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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Yeah as an American that has been living abroad for a decade and will be a dual citizen soon: I don’t agree with that take at all.

The vast majority of people in the US still see their future in the US. Dual citizenship, much less actually living abroad, is still an extremely niche topic and basically only a thing amongst upper middle class and above professionals and tech workers.

And as chaotic and concerning as many political events may be, the idea that the US will become “a failed state” is pretty divorced from the actual reality of what that term means. If the US becomes a failed state, trust me, the rest of the world will be too.

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> The vast majority of people in the US still see their future in the US.

I mean, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Just an anecdote, also with bias, but almost every American I've met outside of the US (from all walks of life, from uber rich to almost homeless) seems to agree with the idea that the US is approaching a "no turning back" point, and cites that as being the reason they moved away.

> If the US becomes a failed state, trust me, the rest of the world will be too.

I'm fairly sure every citizen of a huge empire felt like that too, through the ages. Rome citizens surely felt the same, until it turned out that no single entity is powerful enough that the entire world would be "failed" just because one nation failed.

I think your sample is pretty biased, because that viewpoint doesn’t apply to me or any Americans I’ve met abroad. Skeptical or critical of America and American culture, sure, but I certainly didn’t move abroad because of those reasons.

Most Americans abroad tend to be there because of work, or because their partners are from the country. The number of people able to move abroad because of recent political issues is extremely small, because that sort of life flexibility is not available to the vast, vast majority of people.

I mean, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Where would they go? Immigrating to another first world country is pretty expensive and difficult. Just picking up and moving somewhere abroad is really not an option for 99% of people.

It was true for Rome though, at least within the area over which Rome was the hegemon. It took literally centuries to recover back to the level from which Rome collapsed.

Maybe we understand "the world" differently, but the fall of Rome didn't mean the fall of the world, even if you consider "the world" to be Europe.

But if we had a time machine, I'm sure we could find people saying "If Rome becomes a failed state, trust me, the rest of the world will be too." unironically.

I specifically stated that the domain here is "the area over which Rome was the hegemon". Which is less than the whole world, obviously (but also more than Europe; North Africa, for example). We're talking about the rest of the world today because USA is truly a global hegemon, though.

And I don't know how you define "fall", but the standards of living and things like technological knowledge, culture etc basically cratered for several centuries; it sure does sound like a fall to me. "Failed state" is a modern term that doesn't quite have a direct analogy, but even so what was going on in most Roman provinces (and ultimately even Rome itself) could be reasonably described as such - stable governance would also take centuries to reassert itself.

> And as chaotic and concerning as many political events may be, the idea that the US will become “a failed state” is pretty divorced from the actual reality

Becoming a failed state overnight? Probably not, I agree. Midterm elections are approaching and the federal government has already shown its willingness to deploy the military to big cities for intimidation purposes. Also don't forget: our current President also tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. I feel like we get stuck in this "nothing ever happens" loop while our liberties slowly get stripped away and even after a thing happens, we delude ourselves by saying it won't actually get that bad. Frogs in a pot.

There’s a very big difference between a failed state and life slowly getting worse, institutional rotting, etc.

I really don’t foresee a scenario where America turns into Somalia or Haiti in the near future.

There's a famous saying about going bankrupt: "How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly"

In this case, "going bankrupt" is the dissolution of the United States. We definitely won't be able to predict when it happens, and it may be unlikely, but IMO the likelihood of it happening ticks up the more I see how the federal government is attempting to crush dissent.

Not to mention completely apolitical things like the debt crisis, which will be unmanageable after a certain point. Our biggest line item in the budget is now paying interest on the debt. And we just passed the OBBB which increased deficit spending by $3.4T over ten years.

All of that could happen and the US still wouldn’t turn into a failed state. There are orders of magnitude more technology, intelligence, non-governmental organizations, cultural knowledge, etc. in the country than in places which became failed states.

In his 1st inaugural address, what do you suppose Lincoln meant by the government ceasing?

Would people today tolerate tyranny to avoid it?

The American civil war wasn’t a case of a failed state, it was a case of competing states. Very different situation from today.

The closest analog to an archetypical failed state in American history is probably the Bleeding Kansas situation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas

Even then, today’s divisions in America are more urban-rural than geographically separated.

You answered a question I didn’t ask.

Nearly half of the country views the other almost half as fascist. The half viewed as fascist views the other as socialist/communist. The two have lost the ability to effectively communicate with one another. The spending on the military is bankrupting the country, and within a decade debt service will consume 100% of tax revenues. The monetary expansion is causing inflation, and lowering interest rates will worsen this. At the same time, idiotic trade policy levying tariffs is making things even more expensive. Rising political tension with a simultaneous diminution in economic conditions is the breeding ground for extremism. We already see the two halves struggling to get anything done in congress, so amelioration of these conditions is unlikely. How long does the most well armed society in history tolerate this?

Any country can swiftly become a failed a state when ruled by someone idiotic enough. The question for the USA is whether or not it can survive the current pressures it faces. There a social, political, economic, and geopolitical pressures on the country at the same time. Thinking that the USA could become a failed state isn’t far fetched at all.

“Collapse happens slowly at first, and then all at once”

Nearly half of the country views the other almost half as fascist. The half viewed as fascist views the other as socialist/communist

That isn't even remotely true, and if you think it is, I think you're in an extreme information bubble. The vast, vast majority of people are just going about their daily lives and in are in no way whatsoever thinking of half of the population as fascist or communist.

I think you’re confusing people being polite with people not having opinions.

> Midterm elections are approaching and the federal government has already shown its willingness to deploy the military to big cities for intimidation purposes.

Fall of democracy to dictatorship is a different problem than a failed state, and both that and balkanization are more likely than a failed state scenario (though balkanization could result in one or more failed states among the successors.)

just an anecdote, but i've seen (in the last few years) more and more "move abroad, where and how" kind of youtube videos in the black american community, with sometimes some kind of consultancy service attached.

it's definitely not big numbers but it is starting to get in the common black zeitgeist i guess. to some extent.

lots of little channels like this popping up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HplzpcXoE

i semi-expect one big channel to come out of in the next 4-5 years, and you might start to see some kind of real traction at that point.

Mutually assured destruction is a hell of a concept

It's the most empowering thing in the status quo; when a check and a balance from one entity to another is mutually-existential, it keeps things at a pretty steady pace.

M.A.D should be practiced in policy more often, without having leverage - there's no reason to represent you.

I agree: although there is a very small chance that civil war will break out in the US, there's essentially zero chance it becomes a failed state.

The administrative consensus created by FDR is breaking down, and it is not yet clear what will replace it. (Trump is unlikely to be the main architect of the new administrative consensus.) To people who cannot help but view everything through the lens of the old consensus, it looks like the entire US society is breaking down, but the US is very good at invention and reinvention, so once the outlines of a new administrative consensus forms, state capacity will return very quickly.

I'm repeating George Friedman here.

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