I'm not going to write anything new and just copy a portion of what I wrote back in November. It's sadly even more relevant now...
Back in the mid-90s, I enjoyed playing a game called Jump Raven. You basically had to fly around this pseudo-future, climate-change-impacted New York and pick up DNA capsules of nearly extinct animals, so that various gangs like neo-nazis (who, of course, were shooting at you) wouldn't get a hold of them and create mutant monsters. The actual game play was a little repetitive, but they used an interesting (custom) software engine and there was a good story around the game. One of the game features was that you could choose what type of music you listened to while you were flying around. All original songs, most of them quite good for a small-ish company's video game. But what stuck out to me back then was that one of the the songs had a spoken word refrain over an electronica type beat. The line was "The average lifespan of nations is 200 years."
At the time, I didn't know if that was an accurate figure or not. But I always thought it casually sounded about right. A lot of short-lived countries of 50-100 years and a few outliers that skew the average upwards. Sounds like there's never been a lot of actual research on it, but what there is puts the figure between 150 and 250. Given that the United States passed it's 200-year mark about two decades before that game came out, it did get me thinking about the country's time was indeed limited. I didn't know by how much, certainly, but with each passing year, I felt we were pushing our luck.
The thing was, though, I couldn't see HOW the country might collapse. I couldn't find anything really comparable. The USSR seemed to be about the closest, but really only in terms of size and power. The political structure and geographic issues were wildly different. Despite thinking about that off and on for decades, it wasn't until 2017 that I started to figure out how a collapse might happen. My guess is that individual states start seceding in "protest" of federal regulation. I could see both progressive states peeling off from a GOP-led capital or regressive states peeling off from a democratic one; who leaves first would depend on who's in power when they finally push brinkmanship too far.
One thing I did make a point of trying to learn from studying the Soviet Union's collapse was what happened to regular people. The collapse is almost always discussed in terms of the politics of it all, but rarely in terms of what happened to Joe Average who was just trying to earn a living. Spoiler: Joe Average doesn't do well. The poverty rate in the region skyrocketed from 1.5% in 1991 to 49% in 1993. Life expectancy dropped from 64 to 57. Alcohol-related deaths rose 60% and deaths from diseases went up 100%. Thousands upon thousands died as direct result of USSR's collapse. By 2004, 20% were still in poverty and by 2011, 53% could still only afford basic necessities (which technically isn't poverty, but not by much).
I've heard it said that the Soviet Union seemed strong and didn't look like it was going to collapse, until it did. And it threw many people into financial turmoil almost overnight. I think a decade from now, people will say the US didn't look like it was going to collapse, until it did. And the people who will fare best in a US collapse are the ones who have already been thinking about how to deal with it. The people who were answering the question "what can I do?" from a tactical perspective.
It was when I started understanding how and why a collapse might occur that I started publicly suggesting that the United States was unlikely to survive as a country past 2030. Now, this was back in 2017, shortly after Donald Trump first took office, so I recognized even at the time that some cynicsim on my part might be at play. But I have circled back to this notion repeatedly, and I have yet to see anything to suggest to me that my 2030 "deadline" needed to be adjusted. I still don't. Trump's time in the White House before did much more damage to the country than I think most people recognize, and even if Joe Biden did everything possible to fix things (which, to be clear, he didn't) it would've still taken decades to repair the damage Trump did.
I am absolutely NOT cheerleading the collapse of the United States here. However it happens and whoever is in the White House at that moment, it will result in thousands upon thousands of deaths. Those who aren't killed outright will suffer massive hardships, many of which will lead to early graves.
I don't have anything to comfort anyone. Yes, you should do what you can. Yes, you should try to avoid collapsing into a ball of despair. But the reality is that things will get worse for everyone reading this. You will see some of your favorite businesses go under. You will see many people you know and love lose their livlihoods. You will see people you know and love have their very existence declared illegal. You will see people you know and love die. There's more than a fair chance you yourself will be one of those people who lose their livlihood, are declared illegal, and/or die. There is no way I can make any of those realities any more comforting.
Other people will have much more practical advice about resisting. Building communities. Establishing (relatively) safe havens. The practical ideas I have are largely specific to me and my situation, and circle around my and my wife's physical safety. The only broader advice I can offer is to mentally/emotionally prepare for the worst, but frankly I'm not sure how to do that. But I can't offer "it'll be okay" or "it'll get better" platitudes with any degree of sincerity because I flatly don't think it will. Not any time soon.
If you are here reading this, I suspect you and I are in some measure of alignment with regard to good and bad, right and wrong, facts and opinions. So I do wish you well. I hope you're able to survive and thrive in every way possible. But luck favors the prepared as Edna Mode said, so do what you can now. Build your communities, stockpile your supplies, plan your escape route, do what you need to do.
Be safe out there.
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