American empire sets the stage for the possibility of true universalism in almost exactly the way that the European nation-state project does not.
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Americanism is bound under a military project: It is a unification through the overriding power of one set of governing institutions. This allows for unification beneath it across ethnic boundaries. The European project of the nation-state being a people or a Volk disallows this.
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In fairness we should allow that this is also true of Chinese universal social credit and their thousand-year claim to every territory outside their borders
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Oh yes I think China and America are actually very similar in this regard, and in the friction that both run up against when looking at ethnic conceptions of group identity.
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There's a strong difference though which is that China tries to back-door a kind of "pan-Asian-ness" through its historical claims. "All our neighbors are China" but staunchly denies any universalism that goes beyond historical military unity. It's an odd mix.
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