I generally agree, I don't see the conditions for any serious unrest happening during this election. Most likely there's going to be a lot of moaning from the side that loses, but it's unlikely to translate into any serious unrest. I expect there will be some catalyst down the road that kicks things off such as another banking crisis.

The military is indeed set up to ensure that it's not loyal to any particular state. I think that's why Florida and Texas are manoeuvring to increase the role of National Guard.

I find it's hard to tell what the big capitalists really think in US. Ultimately, they don't really have any loyalty to the state, and their calculation may be that Balkanization would allow them to increase the rate of exploitation. At least some of them are realizing that the empire is dying, and that they may be planning for that. For example, Dalio openly talks about the end of the empire in his Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order book. So, it's not like these people don't understand what's happening.

The two options they have is to either take on China and Russia militarily which would almost certainly lead to a nuclear holocaust, or to accept that the empire is fading, and refocus exploitation on the imperial core. In the latter scenario they'd be fighting each other for the scraps, hence why securing personal fiefdoms may become an appealing prospect.

Not to draw too close of a parallel, but it could be a scenario similar to the fall of USSR where the oligarchs emerged by grabbing any state assets they could get their hands on.

Very much agree that the democrat side of the equation would entirely rely on the state to do the repression, where the right has some nascent organization at grassroots level. Incidentally, if the US does descend into full fascism, it's much more likely to happen under the dems. If there is another event like Jan 6 riots, that could be used as an excuse to suspend a lot of civil liberties. In fact, you see prominent dems already taking the stance that the first amendment is a problem and needs to be done away with. So, it wouldn't be dem stans joining militias, but rather giving open support to a fascist state and legitimizing it.

Also true that people live under tyranny in other places, and that things can get pretty bad before any sort of uprisings happen. I do think that the US is somewhat unique in this regard because of the whole mythology around freedom that's so ingrained in people. It's also a place where there are more guns per capita than anywhere in the world. Again, I don't mean there's going to be some organized uprising or anything, more of sectarian violence all across the country.

Overall, it's pretty hard to predict the shape of events and there are many different ways things could play out. That said, I do expect that the tensions will continue to build, and at some point the building contradictions will have to be resolved. I don't see any path towards material conditions improving under the current system, so I think the trajectory towards collapse is locked in at this point. The key questions is what shape it will take when it does happen.