The US is going to lose the 21st century by default because it largely doesn't even think past a financial quarter anymore and because it thinks that a society surviving centuries is about winning and losing. Meanwhile, China is thinking in decades and prioritizing mutual benefit wherever possible.

As it is, the US's hold at this point is largely military and that's in decline and very difficult to build back. Its leadership is increasingly "failsons" become leaders with delusions of reasserting control through overt intimidation, with little of the finesse that the more plotting neocons of yesteryear had. The inertia of compradors willing to sell out their people can only last so long when a country like Iran is able to mutilate the empire's weapons.

Not only is the western empire's latest form dying, but colonialism is dying too. Its most overt ideological flagship, israel, is despised and is struggling to maintain its varied and overextended fronts. And the EU... the EU that keeps acting like it's a big player swinging even though its bat shrinks by the day is certainly not going to be keeping the colonial banner high.

So yeah, denial for sure. The west is on track for a rough awakening to the reality that it's not a supreme society, never was, and that the east is already moving on without it.