Decline Narrative Quotes

The French are very bizarre. There is this collective depiction: 'We're in decline, we're being assailed, we must protect ourselves.'

America doesn't exist in decline! America never has existed in decline, and people do not want to be told that the country that they live in now is in decline and to live it, learn it, and love it. And so they rejected it. So Van Jones goes out and he understands it's not racism - at least he says he understands. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. He says he understands. He hears... He listens to Trump's speech and he finally sees how other people are hearing it.

American decline is real, though the apocalyptic vision reflects the familiar ruling class perception that anything short of total control amounts to total disaster.

My theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.

I don't want the United States to be Athens on the Potomac.

I've worn down America.

In the same way the Brits had to get used to the idea that the sun had set on the British Empire, I think that there's the subrosa feeling that we are at the end of the American century, and I think that's very, very hard for Americans to take.

Rumors of the American demise... have been greatly exaggerated.

Journalism, spooked by rumors of its own obsolescence, has stopped believing in itself. Groans of doom alternate with panicked happy talk.

Every ten years we hear this story: “America is in decline.” Don’t you believe it.

As far as the low-information segment of the population - the vast, vast, vast majority of which votes Democrat - if you are a progressive as Barack Obama is and you want to sell the direction you're taking this country, it's okay to call it great now 'cause you've got it moving in the direction of decline.

For decades, I have been a militant anti-declinist in terms of America's place in the world.

You know what they say? They say, 'The print media is dying' - who says that? Well, the media.

The worst thing about being a great power is when you're not one any more. It takes centuries to get over it.

I definitely believe that the so-called American decline is greatly exaggerated.

Nobody moves on purpose to Detroit.

I saw Hollywood born and I've seen it die...

Russians clearly perceive America's global influence as being in irreversible decline and American society shattered by major political, economic and ideological crises.

I cannot resign myself to the decline of Europe, and of France.

nothing like a few restful weeks contemplating the decline of civilization to restore the humors. What I did on my summer vacation was listen to a lot of people talk about the decline of practically everything - you could call it the leisure of the theory class.

You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.

It isn't just that Obama's policies have failed; it's that he has essentially given up and is asking us to accept a lesser America going forward, as if resigned to the fatalistic belief that America has begun an inevitable and unavoidable decline.

When you mention to people growing up in Cleveland they bring up the river catching on fire, or LeBron James leaving, they have these references, but no one imagines ending up there.