The real ‘civilizational erasure’ is happening in America
Trump’s expansion of state power undermines the West’s core achievement: limits on authority.
Donald Trump, JD Vance and other MAGA luminaries often proclaim that the grave danger facing the West is “civilizational erasure,” which they claim is happening in Europe: Through its dangerously misguided approach toward identity and immigration, Europe is destroying the West’s distinctive legacy.
But the West’s defining character has not been tribal or religious solidarity — that describes most of the world. The West’s precious, almost unique, achievement has been the limitation of state power. Since Magna Carta in 1215, the West gradually placed constraints on rulers — through rights for citizens, independent courts, a sovereign church and the sanctity of private property. That inheritance is what made the West democratic and prosperous. It is also what made it stable: Citizens could dissent, businesses could invest and civil society could flourish because power was bounded by law.
