joining me now are ben judah and hopefully nesrine malik will join us shortly. both journalists and authors. ben, when you look at this, how do you square it with the idea of what we've been hearing about, which is this sort of decline of american power. has america declined but yet somehow has the power to inspire? >> i think it's very important to remember that a political empire and a cultural empire are not the same thing. and they've never been the same thing historically. indeed, if we look back at the decline of the rome an empire, political decline set in the rome an empire a good 200 years before the eventual eclipse of the dominance of rome an culture. one could say rome an culture is still with us to this day. what's interesting to me right now is as the face of the american political empire, which is very much in crisis, the old ideological west, is this caricature of white america, the face of american cultural power, cultural charisma and soft power, which is resonating around the world is the face of black america. >> that's fascinating. so, when