(e.g: sanctions against Russia backfiring, Ukraine being a US quagmire, or a fantasy that decline will mean a great awakening of the masses to seize the moment for a second Civil Rights movement or even revolution)
A state of decline can still be kept afloat through debt and intimidation. With receding rewards and profits of being the imperial core, this system of domination and exploitation can , like a dying sun, become more intense, destructive, and normal.
Think of how much in the past twenty to thirty years has been normalized in the US: school shootings, police shootings/murder and abuse of power by police, state, and federal government. Spying on its own citizens, extrajudicial assassinations and black sites. The list goes on.
A state of decline can find a new grounds of sustainability for its capitalist engine through more overt adopted fascist strategies and tactics against labor and enemies, foreign and domestic.
Is decline a good thing in this context? Would a state of decline transmute the volatility of the state to revolutionary moments seized by a neo-nascent American communist front?
These are just some background thoughts I've been having in my mind when I skim the website, forgive me if the tone comes off as :reddit-logo: :debate-me-debate-me: but I found the insight of some of the posters here quite helpful and astute and was hoping for some of thst collective wisdom.
The biggest impediment to leftist development is that the state loathes our existence whilst welcoming wiling brownshirts crying out for more fascism. Though it will be horrible the decline of the US empire will be a net good for the global south as well as for any leftist movements that can occur, I do not expect any within rural America but urban sectors will likely see them flourish as people band together to stave off a declining state. The biggest threat at that point will be local police and fash militia which will require a armed and prepared leftist cohort to organize alongside other aspects of leftist mutual aide (food kitchens, shelters, community libraries/classrooms, community medical outreach etc).