I think most people from rich countries would still prefer the US to be dominant than China. The US at least talks a good game when it comes to freedom of speech, etc. China doesn’t even try to pretend to care about that. But, the US is chaotic and belligerent, whereas China is mostly using soft power these days

I agree with you.

The assumption I make is that the advantages of the US (higher personal freedom, of speech and economically) will further decline as Mango Mussolini respectively the people pulling his strings are far from done with restructuring the US democracy in their favor. In the end US citizens might end up with a repressive system similar to China but with lack of the claim to care for everyone.

For the moment I agree that most Western citizens will still prefer the US society over a Chinese one.

Concerning the ‘will the US recover?’ question, my two cents:

I don’t think the US will be able to recover the lost influence since the prerequisties for it reaching that level if power and influence have changed / are gone. The US dominated ‘the West’ in its fight againgst an authoritarian communist regime and build its global hegemony on the victory in this conflict. Even if the US could regain some trust the current system rival China is way smarter and more convincing in its promises to the regular citizen than the SU was during most of its time… eventhough both systems labeled themselves ‘communis’.

That being said I don’t think the modern US could realistically neither win an arms race based on state finances against China nor make a better promise for the insividuals future. The US hegemony crumbels and imho impossibly will return… if a chinese dominance is better, especially for western citizens, also remains questionable.