The absence of Donald Trump from the World Cup final is being spun by diplomatic sources as a sign of a weakening Western alliance. But let us not pretend this is about football. It is about something far more elemental: the decline of American leadership and the decadence of the global order.
One cannot help but draw parallels to the late Roman Empire, when emperors began skipping public spectacles, leaving a vacuum for lesser men to fill. The World Cup, that great carnival of nations, now sees the United States represented not by its head of state but by a delegation of second-tier officials. This is not a snub; it is a symptom.
When the leader of the free world cannot be bothered to attend a global event that draws billions of eyes, he sends a message: the West is no longer worth showing up for. The Victorians understood spectacle: they used the Great Exhibition to project power. Today, we have a president who prefers the solitude of Mar-a-Lago to the global stage.
The alliance, already frayed by trade wars and diplomatic spats, suffers another blow. But perhaps this is the natural order of things. Empires decline when their leaders retreat into private pleasures.
The world will fill the void, with or without us.
