The American Empire Never Died. You Just Stopped Calling It That.

You’ve probably heard the debate: Should the United States have kept its overseas empire? It’s a question that sparks endless pontificating in English-language circles. We agonize over the strategic and moral errors of letting territories go. But there’s a glaring problem with this entire discourse. We are arguing over whether to keep a system we structurally refuse to name.

We didn’t dismantle the American empire. We just stripped off the colonial uniforms and put on corporate suits.

The premise that the US gave up its empire is historically illiterate. If anything, post-WWII American power became more powerful and pernicious, morphing from formal territorial rule into informal economic and military hegemony. But you wouldn’t know that from listening to English-language pundits.

There is a fascinating language gap that exposes our blind spot. When people discuss the US in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or German, two words are all over the discussion: imperialism and empire. In English? Those words are treated as fringe, academic, or simply taboo. Americans are arguing over whether to keep a system they lack the vocabulary to name. It’s like debating the health risks of smoking while banning the word “cigarette.”

This linguistic blind spot allows a dangerous cognitive dissonance to fester. We pride ourselves on being an anti-colonial force for good, a beacon of liberty. Yet, we simultaneously maintain a global network of military bases and economic leverage that dictates terms to sovereign nations. And at home, the tension is even more acute.

Look at Puerto Rico. Look at Guam. Look at Washington D.C. The original article’s thrust relies on the idea that American annexation brings large positive effects, pointing to the economic performance of states and territories still within the US compared to nations we let go. But commenters rightly noted the massive GDP disparities between the poorest US states and the wealthiest. The material benefits of annexation are wildly uneven. And more importantly, they come at the steep cost of self-determination.

The United States doesn’t just collect overseas territories; it collects moral errors like Pokémon cards, desperately trying to catch ’em all. We speak of exporting democracy and the rule of law, framing annexation as a civilizing force. One commentator hilariously noted the absurdity of claiming “only an extreme blood-and-soil nationalist would prefer indigenous anarchy or tyranny to imperial democracy.” It’s a neat rhetorical trick to frame imperial domination as a charitable act of liberation.

But every appeal to American “liberation” rings incredibly hollow when the people being liberated don’t even get a vote in the system that governs them.

This isn’t just academic geopolitical navel-gazing. The status of these territories determines who gets full representation, who gets rights, and who bears the hidden costs of American prosperity. The ongoing reach of US military and economic power relies on a populace that genuinely believes it is anti-imperial.

The real question isn’t whether we should have kept the American empire. We kept it. The real question is whether either form of dominance—territorial or economic—actually delivers the prosperity and liberty we claim to export. And we can’t even begin to answer that until we admit what we are.

The American empire isn’t a historical artifact in a museum. It’s the shadow covering Puerto Rico, Guam, and D.C. right now. And you can’t fix a shadow by pretending it isn’t there.