cast itself as a symbol. A symbol of openness, rule of law, responsibility, and commitment to the free world. Whether or not that promise was always kept, the image itself was a crucial source of American influence. It is why America was called a "shining city on a hill." It is why it remained, for so many, a country of hope. Under the political culture of Make America Great Again, America is moving, step by step, toward a different kind of isolation. First, isolation in credibility. When a nation repeatedly exits agreements, reverses the commitments of prior administrations, threatens allies, dismisses cooperation frameworks, and treats international rules as optional tools to be discarded at will — the world learns a lesson. American commitments are no longer what they were. Credibility takes decades to build. It can be spent in a few years. Second, isolation in moral standing. For all its imperfections, America once consistently proclaimed values — democracy, human rights, the rule of law — as the things that distinguished it from ordinary great powers. When political language shifts toward force, revenge, transaction, and winning; when principle, responsibility, and restraint fade from the vocabulary — America may still be powerful. It is no longer obviously good. A nation that is no longer seen as standing on the side of the rules can still be feared. It can no longer easily be believed. Third, isolation from the spirit of openness. America became America, in large part, because it long held a conviction: this country belongs to anyone willing to come here, follow the rules, and build a better life. From European immigrants to Asian immigrants to Latin American immigrants, openness was one of America's deepest sources of strength. In today's political climate, immigration is increasingly described as a threat, borders as a defensive perimeter to be sealed, newcomers as problems rather than possibilities. An America that has lost its open spirit still physically exists. In spirit, it is no longer the same country. Fourth, isolation from public and international responsibility. After World War II, America constructed an entire international architecture: security alliances, a trading system, international institutions, humanitarian aid, global cooperation. These did not merely serve others — they served America too. They made America the author of the rules, not the subject of them. When "America First" comes to mean accountable only to itself, calculating only short-term gains, America moves from the center of the system toward its outside. Historically, great powers decline not when their strength disappears, but when they are no longer willing to bear the cost of maintaining order. Finally, isolation from hope itself. For eighty years, no matter how turbulent the world became, many people believed: if everything else fails, there is still America. That belief, in itself, was America's greatest source of soft power. But if America begins to doubt its allies, its institutions, its immigrants, its partnerships, its responsibilities — even the values it once held — then what is being eroded is not just policy, but the image that lived in countless hearts. That lighthouse of the free world. That city upon a hill. That country that still shone in the dark. History tells us: a nation does not fall in a single day. First it loses trust. Then it loses direction. Finally, it loses itself. When loyalty supersedes institutions, when faction supersedes nation, when winning supersedes principle — the image built over eighty years may vanish within a single generation. And when that day comes, the question will no longer be whether America is powerful. The question will be: When America is no longer that America — who will be left to save it?