Derek Hudley’s The American Century of Shame is here. Here is what he got wrong.

Derek is among a growing number of political commentators who now claim that the United States has entered a permanent age of decline. They frame the present moment as a civilizational collapse, often borrowing emotionally charged historical analogies and collapse language. Derek's argument is one recent version of this narrative that labels the modern United States as entering a new “century of shame,” compares America to Qing-era China, and asserts that China is replacing the United States as the world’s dominant power. This argument feels compelling on the surface because it resonates with cultural anxiety, political frustration, left-wing (progressive) feelings of having lost and being doomed, and economic uncertainty. However, Derek’s and other Doom-and-Gloom approaches do not survive real systems analysis.

Derek's rant does not prove that we are facing civilizational collapse; thankfully, his feelings do not control us. The left has abandoned logic in favor of its emotions. Civilizational collapse is not a cultural mood. It is a measurable structural failure. A civilization collapses only when its core production systems fail simultaneously. Food supply must break down. Energy systems must fail. Currency must lose its function. Transportation must collapse. Security must fracture. Legitimacy must disintegrate to the point that parallel governments replace the state. None of these conditions exists in the United States.

What Derek fails to mention is that at this time, the United States maintains the largest agricultural surplus on the planet. We are the most energy-independent major economy in history. We, the People of America, are in control of the dominant global reserve currency. America holds the world’s most powerful blue-water navy. We have the deepest venture capital markets, the most advanced military logistics network, and the most resilient financial infrastructure ever built. These are not signs of a civilization in structural decline, although the left hates America and wishes America would fall. We are the foundations of global system dominance.

Using information theory offers me a valuable lens for evaluating Derek's and the other haters' collapse narratives. Real civilizational claims require high signal data; they have none, just their speculative narrative. What we need are specific, measurable system indicators. These include productivity trends, capital formation, energy return on investment, demographic replacement rates, infrastructure depreciation cycles, export value in high-tech manufacturing, sovereign debt servicing capacity, and technological diffusion velocity. Derek's collapse narrative rarely examines any of these. Instead, they rely on emotional language, unsourced macro claims, selective anecdotes, and ideological generalizations. That produces noise, not a signal.

As we look, we see that this difference matters because civilizations collapse when production systems fail, not when political rhetoric becomes heated. Political turbulence is not civilizational decay. Trade realignment is not collapsing. Inflation cycles are not empire death. Technology-driven labor disruption is not civilizational collapse. These are normal system transitions in complex market economies.

The claim that China is replacing the United States also fails under real system analysis. China is entering the most severe demographic contraction in recorded history. Its working-age population is shrinking. Youth unemployment has exceeded twenty percent. Their capital is leaving. Real estate systems are unraveling; socialism builds apartments where no one lives. Manufacturing is relocating to Southeast Asia, India, and Mexico. China is entering demographic terminal velocity. The United States is entering re-industrialization. These are opposite system trajectories.

Now I will look at criminal justice and constitutional structure to further expose the error in Derek’s claims in labeling the United States as fascist. Fascism requires centralized coercive authority, elimination of independent courts, suppression of opposition media (CBS, NBC and PBS are all just the DNC's mouthpieces), abolition of due process, and irreversible political control. The Democrats, who are Derek’s friends, sue Trump at every step, but we continue to push past their nonsense. None of these conditions exists. The United States maintains independent courts, an adversarial press (MSNBC or whatever they call it now), mechanisms for constitutional appeal, electoral reversibility, and decentralized (the Democrats want to federalize) law enforcement. Political dissatisfaction does not equate to authoritarian structure.

Derek’s narrative also collapses under basic logical standards. It relies on false analogies between modern America and pre-industrial Qing China. It treats regional layoffs as a national collapse. It assumes political (they lost) outcomes prove economic decay. It substitutes fear-based language for causal analysis. These are classic logical fallacies. They do not support civilizational conclusions.

The historical comparison itself is backward. China’s Century of Humiliation occurred because it lacked modern military power, industrial infrastructure, and monetary sovereignty, and because it suffered forced treaty ports and colonial occupation. The United States holds technological dominance, sovereign currency control, military superiority, domestic food and energy surplus, and territorial security. The structural conditions do not match.

What the United States is actually experiencing is demographic restructuring, trade realignment, technology-driven labor displacement, post-stimulus monetary tightening, and cultural polarization. These are transition dynamics. They are system corrections. They are not civilizational decay.

Derek’s and other collapse narratives flourish when societies experience rapid change. They offer emotional stability during institutional transitions, labor market shifts, and technological disruptions to social order. They feel persuasive because they mirror anxiety. They are not measurements of reality.

Civilizations do not fall from politics. They fall when production, energy, currency, transport, security, and legitimacy collapse simultaneously. None of those conditions exists in the United States. The system remains globally dominant.

Derek’s “century of shame” is not an analysis; it is a progressive crying in his beer because his team lost and lost big. This represents a shift in narrative caused by social stress.