The US has been annexing land almost since its foundation. Ask the original Native Americans. Or the people of Hawaii. Or Puerto Rico.

The US USP was essentially just its success as a consumer economy, with relative prosperity compared to Rest of World and nice things to buy.

And there used to be nominal free speech. You could criticise the government, and nothing would happen unless you became organised enough to start threatening capital, in which case you might well be murdered.

That's the good news. The bad news is that non-whites in the US have always had a much worse time of it, and the veneer of freedom has always been very thin for them.

Now the US has stopped pretending to be a creative economy and has decided not to hide its addiction to violent extraction.

So we'll see how that works out for everyone.