You know what really highlights Americas decline for me? The lack of grand infrastructure projects over the last 50+ years. 

I don’t think we could build the Hoover dam today or the Golden Gate Bridge. It would take 30 years and go 900% over budget. 

When you look at empires that have fallen through history, many of them built their most grand structures early in their reign. The great pyramid, the colosseum, the temples of Angkor wat, were all built early in the reign of their respective empires.

Perhaps what they focus now is the human project and then maintaining the existing grand infrastructure projects