this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Around a decade seems like a realistic time frame to me. In my opinion, two big factors driving the collapse are climate change and the rise of BRICS.

US is seeing an increasing number of environmental disasters every year, and this puts pressure on the already ailing infrastructure. Changing climate is also causing droughts that will make large parts of the country unlivable leading to internal migrations of millions of people. The droughts are also causing harvest failures that will eventually result in food shortages. US farming practices also contribute to the problem because they cause soil erosion. I expect that these factors will significantly accelerate the internal conflict within US that's currently building.

Meanwhile, BRICS is creating an alternative economy that's outside western control and that necessarily means that the dollar based economy is now shrinking. Much of the wealth in US and other western countries comes from exploitation of the Global South, and when that stops there's going to be a huge economic disaster in the west.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What do you mean by collapse? You could argue it already has.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

First it started falling over, then it fell over.

Take your pick. Poverty rate, child poverty in particular, child poverty skyrocketing, child slavery skyrocketing too, life expectancy plummeting... etc. failed state.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don't think "failed state" applies. The US government still has full sovereignty over its territories and there is no competing force that has any political or military claim that could realistically contend with the existing state apparatus. Is it a brutal and exploitative state with a fully frayed safety net? Yes. But a failed state? No.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

It’s not going to collapse until we make it collapse

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If Trump wins the next election, the entire thing will collapse within 5 years.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

First sane lemmy.world comment.

However I would not say that the US will collapse. I do not say this lightly, but if trump wins the next election, the US has a straight one way fast pass to becoming a full blown Nazi state. Full religious nationalist theocracy mixed with fascistic privatization of all aspects of the country, combined with an insatiable arms buildup and war preparation.

They will 100% come around to mass executing the LGBT, minorities, any immigrants, non-Christians, Jewish people, the mentally ill and so on.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What do you see as being fundamentally different between the Biden and Trump regimes?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Biden is driven to maintain the status quo and current profit system.

Trump is also committed to this but he is much more egotistical, mentally ill, deranged, and nationalistic.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think you might be overestimating how much power the Amerikan president has; at the end of the day, the state is controlled by the big bourgeoisie (including the MIC, etc.)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I didn’t say that he would become Hitler, but he would accelerate the fall into fascism to light speed

The chancellor of Germany also did not hold as much power as it did until Hitler began consolidating his base and his outreach, quickly destroying any and all threats and checks to his control. While this was “illegal” no one cared because he was an extremely charismatic and excellent orator that could mobilize his followers to do anything.

That sounds eerily similar to what he might attempt.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They do have more power than any president has ever actually exercised, especially if the bourgeoisie are behind it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sure they could get away with some things before the bourgeoisie has time to react, but the people who have any chance of being elected are already bourgeois themselves and/or firmly under bourgeois control (if a president acts against bourgeois interests regardless of this, they have many ways to de-fang or neutralize that person)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, I meant more so if a fascist took power and the bourgeoisie were supporting that

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It could collapse tomorrow or decades, if not centuries from now. Let's hope for the former. The collapse of the USA will undoubtedly make the world a better place.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

What counts as the end of the US? Did Rome end when the city proper was sacked, or when Constantiople fell?

If the US balkanizes would that be the end? Or maybe when DC falls to a foreign power or collapses and loses influence over the states and territories?

I suspect we'll have something that calls itself the United States for a long time to come in any case

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Not too much longer, hopefully.

There seems to be a simultaneous development of incredible animosity towards the state AND fascist appeal (at least around me) so it could go either way.

As other commenters have pointed out, the full takeover of fascists (going mask-off, I mean. We already are fascist obviously) does not mean the end of the USA. I do think, though, that the victory of Trump assuming it happens will speed up the reaction/revolt to the fascistic state in some accelerationist way. Can't imagine USian society wouldn't react to that in some way moreso than a Joe Biden flavor of fascism.

Hard to put a date on it. Could be next year's election, could be 10 years, could be 20. All depends on how hard we shake the tree to make the apple fall.

I, for one, am going to dedicate a huge portion of my life to bringing this shit down, so I have hope. I'm only one person, though. Could be totally wrong and misplaced.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I don't know but think in 20 years. Hope Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam and Mariana islands will secede before that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Many. If anything, Europe will "collapse" before the US as the USA consumes it through the process of vassalisation to keep itself alive. First the US will try win the the inter imperial rivalry between itself and it's allies (the EU and it's biggest member states, Australia, South Korea, Japan), which seems to be going well on the EU front given the Ukraine war. The EU is being successfully vassalised and has lost energy independence after the nordstream gas pipeline bombings. Then the US will shift focus to China.

I know people want to be optimistic, but the US is still a superpower. If you asked communists in the 1950s and early 60s, they probably also thought that the US had little time left, given the progress of the USSR, the rise of anti colonial movements, and the US still struggling massively with internal issues. But in the end, it was the USSR that collapsed, and the neoliberals got their "end of history" moment, until 9/11 happened.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's been collapsing for decades, it's just now becoming more obvious. It's basically already at a collapsed state. I mean, what do we call a society where people regularly can't afford food, water, shelter, or medical attention? Collapse isn't "everything sucks for everyone." It's "everything sucks for most while some still manage to hold on." If you think it hasn't collapsed yet you just aren't yet a victim of it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You still see white people living in nice neighborhoods and spending like crazy, so 🤷🏽‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think maybe 10 or 15 years

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Honestly I'm surprised it lasted this long. I figure that is T***p gets elected in 2024 it'll so the legs, otherwise the cancer will take years. After that who knows. Maybe America 2.0, maybe some new hell. I doubt it'll balkanize, there's too much interdependency, but that's just my opinion with no facts to back it up. Whatever happens though it (or part of it) will still be called the United States. Rebranding wouldn't be a popular choice.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

a minimum of 30 years and probably closer to 50

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Disclaimer: I'm just a bored guy who makes drawings for a living. I live in the US, and this is based on direct observation of local events. I don't actually know what I'm talking about.

I think next year's election will speed or slow the collapse. But ignoring that, and assuming the corporate dickheads who are actually running things keep going like they are, here's my guess:

1-2 years - Theft from large businesses becomes normalized. Police will respond less and less to shoplifting calls, because there are too many calls to respond to.

3-5 years - Riots over food and water start to take place. More people start to immigrate (legally or otherwise) into the US to try and avoid growing heat in central and South America. Attacks on electrical infrastructure rise. In the news: talk about border control, stories about increasing penalties for retail theft and armed guards in every large store. Very serious talk about gun control.

6-10 years - Organized resistance against law enforcement. It will start with people calling 911 and ambushing cops, or cops simply being shot when they pull someone over. (A cop was killed a couple of years ago during a traffic stop in the metro area I live near. Since then, there has been a large and obvious decrease in the amount of traffic stops.) Police can no longer park their cars at home for safety reasons. A billionaire or state/federal offcial is assassinated. Gun control measures start to pass in congress and ate signed into law, because now the "wrong" people have guns.

10-20 years - Repeated attacks on substations, watet treatment facilities, and pumping stations. Due to a lack of funding in maintainence on these systems has people questioning if the failures are from attacks, or breakdowns. Middle class life completely vanishes. Actual civil war is going on, no matter what the news tries to say.

20-30 years - Driving across the country is nearly impossible due to lack of road funding, people are stuck in their local areas. Even making a phone call is questionable. Food, water, and materials drop in quality, due to lack of regulation or lack of regulation enforcement. Outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and other Shakespearian ailments sweep across what's left of the country. Elites who hid in bunkers in previous decades are killed when their staff gets tired of them.

As for the end result? I don't know. There isn't a nice obvious dividing line between one side and the other. There would likely be tens or maybe hundreds of groups of different sizes in conflict or uneasy alliances.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm just a bored guy who makes drawings for a living.

How in the world did you do this? I ask this because that unironically sounds awesome (though it is possible it is not from your perspective).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

There's a terrible secret: I'm not making art, I am making drawings. I'm a draftsman.

And even among drafters my job is a bit strange. I work for a place that refurbishes large parts for places like refineries, power plants, water treatment plants, and even rocket launch facilities all over the world. We rebuild parts for plants that cannot shut down, or can't shut down for long. I'm sort of an emergency draftsman. My job consists of waiting for someone to drop either a scralwed drawing (sometimes literally drawn on a torn off piece of cardboard) or a broken piece of something, at which point I leap into action, and create a 3d model and a 2D drawing of whatever it is, so a replacement can be made in the machine shop.

This specific job sort of fell in my lap when I was laid off from another drafting job in january. I'm largely self-taught, and I have a couple decades experience as a machinist, fabricator, and mechanic, it helps if the guy making the prints knows how to make the parts himself.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

we have a five year plan

jk

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

not sure a social collapse is something that can be identified in real time, but rather a point identified by historical analysis at a later date to say, "this was the point of no return for the hegemonic order and its property relations" and it may be something like a persistent government shutdown that sees many programs never recover administratively/fall into corruption, a court ruling, a moment of political violence, etc. basically the single moment in a chain of events undermining the social order beyond which recovery is impossible.

this is an instructive read: https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Might be too pessimistic/optimistic, but I feel like they can't last 5 more years as they are. But I think it's gonna be really ugly given how entrenched fascism already is in their systems.

Hopefully they don't nuke the whole world, but Yankees are gonna go through interesting times once this imperial decline passes the collapse threshold.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Collapse is going to be a longer process. But next election is gonna be wild already

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It will be a long and painful death.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

2 or 3 decades, if Trump wins next year it's gonna be wild.

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