How Will the United States End?

Great Debates
1

(I started a similar thread a couple of years ago and it got quickly derailed, so I’m trying it again and being a little more specific in the OP.)

Nothing lasts forever. Great nations rise and fall. Great kings die and are forgotten. Powerful empires crumble away to dust.

10,000 years from now will Congress still be meeting in Washington D.C.? Will there still be a President in the White House? Of course not. At some point, either sooner or later, the United States as we know it today will cease to exist. My question is how and when?

Now obviously barring the destruction of the Earth the land itself will endure. There will probably still be cities (or villages) where there are cities now. And the people who live in what used to be the United States will probably be descended from the people who live here now. That’s not what I’m asking about. What I’m interested in is the government and the union. How long will the Constitution remain a living document and how long will the confederation of states endure?

Possible scenarios:

  1. **Dissolution ** – Nuclear war or environmental devestation brings about the collapse of central authority and individual regions become autonomous. Or maybe there’s another civil war.

  2. **Absorption ** – The United States willingly merges with Canada and Mexico to become the North American Free Trade Zone. Or China conquers us sometime early in the 23rd Century and makes us a province.

  3. **Tyranny ** – A charismatic President seizes control in a time of crisis and establishes a hereditary monarchy. Or maybe multinational corporations manipulate the voting process and maintain the existing trapping of government for propaganda purposes.

Note: I’m not saying any of these outcomes is imminent. Maybe the United States will endure essentially unchanged for another 2000 years. But eventually SOMETHING will happen to ring down the curtain. The question is how and when?

(And don’t answer “Right now – the United States is already dead.” I’m looking for predictions about the future, not arguments about the current political scene.)

2

The other alternative of course is that the entire world will one day join the union. :stuck_out_tongue: I can practically hear the shrieks of anguish from our Euro and Canadian bretheren (not to mention Dopers from just about every OTHER nation in the world :wink: ).

Thats true. Some last longer than others. Also, are we talking about complete disolution of the US, or simple a decline in our power? After all, England has been a going concern for centuries (hell, over a thousand years if we count minor changes in leadership), and though their empire is gone they are still about. I think the US will most likely follow this model…eventually we will simply not be THE worlds superpower…just another 1st world nation with someone else at the top getting all the shit.

IMHO the constitution will remain in effect (though perhaps modified from what we know today) as long as there IS a US. Circular arguement, right? :stuck_out_tongue: Ok, I think there will be a US…for as long as there is a constitution. lol, sorry.

I think that the US will essentially last as long as our current civilization lasts…i.e. until there is some major catestrophic disaster. Asteroid hit, plague, global climate change that causes a rise in the seas of hundreds of feet, destruction of crop lands, etc. So…the US will be here as long as every other civilization in our current world lasts. Whatever that may be…who can predict that?

I doubt another civil war will happen…but this is the most likely scenerio IMHO. The total global collapse of our current civilization followed by a dark age and perhaps a reversion to an earlier tech level…or perhaps the complete break down and extinction of the human species.

I don’t see this happening. If anything just the opposite as (for some reason or another) those nations join the US and become part of the union (unlikely in the extreme).

As for a China invasion…I wouldn’t hold my breath. I don’t think its possible for ANY nation to invade and conquere the US…just like I don’t think its possible to conquere Russia. We are a continential nation…and the logistics would be a nightmare, reguardless of how powerful China or anyone else becomes. Hell…WE couldn’t invade and conquere ourselves. :stuck_out_tongue:

Possible but unlikely I think. Unless there was some major disaster that caused the people of the US to change at a fundamental level I just don’t see this happening. And if something DID happen that was that extreme…well, we’d probably be close to collapse in any case.

-XT

3

I pick 4. It won’t end.

Why, you may ask.

Because the form of government that we have, and in particular the US application of such, is more adaptable to change in a rapid manner than anything on the planet. More adaptable than anything that has come before.

So, IMHO, it will continue to exist as it continues to change.

4

I don’t know much about politics (and I usually stay out of Great Debates) but in my uneducated opinion, I could imagine the United States coming to an end in the following ways:

  • With the idea that the United States is so big that it’s an invincible superpower, some hypothetical president will decide to spend billions of dollars on an idealistic crusade, while not raising taxes to compensate. Hypothetically. The country may keep its physical borders and constitution, but it will no longer be a superpower. If there was an economic collapse, the country would probably be less stable.

  • The country splits into two countries over some ideological difference. It would probably something more important than the current political issues like gay marriage or abortion, but I can’t think of anything that would separate states enough to actually want to secede in the near future. (Cloning/teleportation technology?)

  • The country essentially stays the same, but everybody agrees to change/eliminate the state borders and write up a new constitution. It would essentially be the same country, but with a different name/currency/etc. Similar to samclem’s scenario.

On the other hand, intuitively it seems like the country won’t exist in the year 10,000 but there’s nothing saying it won’t happen. You never know.

5

Believing it will last is extremely short sided…

6

I don’t think America will end, per se, but I do think that if you took a time machine forward 500 years, you probably wouldn’t recognize it.

As to what those changes will be, I’ve got theories of diminiahing resources, economic collapse and govenrmental shifts due to voter apathy but as a historian, I know better than to make predictions which will be laughed at by future generations. :smiley:

7

Another Doper suggested that in 100 years the USA as we know it will end in a holy war between the Mormons and Scientologists. The Clams would have the coasts while the Mormons would have the heartland. There was a debate about the outcome. I can’t find the thread now though.

8

I strongly suggest the Culture series of Iain M. Banks. As technology develops such that each individual relies less and less on any government, “states” (and even property - “money is Poverty”) become increasingly meaningless - the only ‘laws’ are de facto consequences (if someone does something unpopular, an eternally vigilant protosentient device follows them around to stop them doing it again.)

So, assuming the US can survive another few centuries, I’d say the “states” themselves will dissolve into libertarian socialism.

9

I vote for dissoloution. At some point some of the bigger states/groups of states will begin believing that they’re not getting bang-for-buck out of being part of the union any longer and will again attempt to leave (peacefully, this time).

It’ll be presented as a ‘we want to go so let us’ and the federal government won’t find public support for another all out war on it. So we’ll move from the Union to a looser federation to independent nations.

10

Over a period of years both the yearly deficit and overall debt will continue to increase. As the value of the dollar plunges due to continuing and increasing inflation, most people will move their assets away from dollars and into commodity currencies…probably gold, but maybe silver and platinum. With the internet these currencies will be very liquid, and also untraceable, so income taxation will become more and more a futile exercise.

Moreover, government will continue looking after its own interests instead of those of the people, leading to more and more political apathy. Voter turnout will decline to 10% or less.

Most people won’t pay taxes and won’t vote; they will stop paying attention to the government. Essentially mass civil disobedience. The government’s creditors will see this downward trend and demand immediate repayment of their loans. The government, unable to raise the funds necessary will have to repudiate said loans. At this point I see two basic ways things can go:

1: Implosion. Similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government will just give up and go home. The federal government sells all the property it owns, in order to pay off its debts, and all the bureaucrats have to find new jobs.

From here…depending on the political climate, a new government may form, resetting the alarm clock as it were, or we may stay in an anarchic state. God willing.

  1. Explosion. A real asshole is elected by that lonely 10% that still votes, and he takes the army and imposes a fascist state. His success depends primarily on how effective previous governments were at preventing private ownership of firearms and controlling the media. This could lead to either civil war or a V for Vendetta-style dystopia. Either way it isn’t pretty.

Or not. I could be wrong.

:slight_smile:

Will

11

I vote for tyranny. The process is already underway. No less an authority than retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor had this warning.

Partisan attacks on the judiciary, manipulation of elections, claims that criticism of the president during wartime is unpatriotic, institution of torture and warrantless wiretaps of citizens. All these should be saying “danger” in no uncertain terms. Democracy itself is in danger and if Bush doesn’t succeed in tearing it down, a future president will. Whether it’s next year or in 100 years, the US will cease to be a democratic republic.

12

To put this in perspective, let us never forget it is entirely possible for the United States to end while America survives. Nations are not immortal, but they are much more long-lived than regimes, constitutions or political systems. The Polish state was destroyed by the partition of Poland, but the Polish ethnocultural nation survived to found a new Polish state after WWI. Since 1789 France has been through five monarchies, five republics and a puppet fascist government, yet it remains the same country. China, having been through multiple imperial dynasties, periods of political disunity, rule by foreign conquerors, republican rule and Communist rule. is still the same national culture and civilization it was in Confucius’ time even though he would not recognize it. And an America divided into 50 independent states, or governed by a political system all of us would regard as “un-American,” would still be America.

13

Don’t forget:

  1. Revolution. – Any kind of revolution, right-wing or left-wing.

Not a likely scenario today or at any time since 1865 (not even in the Depression or the upheavals of the '60s and '70s did the U.S. come close to real political revolution, though it seemed so to many at the time), but we’re supposed to be taking the long view here.

14

BWA-HA-HA-HA!
HEE-HEE-HEE!

Oh! You slay me!

We still have Blue Laws on the books, post-Prohibition.
We still have marijuana laws on the books, post-60s, & with at least 3 Presidents (Reagan, Clinton, & Bush the Younger) who have used/experimented with it.
Virtually no laws, however ill-written, are ever repealed.

We’re ossified.

15

[QUOTE=Pochacco1. **Dissolution ** – Nuclear war or environmental devestation brings about the collapse of central authority and individual regions become autonomous. Or maybe there’s another civil war. [/QUOTE]

I would bet on economic mismanagement more than nuclear war or environmenta deteriortation. The national debt is pretty damn scary …

16

Let’s not be too smug. If you’d told me in 1985 that the Soviet Union would no longer be around by 1995, I would have written you off as a crackpot. So would most other people. If the Soviet Union could break up virtually over night, perhaps the same could happen to the U.S.

17

Tangential thought for the day: to what extent can the modern nation-state of Egypt be considered as a ‘continuation’ of the c. 3000BC pharaonic entity?

I too am perplexed by samclem’s anhistorical optimism.

I give the US another 50-100 years in roughly its present form, plus another coupla hundred as an entity still called the US but with quite different form of government. The numbers came from my bum.

18

To thunderous applause, as Palpatine becomes emperor.

Seriously, I vote for absorption into one almost-global government. Every secular state will join; a few religious states will not.

And there will still be unrest in the Middle East.

19

Not much. That civilization is dead. Egyptians are now part of Arabic-Islamic civilization. Same with Iraq – the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia are dead. China and Japan, OTOH, still have national cultures that have existed continuously since ancient times.

20

Well, it could reasonably be said that much of the Greco-Roman civilization is still around, even though the actual society/ies which created it are long gone. Modern Italian culture is recognizably a direct descendant of ancient Rome, and obviously Rome profoundly influenced language, law, philosophy and religion and Heaven knows what else throughout Europe and North America. Shucks, being directly descended from Rome in some way is practically the definition of being a Western nation.

Are we asking, “When will the United States cease to exist as a political entity?” or are we asking, “When will the American people no longer exist as a culture and/or a community?” Because I suspect our community depends very heavily on its political institutions to hold itself together and will probably cease to exist very rapidly should those institutions collapse. Much like Rome, our influence will probably be around long after we’re gone; but that’s not the same actual survival.