In today’s interconnected world, understanding the deep-seated shifts in global power dynamics is more critical than ever. A new, potent term has emerged from the tech world to describe a familiar pattern of decay: “Enshittification.” Coined to explain how platforms like Google and Facebook decline, this concept now provides a chillingly accurate lens through which to view a potential political transformation. The core thesis is that The Enshittification of American Power is not just a theory but a potential reality, especially under a prospective Trump 2.0 administration where statecraft begins to mirror the most damaging tendencies of BIG TECH.
This detailed guide will dissect this complex phenomenon. We will explore how the playbook of prioritizing short-term gains, extracting value, and degrading the ‘user’ experience (in this case, allies and international norms) could be applied to American foreign policy. We will cover every important aspect, from the theoretical origins of the idea to the practical, real-world consequences. Understanding The Enshittification of American Power is essential for anyone seeking to grasp the future of international relations and America’s role within it.
📚 Table of Contents
- 🎯 Understanding ‘Enshittification’: The Core Concept
- 🔍 The Big Tech Blueprint: From User-First to Profit-First
- 💡 From Silicon Valley to Washington: Applying the Model to Statecraft
- ⚙️ The Mechanics of Political Enshittification Under Trump 2.0
- 📉 Degrading Diplomatic Services: Loyalty Over Expertise
- 🔄 Transactional Foreign Policy: Alliances as ‘Products’
- 🌍 Global Fallout: How the World Responds to a Declining ‘Service’
- 🛡️ Resisting the Decay: Is It Possible to Counter This Trend?
🎯 Understanding ‘Enshittification’: The Core Concept
The term ‘Enshittification’ was coined by author and activist Cory Doctorow to describe a specific pattern of PLATFORM DECAY. It is a three-stage process. First, platforms are good to their users to attract them. Second, they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. This process locks in users and businesses, leaving them with a progressively worse service they cannot easily leave. This concept of locking in participants and then degrading the quality of interactions for pure value extraction is the central theme of The Enshittification of American Power.
🔄 The Three Stages of Platform Decay:
- Attract Users: Offer a valuable, low-cost, or free service to build a massive user base (e.g., early Facebook’s focus on connecting friends).
- Extract Value from Businesses: Once users are locked in, shift focus to monetizing them by selling access and data to business customers (e.g., targeted advertising).
- Extract Value for Shareholders: Finally, squeeze both users and businesses to maximize profit, leading to a degraded experience for everyone but the platform owner.
| Concept | Application in Technology |
|---|---|
| User Lock-in | High switching costs, network effects, and data dependency keep users on a platform even as it worsens. |
| Value Extraction | Shifting from user satisfaction to aggressive monetization through ads, fees, and data harvesting. |
🔍 The Big Tech Blueprint: From User-First to Profit-First
Google and Facebook are the quintessential examples of this model. Google started as a clean, incredibly effective search engine, providing immense value to users. Over time, the results page became cluttered with ads, sponsored content, and self-promoting widgets, pushing organic results down. Facebook began as a tool to connect with friends, but its algorithm shifted to prioritize engagement-bait, ads, and polarizing content to maximize user time-on-site for data collection. This blueprint, perfected by BIG TECH, demonstrates how a dominant position can be leveraged to change the rules, making the service worse for the end-user in the pursuit of profit. This same strategic decay is central to the theory of The Enshittification of American Power.
📉 Examples of Tech Platform Decay:
- Search Engines: Prioritizing paid advertisements and owned properties over the most relevant organic search results.
- Social Media: Algorithms that favor divisive content and “rage bait” to increase engagement metrics, degrading the social experience.
- E-commerce: Marketplaces like Amazon becoming flooded with low-quality drop-shipped goods and counterfeit products.
| Platform Tactic | Impact on User Experience |
|---|---|
| Algorithmic Manipulation | The feed you see is no longer what you chose, but what the platform determines will keep you engaged longer. |
| Increased Ad Load | Core content is obscured and interrupted by a constant, ever-growing stream of advertisements. |
💡 From Silicon Valley to Washington: Applying the Model to Statecraft
The transition of this concept from tech to politics is alarmingly seamless. Here, the ‘platform’ is American global leadership, built over decades. The ‘users’ are allied nations and international institutions. The ‘business customers’ could be seen as domestic political factions or corporations benefiting from specific policies. Initially, the US provided global public goods: security guarantees, freedom of navigation, and a stable financial system. This attracted a vast network of allies (users). The Enshittification of American Power posits that the next phase involves degrading these relationships to extract short-term value for domestic political gain, a hallmark of ‘America First’ STATECRAFT.
🏛️ Political Parallels:
- The Platform: The post-WWII international order, underwritten by U.S. power and influence.
- The Users: Allied countries, international organizations (NATO, UN), and global norms.
- The Degradation: Shifting from mutual benefit to a transactional approach where support is conditional and unpredictable.
| Analogy Component | Political Manifestation |
|---|---|
| Network Effect | Nations remain in the US-led system because the alternatives are worse, even as the system’s quality declines. |
| API (Access) Change | Unilaterally changing trade terms, withdrawing from treaties, and making access to US markets conditional. |
⚙️ The Mechanics of Political Enshittification Under Trump 2.0
Under a potential Trump 2.0 administration, this process could accelerate dramatically. The core mechanic would be the replacement of long-term strategic thinking with extreme SHORT-TERMISM. Decisions would be guided not by national interest in the traditional sense, but by metrics that offer immediate political feedback: rally applause, media cycles, and demonstrations of ‘strength’. This involves questioning the value of long-standing alliances, viewing international agreements as bad deals, and treating diplomacy as a zero-sum game. This approach is the political equivalent of a platform optimizing for ‘engagement’ at the cost of community health, a key step in The Enshittification of American Power.
🔧 Key Mechanisms:
- Politicization of Institutions: Staffing the State Department, Pentagon, and intelligence agencies based on political loyalty rather than competence.
- Personalization of Policy: Foreign relations become dependent on personal relationships between leaders rather than institutional ties.
- Rhetorical Devaluation: Publicly questioning commitments to allies (like NATO’s Article 5), thereby eroding their foundational trust.
| Traditional Statecraft | “Enshittified” Statecraft |
|---|---|
| Predictable, based on treaties and established norms. | Unpredictable, based on the leader’s whim and perceived slights. |
| Values long-term stability and SOFT POWER. | Values immediate, visible ‘wins’ and transactional leverage. |
📉 Degrading Diplomatic Services: Loyalty Over Expertise
A crucial step in political enshittification is hollowing out the institutions of statecraft. This means purging the diplomatic corps, intelligence agencies, and military leadership of experienced professionals who might offer dissenting, reality-based advice. They are replaced by loyalists whose primary qualification is fealty to the leader. This is analogous to a tech company firing experienced engineers who warn about system instability and replacing them with marketers who promise impossible growth. The ‘service’ of diplomacy degrades, advice becomes sycophantic, and the country’s ability to navigate complex global issues collapses. This reliance on LOYALTY METRICS is a direct threat to effective governance.
🔔 The Warning Signs:
- High Turnover: Rapid firing and replacement of key foreign policy and national security officials.
- Ignoring Intelligence: Public dismissal of assessments from the nation’s own intelligence agencies.
- Attacks on Civil Service: Portraying career diplomats and civil servants as a “deep state” actively working against the administration.
| Attribute | Impact of Degradation |
|---|---|
| Institutional Memory | Lost, leading to repeated mistakes and an inability to manage long-term relationships. |
| Credibility | Destroyed, as foreign counterparts know that negotiators may not have the president’s backing or may be replaced tomorrow. |
🔄 Transactional Foreign Policy: Alliances as ‘Products’
The logical endpoint of this process is TRANSACTIONAL DIPLOMACY, where long-term ALLIANCE SYSTEMS are treated like subscription services that can be cancelled if they don’t provide immediate, quantifiable returns. Alliances with Europe or Asian partners are no longer seen as force multipliers that enhance American security but as costly burdens. In this view, why provide a security guarantee to a country that doesn’t “pay enough”? This reduces complex relationships, built on shared values and mutual interests, to a crude balance sheet. This mindset is perhaps the clearest manifestation of The Enshittification of American Power, mirroring how a platform might start charging for features that were once free to its most loyal users.
💸 Alliances on the Chopping Block:
- NATO: Constantly threatened with withdrawal or reduced commitment if members don’t meet spending targets, regardless of other contributions.
- South Korea & Japan: Demands for vastly increased payments for the stationing of US troops, treating security as a for-profit enterprise.
- Trade Agreements: Scrapping multilateral deals in favor of bilateral ones where the US can exert maximum leverage.
| Relational Model | Transactional Model |
|---|---|
| Based on shared values, trust, and long-term mutual benefit. | Based on immediate material gain and “what have you done for me lately?”. |
| Fosters stability and predictability in the international system. | Creates chaos and encourages allies to seek other security arrangements. |
🌍 Global Fallout: How the World Responds to a Declining ‘Service’
When a platform becomes sufficiently “enshittified,” users start looking for exits. In geopolitics, this is a far more dangerous proposition. Allies, feeling that the US security ‘service’ is no longer reliable, will be forced to hedge their bets. This could lead to regional arms races (e.g., Japan or South Korea pursuing nuclear weapons), realignment with other powers like China or Russia, or the formation of new, non-US-centric blocs. The result is a more fragmented and dangerous world characterized by GEOPOLITICAL INSTABILITY. The very power and influence that were being ‘monetized’ through this process would rapidly diminish, leaving the US more isolated and less secure. The degradation of trust ultimately destroys the platform’s value.
💥 Potential Consequences:
- Proliferation: Nations no longer trusting the US nuclear umbrella may decide to develop their own deterrents.
- Rise of Competitors: China and Russia would eagerly fill the vacuum left by a retreating or unpredictable America.
- Erosion of Norms: The collapse of US leadership would weaken international laws and norms regarding trade, human rights, and SOVEREIGNTY.
| US Action | Likely Global Reaction |
|---|---|
| Withdrawing from NATO | European strategic autonomy initiatives, increased defense spending, and potential rapprochement with Russia out of necessity. |
| Starting Trade Wars | Formation of alternative trading blocs (like CPTPP) that exclude the United States, damaging its economic power. |
🛡️ Resisting the Decay: Is It Possible to Counter This Trend?
Countering The Enshittification of American Power is a monumental challenge. Unlike switching social media apps, rebooting the global order is not simple. Resistance requires a multi-faceted approach. Domestically, it involves strengthening the institutional guardrails of STATECRAFT—protecting the independence of the civil service, the judiciary, and the military. It requires a political consensus that recognizes the immense value of long-term alliances and a predictable foreign policy. Internationally, allies must both reinforce their commitment to democratic norms while also building resilience to withstand American political volatility. Rebuilding the trust that is so easily squandered is the most difficult task of all and may take a generation or more, if it is possible at all.
🛠️ Potential Counter-Strategies:
- Domestic Institutional Resilience: Congressional oversight, legal protections for whistleblowers, and promoting a culture of non-partisan service.
- Allied “Hedging”: Allies increasing their own defense capabilities and diplomatic cooperation independent of the US.
- Public Awareness: Articulating the clear dangers of a transactional, short-sighted foreign policy to the electorate.
| Actor | Possible Action |
|---|---|
| Congress | Pass legislation to make it harder for a president to unilaterally withdraw from key treaties like NATO. |
| Allied Nations | Formulate joint declarations reaffirming their commitment to the existing order and create contingency plans. |
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
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⚠️ Important Notice
This information is for general guidance and political analysis regarding The Enshittification of American Power. It is based on a theoretical framework and projections. Readers should consult a wide range of sources before forming final conclusions.