Has America Jumped The Shark? (Part I)

Remember Happy Days? If so, do you remember an episode in which the Fonz, while water skiing, jumped over a shark? It is a moment of such lameness and cheese that from that point on, the show would never recover. It was all down hill from there. This concept, originated by the guys at Jump the Shark, has since spiralled into mainstream use to the point that television shows like The Simpsons and the X-Files have referenced it. Now it can be applied to all manner of things that can peak and go into inexorable decline. For example, Bryan Adams jumped the shark when he did that song for theThree Musketeers soundtrack with Rod Stewart and Sting. Cadbury Creme Eggs jumped the shark when they started showing up in stores in January and remaing until the last dried-out-and-discounted eggs were sold in June.

The concept has been most often applied to matters of pop culture, but it can go far beyond that. For example, take that historical milestone often referenced as the start of the middle ages — the fall of the Roman Empire. Is that not shark jumping of the grandest scale? Of course, one might debate when Rome really did jump the shark. The obvious answers include when the Vandals sacked Rome in AD 476, or when the Visigoths did in 410. It might well have been much earlier, under Constantine, when the empire was effectively split into two entities, and the defacto capital became Constantinople. From that point on, Rome was on an downhill slope. The actual fall came much later, but Rome had basically jumped the shark a century previous. The average person on the street had no idea, however.

So, if Rome jumped the shark, have other empires? Certainly they have, since all empires eventually fall. Recently we have the example of the Soviet Empire, which can readily be said to have jumped with the invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets were unable to subdue a vastly inferior force, and within two years of their invasion, were already trying to back out of the mess they were involved in. It took them the rest of the decade to fully extricate themselves, and they finished just in time to watch their once proud empire collapse.

All this serves both as an introduction and as evidence. Here at Dontmindme.com we typically aim to amuse our readers, but we are ostensibly a commentary site. Sometimes the commentary isn't very amusing at all. Looking at the situation in the world today, it is very easy to ask if America has, like so many empires that have come before, jumped the proverbial shark. It's highly tempting to say yes.

One problem with declaring that something has jumped the shark is the issue of perspective. You need a certain amount of distance to really see an inexorable decline taking place, whether that distance is physical or temporal. Hindsight is 20/20, and it's a lot easier to look back on the past and say "Ah, this is where it all went wrong." Since the American empire is still with us, pronoucing the point of no return is perhaps a little premature. We can still propose some theories, though.

The most obvious point in time to say that America jumped the shark would be of course Operation Iraqi Freedom. We can probably all agree that Saddam's ouster was a good thing, but the current mess over there is downright appalling. Where is the American military power, the much-touted "most powerful military force ever assembled?" Why can't all this strength handle a few insurgents with RPGs? The fact is that America does have a very strong presence in Iraq, and that this precence is increasingly unwelcome. So one could say that this is the point where America jumped the shark. That would be a rather shortsighted view, however. This isn't the first time that the United States got involved in a conflict and found that they had bitten off more than they could chew. No, that happened back in the 1960s with Vietnam. . .

To be continued. Check back for Part II of this article next week.