Sony Thang: "Empires don’t heal, they collapse"

 

America has repressed its shadow for too long.

The wars, the coups, the debt, the militarism, the tax cuts for the rich, the collapsing infrastructure, the propaganda dressed as patriotism.

All of it denied.

All of it externalized.

So now it projects.

It imagines enemies in every mirror.

China. Russia. North Korea. Iran. Venezuela. Europe.

Anyone but itself.

And tariffs are just the latest projection.

A child’s tantrum with adult consequences.

You see, an empire doesn’t go mad all at once.

It rots slowly.

One lie at a time.

One war at a time.

One delusion at a time.

And eventually, the lies become policy, the delusions become doctrine, and the madness becomes normalized.

Institutionalized.

Legislated.

That’s where we are now.

A trillion-dollar military.

Eight hundred bases.

Permanent war.

And now tariffs to punish the world for not collapsing alongside America’s mythology.

Trump didn’t create this.

He channeled it.

He gave the madness a voice.

But the madness was already there—buried beneath layers of flag-waving and free-market fantasies.

He just made it louder.

Cruder.

More honest.

And what’s most disturbing is that no one truly pushes back.

Not the press.

Not the economists.

Not Congress.

Not the so-called opposition.

Because deep down, they all serve the same illusion:

That America is still "exceptional."

Still entitled to rule.

Still innocent.

Still above the consequences of its own behavior.

But the world has changed.

The myth is cracking.

The empire is naked.

And tariffs—these absurd, self-harming, inflation-driving, ally-alienating tariffs—are just the scream of a wounded giant who can no longer hide the limp.

This isn’t about trade.

It’s about identity.

It’s about a nation that cannot admit its own economic model—war, debt, consumption, greed—is unsustainable.

It's about a superpower having a psychotic break on the global stage, screaming at its reflection while everyone watches in silence.

But not all of us are silent.

Some of us have lived on the receiving end of this madness.

Colonized. Bombed. Embargoed. Sanctioned.

Some of us remember when the U.S. called us "the threat"—just before it rained hell on our homes.

We learned then what America is only learning now:

If you never face your shadow, your shadow will rule you.

It will distort your judgment.

It will destroy your allies.

And eventually, it will consume you.

Tariffs won’t save America.

Nothing will—until it looks in the mirror and stops seeing monsters everywhere but in itself.

But empires don’t heal.

They collapse.

And sometimes collapse is the first honest thing they do.