Kerby Anderson

In his new book, Decades of Decadence, Senator Marco Rubio exposes the attacks on four key elements of American strength: good local jobs, stable families, geographical communities, and a sovereign nation that serves as a beacon of freedom and prosperity.

He begins his book by talking about an article published in National Interest when he was getting ready for college. Francis Fukuyama wrote about “The End of History” and predicted a future global order where there were no viable alternatives to democracy. The US defeated fascism during World War II, and the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse.

This utopian vision of the future didn’t take place. In my radio interview with Senator Rubio, I mentioned sitting on a panel with Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, who wrote about The Clash of Civilizations. He predicted world history would be marked by conflicts between three principal groups: western universalism, Muslim militancy, and Chinese assertion.

Senator Rubio explained that the assumption was that nation states would be more focused on economic interests and therefore would not go to war with each other. Politicians started making decisions that benefited this system and stopped making decisions about what was good for America. This empowered China, and now we are heavily dependent upon them for all sorts of essential goods.

We assumed that nationhood was over, and people and countries would be doing what was good for the global economy and international order. Senator Rubio explained that “China didn’t get that memo, and Russia didn’t get that memo, and Iran didn’t get that memo, and North Korea didn’t get that memo.” Many countries have been operating in their national interest.

He believes it is not too late to reject those errors and rebuild this nation. His book provides a critique of the past and a roadmap for the future.