The US is obviously on the decline and in some ways it has already collapsed, but I'm talking about the timeline for the end of the collapse, not the beginning. It's tempting to believe itll happen in my lifetime, but i fear that might just be cope on my part. I hope I'll be alive to witness the death of the thing I hate most in the world, but it feels a bit like millenarianism to confidently state "hell yeah, the final collapse is gonna happen during my lifetime," so I'm hesitant to hold out hope for it. Every time I've hoped for anything, it hasn't happened.
Do you think the US can resist balkanization and/or another form of the collapse of state power for 20 more years? 50? 100? What do you think will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and why? How do you think power will reorganize in the aftermath? Sound off in the comments below, and don't forget to like and subscribe.
All discussion of US balkanization must be preceded by the following questions: which politician would be willing to personally put their skin on the line to harm the national integrity of the US? What benefit could they not already gain from simply playing the game of the corporate oligarchy and reaping millions in personal benefits and limitless access to state power?
Dems and Reps alike are totally insulated from damaging policies either party can implement. There is no benefit for any of them to be declared a traitor and commit suicide by five gunshots to the back of the head while tied up inside a briefcase.
US Balkanization won't happen with each state declaring independence, it will be de facto nations that all claim to the be the US and mutually disavow eachother.
My bold prediction is that there's some big incident caused by fascists on the border. Like a volunteer force of Chuds executing climate refugees with machine guns by the hundreds. Half the country will of course support them, but the coastal states will disavow it. The Texas government will see the writing on the wall and refuse any judgements on "VOLUNTEER HEROS" from the WASHINGTON ELITE.
This will have to be at a time when the federal government repeatedly fails to provide disaster relief during a climate crisis. Rolling blackouts, hospitals not functioning, runaway inflation. Hell maybe we fail to invade Iran first and after that humiliation CHUDs accuse the democrats of turning our soldiers gay.
Like a volunteer force of Chuds executing climate refugees with machine guns by the hundreds
That might survive two weeks in the news cycle
Again, as long as there is a "fed gov" in DC run by some ghoul or another, no-one, not one goddamn lib politician will give a floppy wet fuck about migrants being killed at the border; they're doing that right fucking now under a lib government. It's not some future hypothetical, this is happening right as we speak. Gavin fucking Newsom's equally lib future replacement is not going to secede because Texan chuds murder people, that's never gonna happen, he has nothing to gain from it, and even if Californians rose up, he'd sooner call the billion-dollar-funded California police and national guard to just murder protestors until they give up while handwringing on tv about how awful it is that those poor people are dying at the border, but this is a country of law and order and protests must be done through the proper channels or whatever. We've seen last summer's BLM shit, with Whitmer, Newsom, Cuomo, DeBlasio and all these other "progressive" monsters condemn police violence with one hand while calling for protesters to be shot and plowed through by ravaging police cruisers with the other.
They don't give a fuck. They are safe and insulated.
Well, the US as it is now will never be dissolved. First the material conditions need to change (get much much worse) enough that whatever is eventually dissolved will bear very little resemblance to the - by comparison - paragon of efficient and functional statecraft that is the US today.
Balkanization would happen after a legitimacy crisis such that the feds don't really exist anymore, losing capacity to do anything except war. Each initial group would claim to be Real America.
At that point, what could be known as de-facto USA would cease to exist, and I dunno about you, but the fed blob exists solely to further and justify its own existence, America will sooner be ravaged by civil war before the fed itelf ceases to function, or, more accurately, even in the midst of a civil war, the CIA/NSA/FBI etc will continue doing their usual work undeterred and unabated as if there's nothing else going on, and indeed may present themselves as a government unto itself, promising a continuation of law, order, and capitalism.
Eh, it can happen in many ways, but I really do not see any form of secession, formal or de facto without being de jure, happening. Maybe, just maybe, if some other political force outside of the usual class dynamics took control of a state at the state and local level in its near totality, could I see some formal withdrawal, and that would kick off some kind of civil war, not the other way around.
The thing that would drive this would be material interests, of course. Like a large-scale internal refugee crisis that pits states' ruling class interests against one another.
The only thing I can state for certain is that it will happen within Henry Kissinger's lifetime. As for cause, I'm going to go with the classic invasion of "sea people". If it worked for the bronze age empires, it'll work for the US.
The only thing I can state for certain is that it will happen within Henry Kissinger’s lifetime.
wow
Climate changes refugees turn to raiding US coastal cities with high tech iron weapons after border patrol refuses to let them in
At first I arrived at the same conclusion about thinking it would happen anytime soon being cope, but then I remembered the early parts of the pandemic when all the states were stealing covid supplies from each other and having to hide them from the feds who were stealing supplies to resell.
If that is where the underlying relationship between states and the federal government is at I could see a big enough shock setting off balkanization, such as water shortages or other events where the contested supplies are more desperately needed.
I could see a big enough shock setting off balkanization, such as water shortages or other events
One of my guesses is power outages. Twice in the last year, both with hurricane Ida and the Texas winter storm, we were a couple minutes and a couple slightly different decisions away from tens of millions of people losing electricity for months. I bet the heat wave in the PNW wasn't great either, I know there were a lot of temporary/rolling blackouts. We got lucky those times, but how many more times will we get lucky?
U.S. internal stability is predicated on two main factors: the flow of cheap treats from the global south, and the ability of the population to access those treats. When the treats stop flowing, or when a critical mass of people no longer have access to treats, that's when things will get dicey. How long that takes to happen, I have no idea.
I've picked it up by osmosis by spending too much time on twitter. Maybe it started with Chapo? I'm not sure.
I don't believe it will happen anytime soon. Too many powerful interests benefit from the US staying together than from it breaking up. US nationalistic ideology and propaganda is also extremely powerful.
I'm more looking forward to watching Europe fall apart without the hegemon/scapegoat that keeps them all together. Once America's troops are out of Europe, it'll fall apart within 10 years. Not just the military occupation, but the convenient one to blame whenever things go wrong, or just when Europeans feel frustrated and need to blow off some steam. They'll have to face themselves, and it will be glorious.
Hundreds of years. An anglosphere union with :ukkk: :kkkanada: :aus-delenda-est: is far, far, far more likely than the USA splitting into multiple states. We might lose Guam and some of the Pacific Islands, might double down.
Timelines are very difficult to predict. In particular, I think any downfall will be predicated on predictable coincidences - the US prepared itself to run 2 large wars simultaneously to get big-ass military budgets and fuck the world but will deplete its capacity to handle two hurricanes without society breaking down. When will those crises happen, what will they entail? Their material impact depends on the answer to those questions and we don't know what combo will be devastating, just that eventually one will be and that it becomes increasingly likely under the current economic regime.
Even worse, we don't really know how the state will respond to its death throes. A state with incredible military dominance getting hollowed out, facing decline: does it just Peter out, does it lash out to create new imperial endeavours that put the current ones to shame, does it start WWIII in a xenophobic scapegoating fury? These all seem plausible to me and I don't think I can differentiate between their likelihoods or timelines.
We should try to plan for resiliency against all of these things as well as their precursors so that we can plot a course that's a few years out at all times since going decades out is difficult.
What specific features of the US need to stop being true for it to qualify as a collapse? If you're looking for a sudden shift in towards local governments having more power than the federal one, that already happened and is happening. Withdrawal from international warfare is already happening. We already had a month of natural disasters with no significant federal response.
If you're just waiting for the name to change, I don't think that will ever happen. We'll keep voting for a new president every four years long after the president has lost all practical political power. And whenever some movement has the power to act on a national level again, they'll get their leader or a patsy elected as president.
10,000 more years of this hellworld, if humans last that long. :doomjak:
