What is clear watching the U.S. election season unfold from Europe and the Middle East, is that the entire process—whether Barack Obama’s lackluster job performance or the ease with which the corporate Right used the anger of millions of Americans to strengthen their power even more—represents the seemingly unalterable decline of the US from the hyper-power status it has enjoyed for the last 65 years to merely one of a group of major powers, none of whom unilaterally have the power to bend other countries to their will.