First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

> "Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-could-it-be-american-c...

It’s funny seeing people talk about the decline of America. I can remember the same conversations in the 1970’s, late 2000’s as well.

If we ever hit a point where nobody is talking about America being in decline, that will mean we are entering decline.

I do think we’ve been in a down period when it comes to politics for a while but I am mid to long term optimistic about things getting better. This is not the first time we’ve had crazy massively divisive politics or populist crackpottery. Overall I do not think we are in any kind of terminal decline.

What is happening is that other countries are rising. I think that’s good for us. When America was the only superpower it made us lazy and foolish.

Look at how it works out in the corporate world. Take Intel for instance. They had a near monopoly for about a decade on top performing CPUs and it destroyed the company. Google carved out a monopoly on search and they are complete trash now. Pride cometh before a fall because pride causes the fall.

What other countries are rising? I mean China is an obvious one but seems to be struggling. Europe is in decline. India continues to struggle.

If anything, the US has pulled even further ahead since 1990. Back then the USSR was a near-power to the US, but has fallen significantly since then.

Since all power is relative, you’d need to see the US falling relative to another country. And right now, I don’t really see a country on that trajectory.