USA very much followed the pattern of the Spanish Empire. Found a golden goose that turned their currency into the world standard, and proceeded to import themselves out of self sufficiency.

That being said, on May 26th 2016, I was laughed at by my entire work office for saying that Trump winning the GOP nomination (At that time we all assumed Hillary would win) would be noted by future historians as the beginning of the dissolution of the united states. Trump is a snowball, not snowfall.

And honestly that's what were seeing with California filling the void left from defunded federal agencies like FEMA, FDA, EPA, etc. I honestly predict that the USA will splinter into several factions depending on what states participate.

[–] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 1 points 27 minutes ago

It's also likely that if he had won the 2020 election, his second term wouldn't have been like this, since he wouldn't be so aggrieved. It would likely have been more like his first term, where he was basically a standard republican but with no decorum.

It took the democrats setting him up as an "easy to beat" opponent in 2016, getting beaten, flailing uselessly, torpedoing bernie for biden and beating him in 2020, assuming that he was vanquished for good, trying and failing to punish him for January 6th (thus setting him on the warpath), then enabling the Gaza genocide and completely fumbling the 2024 election, to put this specific version of Trump in power at the worst possible time. It's kind of like a feedback loop or a cascading failure. It's perfect in a way.