Funny you mention Brezhnev. I was reading the wiki article for the term "Gerontocracy" and couldn't help but notice the anti-communist propaganda (framing it as if all communist states inevitably get run by out-of-touch, senile old fucks) immediately followed by the United States section.
So you mean as soon as a new leader orders tanks to shoot the congress buildings with parliamentarians inside the United States (like Union of Soviets!) breaks apart in a multitude of "nations"?
Eh, it’s definitely different because of settler colonialism and the cities and populations developing in a much shorter time then in Europe, but I do think there would be enough differences that some areas would want to, it just wouldn’t be all individual 50 states, or even necessarily perfectly in current state lines.
The biggest ones that comes to mind are Texas and the former confederate states, who already constantly threaten to, or at least the republicans there in.
That brings up some concerns about how the large and mostly democratic POC populations in those states would react.
And now writing this, I think you might be right, America is very divided and I don’t know if whatever regional differences exist is enough to create sovereign states in the same way as ethnic nationalism could in the former USSR.
Plenty of good comparisons to the late Soviet era. People in general - from the presidium all the way to the regular people - were largely just "going through the motions" of it all. The entire leadership was a gerontocracy and completely out of touch with what younger people wanted and were unresponsive. In the face of numerous economic challenges, instead of being pragmatic and trying out new ideas, the leadership just stuck with all the "old ways of doing things".
Red Plenty is a great book about this, but you have to go into it with the right mindset. It's easy to read it and become a real doomer because the USSR genuinely tried to get socialism right but they just couldn't put it all together. It depressed me at first but I later realized all the mistakes the USSR made don't have to be repeated. Instead, Red Plenty basically reads like the present-day USA. We (US Americans) can see the problems in our system and are both unwilling and unable to fix them. And think it's gonna lead to some sort of collapse.
The United States right now is having a lot of parallels to the Soviet Union in the late Brezhnev era:
An increasing amount of people losing faith in the government.
Common people continuing to have economic issues.
Foreign military conflicts occurring, especially in the Middle East, that are, at best, stalemates.
The head of government is having, or has had, a mental decline.
even Brezhnev and the soviet bureaucracy at it's most corrupt and self-serving still found a way to give everyone free healthcare...
and housing...
and education...
and food...
goddamn it lenin return to us :cyber-lenin:
deleted by creator
https://www.tiktok.com/@we.kant.even/video/6873441020441365765
What invading and occupying Afghanistan does to a mf
Graveyard of empires takes its... fuck, how many times as Afghanistan toppled an empire again? I lost count
Eh, Alexander and the Mongols did it just fine.
Well where are they now smart guy?? Afghanistan don’t miss
Funny you mention Brezhnev. I was reading the wiki article for the term "Gerontocracy" and couldn't help but notice the anti-communist propaganda (framing it as if all communist states inevitably get run by out-of-touch, senile old fucks) immediately followed by the United States section.
so our next leader will sell us out for a mediocre meal and plunge us into horrifying conditions?
Pizza Hut!
Kamala state visit to the U.K., 2025 - The Empire Strikes back
So you mean as soon as a new leader orders tanks to shoot the congress buildings with parliamentarians inside the United States (like Union of Soviets!) breaks apart in a multitude of "nations"?
ooooh, when!?
sadly dissolution of the union is unlikely because none of the states have any culture or identity of their own unlike in the soviet union.
Eh, it’s definitely different because of settler colonialism and the cities and populations developing in a much shorter time then in Europe, but I do think there would be enough differences that some areas would want to, it just wouldn’t be all individual 50 states, or even necessarily perfectly in current state lines.
The biggest ones that comes to mind are Texas and the former confederate states, who already constantly threaten to, or at least the republicans there in.
That brings up some concerns about how the large and mostly democratic POC populations in those states would react.
And now writing this, I think you might be right, America is very divided and I don’t know if whatever regional differences exist is enough to create sovereign states in the same way as ethnic nationalism could in the former USSR.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Plenty of good comparisons to the late Soviet era. People in general - from the presidium all the way to the regular people - were largely just "going through the motions" of it all. The entire leadership was a gerontocracy and completely out of touch with what younger people wanted and were unresponsive. In the face of numerous economic challenges, instead of being pragmatic and trying out new ideas, the leadership just stuck with all the "old ways of doing things".
Red Plenty is a great book about this, but you have to go into it with the right mindset. It's easy to read it and become a real doomer because the USSR genuinely tried to get socialism right but they just couldn't put it all together. It depressed me at first but I later realized all the mistakes the USSR made don't have to be repeated. Instead, Red Plenty basically reads like the present-day USA. We (US Americans) can see the problems in our system and are both unwilling and unable to fix them. And think it's gonna lead to some sort of collapse.
Real HyperNormalisation hours
deleted by creator