Super long form article on the politics of water, housing, development, farming and immigration in Arizona where the legislature is almost fully captured by MAGA nihilists and where the kinda-hero of the story is a Mormon zealot who believes in the divine inspiration of the Constitution
We’re fucking doomed y'all
Jesus Christ that's a novel. I read it for about an hour but have to stop
My 2c: it doesn't matter what happens to the US because there's nothing here of value. In fact the sooner it collapses the better. We are an impediment to progress. What matters now, on the scale of centuries, is China.
I guess watching the US decay is interesting from an anthropological perspective. Which is what articles like these are windows into.
The wild card of course is the depths of depravity this place will descend to as it crumbles. As long as it stays internal, it only matters to those of us with the misfortune of having to live here and of course the vassal states who have married their economies to our misfortunes
I mean in terms of the geopolitics of the home region and local resources, the United States has the potential to be in a good position in this unfolding crisis. However, the decentralized nature of it's constitution makes that better said than done. The way they would justify taking action, as they have justified all things done nationally over the last century, would be through the Federal government's enumerated power of maintaining the military, and all the economic sectors that come with it.
The prospect of an American collapse further frightens me because of the question of who would receive control of its arsenal of world ending weapons. It could potentially make the attempts by more responsible actors like China to mitigate this climate crisis a moot point, which is why the Chinese (or any power of note for that matter) have always wanted a stable America.
~26,000 words!
It’s scary as fuck though. I just hope I die before it gets really bad.