MARCO RUBIO’S ‘END OF HISTORY’ APOLOGIA

IMPLEMENTING THE AMERICAN COMPASS PLAN FOR NATIONAL REVIVAL

By Dr. Digby James Wren

On the 3rd of June 2025 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the collective membership of American Compass, a Washington D.C. conservative think-tank. Secretary Rubio’s introductory comments were revealing. When dealing with international realities the US was restricted by domestic laws and statutes that limited the Trump administration’s exercise of executive action. Noting his own inexperience in passing some of those laws, Rubio expressed growing appreciation for the utility of consolidation of power within the US government’s unelected executive branch. Dismissing media criticism of executive action as an “authoritarian form of government,” Rubio suggested that greater executive powers were required, because he had a growing awareness that US domestic and economic decisions were inextricably intertwined with geopolitics. Rubio’s naiveté notwithstanding, his audience of political conservatives and Jewish lobbyists, who believe free market fundamentalism is “pathetically simplistic” and that only “consolidated executive power” can reverse the decline of US global influence, were eager to hear Rubio’s ‘End of History’ apologia.

History repeats, said Rubio, because human nature, unlike technology, fashion and language, is programmed with the desire for ‘belonging’. Humans everywhere seek commune, whether in tribal organisation, ethnic nations, city-states or nation-states. The advent of the nation-state was a normal evolution of human behavior and fundamental to geopolitical decisions. Unfortunately, US Cold War era political elites had forgotten this fundamental truth. In that era, American understanding of the world was framed by cultural messaging about nuclear Armageddon, because the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were locked in [global proxy] conflict and warfare.