couldn’t resist. A November 2025 “Marketplace” report has given me reflux ever since, because it burned with prophetic irritation. The Public Radio International (PRI) production often frames specialized economic news for the uninitiated masses like myself.
The American experience is losing its appeal and standing in tangible ways. Brands as American as “mom and apple pie” like McDonald’s and Coca Cola recently launched ad campaigns distancing themselves from their American-ness. It’s just not cool anymore.
Said host Kai Ryssdal: “The institutions of this economy depend on the institutions of this democracy. The rule of law, fair regulation, recourse when wronged — it’s why people come here, and it’s why businesses invest here.”
International students coming here to study — down 17%, and fewer tourists to the U.S. in 2025 have analysts estimating losses at $12B according to the report. Of course, our current presidential administration with its cuts to foreign aid, student funding, and increasing restrictions on travel and study contributed to these numbers. Thus, how we’ve treated others has a “better than 80% correlation” on global national rankings, according to Simon Anhalt who conducts annual rankings of countries as brands. This, in turn, has a direct tie to revenue and trade.
America, look at you slippin’ now — slipping in the perception that it’s desirable, that it is advanced, that its products are superior. More than anything else, and as implausible as history has shown it to be, our claims that we are the ethical and moral superpower of the world have eroded in recent, drastic and measurable ways.
“America stood for predictability,” said Usha Haley, a professor of management and international business at Wichita State University, and immigrant from India. [The United States was seen as] the shining city on the hill, an educational system par excellence, and the ability to be what you want to be, but most of all, America was a market that you could understand, where data were transparent, where regulation was understandable, where you didn’t have to bribe somebody to get ahead.”
And there, in a nutshell, Haley described the downfall of our preeminence and self-declared primacy. It pivots on justice, ethics, morality, and basic humanity. As Simon Anhalt explained in the Marketplace interview, Japan and Germany —once globally viewed as pariah, after the astronomical life tolls in two World Wars — have taken 80 years to re-brand themselves into the “paragons” they are now.
So shocking are the headlines that declare ICE door-to-door raids, or the accession of a whole other country, or the cruel and capricious threats to opposition. Our nighttime doom scrolling, the angst and the anxiety-filled inertia, I would suggest come from a spiritual instinct. There’s more to this story than the brand analysis Kai Rissdal prophesies.
John, the prophet, journaling a series of visions from God in Revelation, contends that all of humanity’s plans and strategies, ideas and achievements — as they operate in opposition to God’s words, will and works—are destined for a breathtaking failure in the near future (Revelation 14:8; 18:2-5). Babylon (the sum total of corruption and opposition fueled by demonic interests) is fallen, is fallen, declares the heavenly messenger to John, and to us. The falling status of the United States strikes a chord within our psyche, therefore, because it shakes our worldview and sobers our giddy confidence. It reminds us that no matter the aura of invincibility and dominance, every corrupt, abusive and oppressive power will have its comeuppance. We see it in real time as to our own status.
Without saying when, and using plenty of symbolic language to describe the how, the Lord in mercy will exercise His judgment. As for you and me — our task is to live our lives in close relationship with the Lord of love, operating in justice, mercy, and selflessness — the commerce and trade of heaven (Revelation 18:4).
CARMELA MONK CRAWFORD, Esq., is Editor of Message Magazine