Honestly to me the USA seems to be closer to 79 BC than 180 AD. After a close call, we have a few good years as a republic yet, and are far more powerful than our peer competitors. American influence is expanding right now.
Michael Parenti does a good job of painting the crises of the first century BC (with some mentions of the Gracchi) as a class struggle in his People’s History of Ancient Rome.
This is an excellent example of wishful thinking. American influence is clearly shrinking. Just one example: when Biden went on a tour to oil-producing countries to ask them to increase oil production, every single country either ignored him or agreed to make homeopatic scale increase (which was presented as a huge win by US media).
Are you?
Americans like to repeat that and certainly believe it but is it still as true as it was?
It’s probably still true military but in term of influence the USA is less relevant by the day. You weren’t very successful at convincing developing countries to sanction Russia for exemple.
The US is one of the largest producers of oil, a large exporter of food, and a large exporter of tech.
None of those sticks were used against developing countries to get them to sanction Russia because currently there's no need
Arguably US was even weaker in that regard during the cold war. E.g. the response to the invasion of Czechoslovakia was much weaker in every regard. Granted there weren't many soviet billionaires to sanction but sending weapons there would have been inconceivable (especially on this scale)