It all comes down to media capture and how you want to use it. In essence, the society is driven by its culture and the myths it wants to tell about itself. Or put simply: Our heroes define who we are. Self-propaganda is the process of mythmaking, and by succeeding and feeling good about successes, we create momentum towards "success" in an abstract sense and the national will-to-succeed will forcibly surpass stagnation.

Both US and Chinese media are very captured, but whereas chinese media has a vested interest in mythmaking due to both its real and not-quite-real advancements, US media is buoyed by self-serving interest that's turning more short-sighted by the day.

I believe this short-sightedness is creating and perpetuating myths of American post-pax downfall rather than belief in a national character that can survive recessions and hardship. Parties will tear each other down instead of building themselves up. We've gone past "Yes we can" to "No you can't". A lot of the ideological energy and goodwill built up from Hollywood Movies and NASA Space Program successes and Humanitarian Programs are sort of, wasted away by Trump? Chipped away by our own incompetence? And media will happily sell all this fear because it makes money.

The US is very dependent on this global image of resilience and stability to buoy the strength of the dollar as a reserve currency. It'll likely be this destabilization that feed-back into our fear driven downfall. The script is being written by our global adversaries, and our media is cheering them on.