America Takes Over the World

My fellow Earthicans...

For decades, America has been growing in military power, becoming the world's sole superpower after the fall of the USSR. Since then, it has come to dominate the world economically and socially as well as militarily. Thus, a common conceit of scifi and some Satire is to have the world also fall under the political control of Washington. Jokes about entire countries becoming the n+50th state are common. The recent economic shift in the new millenium will put this theory to the test.

Sub-Trope of both Take Over the World and Expanded States of America. Compare United Space of America. See also Japan Takes Over the World, and China Takes Over the World.

Opposing tropes are the Divided States of America and the Invaded States of America.

Examples of America Takes Over the World include:

Anime and Manga

• In Bubblegum Crisis almost everybody has at least half-Western name, and there's a black chief of police, among other decidedly un-Japanese details in this futuristic city of Megatokyo. It's probably a direct Shout-Out to Blade Runner, which featured a huge Japanese population in America.
• The second season of Darker than Black reveals the motive of the U.S. involvement in the Gambit Pileup being that America wants to be a superpower again. The ending has American forces invading Japan, and it's implied that they succeed to some degree. Of course, this is one of the less bizarre events that happens in that ending.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam 00 America clearly dominates the Union powerbloc that includes the entire western hemisphere, plus Japan.
• In Code Geass most of the world is dominated by the Holy Brittainian Empire, but Britain itself has been lost. However, the American Revolution was crushed and thus the colonies became the new base of the empire, which proceeded to take over the entirety of both American continents.

Literature

• In Jennifer Government, the USA has absorbed all of North and South America (except Cuba), the British Islands, India, most of South East Asia, and most recently Australia into a single market. Russia is in the process of being assimilated.
• Mention is made of a very militarized American Empire in Mortal Engines, though the story takes place After the End and it had already fallen.
  • It's more America Destroys The World. It's mentioned by a character that "the old American Empire was quite insane at the end."
  • Both of the series' important superweapons are explicitly stated to be American, as well.
• A very popular trope in modern Russian sci-fi. The cliche goes something like this: The U.S. either create some sort of world government or otherwise subjugate most of the world and then invade Russia, the last country keeping them from complete world domination. They either get the shaft during the invasion or succeed in conquering Russia, only to be toppled several years later by a highly Badass Russian La Résistance.
• The Prince Roger series by David Weber and John Ringo take place in a future where the capital of a multi-planet Empire of Man is Washington, DC.^[1]
• The Clone Republic series by Steven L. Kent is set in 2508, after the United States took over the world and then became a sort of Constitutional Oligarchy called the Unified Authority.
• The titular CoDominium is an alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union working together to dominate Earth.
• In First and Last Men by Olaf Stapledon, the first 'men' (that is, us) end up being split between US and Chinese spheres of influence. The US eventually tips it, and remains dominant until the entire society collapses due to an energy crisis.
• The Lionboy book trilogy by Zizou Corder includes several off-hand references to 'the Empire'. It takes a bit of reading between the lines for a while to realise that this means America.

Live-Action TV

• Background material for the Firefly 'verse establishes that America and China took over Earth That Was together.

Music

• The album The Uprising by Muse takes place in a world where a coalition government rules all of the Norther Hemisphere, the United States of Eurasia

Other

• In Christendom, America pretty much runs the world. At the very least, America and Australia are now one state.

Video Games

• Front Mission depicts both North and South America merged into one nation called the USN.
• Section 8 (video game) had the United States become a repressive interstellar empire, somehow forgetting the ideals it was founded on along the way.
• Fallout's pre-War backstory has the US annexing Canada and successfully invading mainland China in retribution for their invasion of Alaska. Not a full example, for obvious reasons.
• This is the highest objective that can be accomplished by the Americans in Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots in three different campaign modes. Lesser victories such as simply becoming the dominant power on the planet are also possible.
  • World mode is an anachronistic free-for-all between almost all historic great powers, set from the beginning of history up to the future - you can also play as the Americans.
  • America takes a bigger role in New World mode, your goal being to break free from British rule, conquer all of North America at least, drive out every last European power from both American continents, and attain a specific amount of tribute.
  • In Cold War mode the Americans are one of two playable factions, the other being the Soviets. As the Americans you ultimately need to conquer the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, and subjugate the rest of the world as your client states.
• In the Metal Gear Solid series it is established that there was an international conspiracy during the time of the First World War where America, China, and Russia made a secret pact where all 3 of them would work together to make a better world. After World War II the Cold War splintered the group, but eventually the American faction took over all of the group's power and renamed themselves the Patriots. The Patriots as we see them by the time of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4 have consolidated economic, cultural, and technological dominance over most of the world and are taking the final step in world domination by creating a computer system that will monitor every single citizen on Earth that has nano-machines in their bodies and can control all information that flows through the Internet. Fortunately this conspiracy is finally put to an end by the end of the series.
• In the Civilization series, it is possible for the United States to conquer the world. Civilization 5 promotes this by making the American special ability having tiles cost 50% less, effectively letting it swallow up twice as much territories as other empires.

Web Comics

• It's not stated how many other countries they might have taken over, but America apparently annexed Canada at some point in the past of A Miracle of Science.
• One of the villains from Princess Pi, an American dictator named, "Princess Ip", works to make this a reality.

Western Animation

• Futurama varies between the presence and absence of this trope depending on the needs of the joke, but it most commonly presents Earth as a single political entity. Earth's flag is just the modern American flag with the stars replaced by globe centred on America. Also, in one episode, Richard Nixon was initially unable to run for president of Earth due to already serving two terms, indicating continuity between the modern US government of the 1970s and the Earth government of 3000.
• In an episode of The Simpsons, while at a beach in Rio, the lifeguard was able to tell that Homer was an American because he wore a shirt where Uncle Sam was consuming the world with the lines "try and stop us" on it.
• In the future of Meet the Robinsons Canada is referred to briefly as North Montana.

Real Life

• Not yet, but we're working on it. Some could say we're trying to move away from that now, while others could say that that was a facade and we're still trying to do this.
• Right now, The United States is the world's only superpower with a fifteen trillion dollar GDP (China, which is number two, has a six trillion dollar GDP), a larger military budget than the next top ten combined, the world's most high tech nuclear arsenal, massive cultural and political influence, and most importantly, military bases on over a hundred countries all continents. Whether this actually counts as ruling the world is debatable, but needless to say the United States dominates most of the world at the moment.

1. ↑ Though it may only be a partial example, as the glimpses of history we get certainly don't imply any sort of political continuity with the U.S.