The American Dream Needs Hospice Care

I don’t mean this as hyperbole or some dramatic act of rebellion. I mean it in the same way we talk about a beloved relative who’s lived a long, full life, and whose body simply can’t keep up anymore. There comes a point when prolonging life becomes cruel. When every heroic measure to cure them is only creating more pain. When the most compassionate thing we can do is stop pretending that “recovery” is possible, hold their hand, and say goodbye.

That’s where the American Empire is right now. We’ve got tubes and wires and IV drips keeping the illusion alive. The illusion of endless growth, of moral superiority, of “exceptionalism.” But anyone with eyes to see can tell the patient’s not getting any better. The heart of democracy is weak. The organs of justice are failing. The nervous system of truth and reason is riddled with sepsis. And instead of facing that truth, we’re fighting each other over which medicine to try next.  Left or Right, red pill or blue pill, capitalism or “reformed capitalism.” Meanwhile, the Empire groans on the ventilator, unable to speak, unable to heal. Empires Don’t Last Forever Every empire believes it’s the exception to the rule that all Empires must end. The Romans thought so. The British thought so. We think so. But history’s one long hospice wing for dying empires. They all eventually reach this moment we find ourselves in today. The moment when expansion turns to exhaustion, when dominance collapses under its own weight, and when our greed and our fears hollow out the soul of our nation. The American Empire isn’t dying because of what “the other side” is doing or has done. It’s dying because it was built on myths that we can no longer sustain:

• That endless consumption equals prosperity.
• That global domination equals safety.
• That violence equals peace.
• That money equals success.

Those are the stories that once fueled this machine. Now they’re the toxins in our nation’s bloodstream. Hospice, Not Heroics Hospice doesn’t mean we’re happy to see anyone die. It simply means embracing the inevitable. It means we stop pretending this system can be “fixed” by electing better politicians or slapping a fresh coat of paint on our collapsing institutions. It means we sit by the bedside, acknowledge what’s true, and make peace with what’s coming. Here’s the hard part: hospice care isn’t just for the Empire — it’s for us. We have to grieve. We have to let go of these myths that have shaped our identity. We have to mourn the death of what we thought America was supposed to be. We have to admit that America never became what it pretended to be. We never managed to become a nation where all people were created equal. We tried. We got close, but that ideal never came into fruition. We never became a place where liberty and justice were available to all. We never lived up to the promise of our founding documents. We never brought the ideals we sang about in our National Anthem into being. We got close, perhaps. Sometimes. For some people. But many, many people came to this country believing those things were true, only to discover it was all an illusion. What Comes Next Hospice also means comfort. It means compassion. It means that even in dying, there can be dignity. If we can allow this empire to die peacefully without the prideful thrashing of denial, or the violent clashing of civil war,  something new, something better, might actually have a chance to be born. But, the end of our empire doesn’t have to mean the end of hope. It doesn’t have to mean we give up on the American Dream. As this American Empire dies, what needs to be born in its place is a more human (and humane) way of living:

• We need communities built on cooperation instead of competition.
• We need economies rooted in equity rather than excess.
• We need a politics shaped by empathy and not by fear.

This isn’t naïve optimism. It’s the simple truth that life continues after death. That resurrection is inevitable. That a seed must fall to the ground and die before it can bear any fruit. So maybe it’s time we stop praying for the resuscitation of this dying Empire and start preparing for the funeral service where we take the time to reflect on our troubled past. Let’s take the time to sit with what is dying. Let’s tell the truth. Let’s love what remains. And when the final breath comes at last, let us whisper, “Thank you for what you taught us. It’s okay to let go. Rest now.” Because the new world is waiting to be born. Let’s bury our dead and start dreaming about what comes next. SPECIAL THANKS to D.T. Bryant for the use of his brilliant concept of Hospice Care as a metaphor as borrowed from his book, Unless A Seed Falls To The Ground (Quoir Publishing). ** Keith Giles is the best-selling author of the Jesus Un series. He has been interviewed on CNN with Anderson Cooper, Coast to Coast Radio with George Noory, USA Today, BuzzFeed, and John Fugelsang’s “Tell Me Everything” on Sirius XM Radio. He lives in El Paso, TX with his wife, Wendy.