My prediction for the short term was that the USA would remain stable, but decline in significance.
I don’t think it’s a major stretch to say that it would be 200-300 years before Canada and Mexico would agree to any form of cooperative government. Until then, I don’t see any reason to assume that the borders or government of the USA would change significantly.
This country is really split along the rational, follow the rules south and middle and a few pockets of irrational do everything for me pockets in the NE and NW. I am frigging tired of being jerked around by immature states that complain that taxes aren’t high enough and then want the state to pay for everything.*
See how that worked? Your viewpoint is an irrational extreme, just like the others. This, more than anything else, will spell the end of the US when/if it comes.
Personally, I feel that the end, when it comes, will come when the vox populi becomes so diluted through the failure of the public to vote that we end up with a dictatorship, of one stripe or the other.
I agree with mswas, the time frames being thrown around here are quite ridiculous. 300 years ago the US didn’t even exist much less stretch from coast to coast. I wouldn’t be surprised if a functional equivalent to the EU occurred in North America in the next 25 years, much less 200-300. And that’s not even taking into account whatever radical advancements (space travel, nano-tech, alternative fuels) or natural disasters (meteor, global warming) might occur to speed up this, or any other, development.
I don’t see the concept of secession ever again becoming a huge force. The very idea of such powerful emphasis put on your individual state has been fading since its role as one of the causes in the Civil War. The simple fact is that, while we may disdain people from other regions of the country, we in no way consider our ethnic or national (in the sense of tribal nation) identity wrapped up whether we’re from California or Maine. Canada is more likely to break up into its constituent parts than we are.
I love the Canadian arrogance…
Canadia is more likely to cease to exist in its present form than the U.S. over the next 100 years. Canada is more ‘shaky’ going into this century than the United States.
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That being said, the U.S. may surprise you all. Her best days may be in the future and not the past. I’d say it is likely this is so.
That being said, disintegration could also happen. The West could drift away from the South, The South drift away from the North etc.
It didn’t work, because the evidence and facts don’t back it up. The southern states tend to rank last in very measure of wealth, education, and health. Your post just further points out the fact-based vs faith-based dichotomy.
In merely 7 years America has been remade. We were respected around the world. We had a strong economy.
We have a tax structure that increases the gap between the rich and poor. We have a housing and monetary crisis. We have a disappearing middleclass. We are now spied on at will. Iy does not take long for a country to be remade if the participants are rich ,greedy and will stop at nothing.
Only if you consider the fact that they were laughing at us for impeaching our President over a blowjob respect.
The always has been and always will be peaks and valleys to the economy. I would suggest that if we didn’t have a two term limit for the President and Bill Clinton had kept the office for another four years it still would’ve crashed.
That gap has been growing for years. The only thing I know about the tax structure and how it effects the ever widening gap between the rich and poor is that every four years we hear about how it’s going to be fixed. It hasn’t been.
So a lot of people made a lot of stupid decisions regarding 3 and 5 year interest-only mortgages. What does that have to do with how the U.S. is regarded around the world?
This is essentially a repeat of the sentence two sentences ago. I presume it was added to pad your list of reasons why the U.S. sucks.
At will?
By participants do you mean those in the government, the citizens, both, or neither?
The US declining doesn’t really mean it will end, in any of the ways mentioned in the OP. The only way things would change drastically would be a major, major shock, one that would also affect the entire world. A major war (especially any nuclear war), a meteor, an environmental catastrophe (one that may play out over many years), a terrorist catastrophe (I’m thinking something truly epic in scope, like a major killer virus, or a successful attack on the entire banking system); these are all candidates.
There doesn’t appear to be any real impetus for a major break-up otherwise, unless we look far into the future, where the concept of nation-states and the relationships between them are drastically (and unpredictably) altered from today.
We have a disappearing middle class
I agree with this, but think it would be more likely to happen by default if transport and rcommunications costs rise dramatically, instead of happening by plan. “Canada”, “Mexico”, and the “United States of America” might continue in name, kind of like the Holy Roman Empire did, but people’s affairs would revolve around their local areas.
I have to say, the question betrays a very provincial attitude.
Think of it this way. When do you predict the end of France? When do you predict the end of China? When do you predict the end of Ireland?
Did the nation of France cease to exist when it was conquered by the Nazis? Did it cease to exist when it joined the European Union? At one point France was a superpower in a unipolar Europe, until Napoleon’s debacle in Russia. Did Napoleon’s retreat mean the end of France? Or did the French Revolution mean the end of France?
The only option from the OP that I consider plausible is that the US will shift away from a democracy towards a dictatorship. In fact, I think the Bush administration has already started to lay the ground work for this by establishing the precedent that the president is pretty much above all forms of accountability except possibly for the election, and frankly I don’t trust the electorate to protect us from dictatorship.
If there’s another major terrorist attack, the odds of this go way up, and frankly that’s probably only a matter of time.
Writing this post really bummed me out.
Hey! If you want those questions answered, start your own thread!
Territorially France has endured for a long time. But during the 200 years you mention it’s changed its system of government many times. The Fifth Republic has only existed since 1958.
The problem here is that he does have a point. People when they hear the word ‘decline’ they think of the Western Roman empire. They don’t recognize that the Eastern Empire went on strong for many more centuries. They also don’t recognize that even though Britain lost its empire, it still wielded influence over its former colonies through the economic structure that was put in place through their diligent nation-building bureaucracy. It’s not that the British Empire really ‘declined’ per se, as it became irrelvant, anachronistic. England is still a very prosperous country with a high standard of living and great influence over world affairs. America moved in to fill the void where England left off. England didn’t really decline, it just transformed. A lot of the places where we are working right now are former British Protectorates. Iraq for instance wasn’t even a country until England made it one. Israel/Palestine was a problem left to us by the British Empire. The Anglosphere is still one of the most powerful cultural blocs on the planet.
If you want to explore this question, I think there is too much supposition in the way that it has been formulated. It’s not that America will ‘End’ so much as the circumstances will shift so dramatically that the world order won’t be defined in the way that it is now. You’ll still be able to look at women in Bikinis in Venice CA, and you’ll still get a great falafel and Mahmoun’s on Macdougal street in Manhattan.
I think it’s silly to assert that France is only 50 years old.
I also think it’s silly to assert that America would cease to exist if we change our system of government, or our borders, or join a supra-national organization.
I explicitly defined what I meant by “end” in the OP. Did you read it?
The question is “How long will the United States maintain its current boundaries and governmental system?”
Keep in mind that we’ve only been around for 240 years as a nation, with a borrowed language and an (mostly) invented culture. While it’s silly to wonder if France or Russia, or China could cease to exist, that’s only because societies tend to organically coalesce around common elements of culture - language, religion, rituals, etc. The fifth republic of France (or the People’s Republic of China, or the Russian Federation) may dissolve, but there will always be French, Chinese (or Cantones, Mandarin, et al) and Russians, with common cultural touchpoints.
As Americans we have precious little in common from a cultural perspective - sure we have history, but that ain’t culture. What culture we do have tends to be very regional in nature, and as such, if the current form of US gov’t were to completely dissolve (not part of my scenario above, but definitely plausible), I don’t think you’d be left with a political entity that one could identify as a singular continuation of the former. You’d have various and sundry regional governments - possibly leaning theocratic in the south and middle, more democtratic or oligarchic at the edges. Like a nice tasty Oreo, only more civil-war-y.
(Mmmmm - civil-war-creme-filling. . .)
I disagree with that. The groups I was unable to assimilate with in my hometown I still cannot assimilate with, but I can find people I could assimilate in any state in the union, I know because I have. The culture in different parts of France is more dramatically different than it is anywhere in the US. There is really only one dialect of the American language, whereas France or Italy have dialects that are difficult for others of their countrymen to understand.
As much as we dwell on the philosophical differences, these different regions have much more in common than people generally want to admit. Trade overwhelms pretty much all the philosophies. You may get some regional distinctions, but Atlanta (for instance) today is much more like the rest of the US than it was 150 years ago - and that’s true for pretty much anywhere in the country. The real divide tends to be between rural and urban perspectives, which are often closely tied to levels of economic well-being. Although there are definitely differences in outlook between, say, Dallas and Boston, they’re more closely tied together economically than they are divided philosophically. If there is going to be any split, it’ll be something that essentially lets people think they’re being independent and different, but the economic ties will continue to keep them together. Ideology can be a powerful motivator, but not nearly as powerful as trade and business, certainly not over the long term.