Which fading empire is more fucked, USA or UK

A de jure breakup of the USA is much less plausible to me than a de facto diminution of federal power as passing legislation becomes impossible and governing by executive order and continuing resolution ossifies into the only means of doing business. Some Supreme Court ruling or other will lead to a nullification crisis of some kind, west coast and Acela corridor states will enter into miscellaneous intergovernmental agreements, federal tax revenues will decline precipitously, that sort of thing

The military (and nuclear arsenal) make an actual dissolution of the US almost unthinkable barring nigh end of the world global catastrophe. Fort Hood has 50k troops, only a sliver of which at any given time are from Texas.

A federalism where the only real federal superstructure is the military and intelligence community... now that's possible.

https://www.axios.com/gop-megadonor-south-dakota-troops-border-21881b13-f0d8-461f-a7af-fe6288b5bcbd.html

A Tennessee billionaire and high-dollar Republican donor is funding the deployment of South Dakota National Guard troops to the U.S. Mexico border.

The UK a fading empire? What year is this, 1956?

this was stupid, yes.

eh fading can take a long time. When I become a Canadian citizen, I have to swear loyalty to the queen. Plus there's this whole thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_Territories#Current_overseas_territories

xpost

The deployment of the National Guard from SD is insane, it sets a worrying precedent. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where Republican-led states use National Guard to amplify conflict, and it could draw in elements of the militia movement etc.

My issue with most analysis setting out scenarios of US breakup is that they treat the South as one distinct political unit but that’s simply not the case now. The political divisions in the country now are much more along urban-rural lines than along the big geographical divides of the 19th century. Alabama now has more in common with South Dakota than with Virginia, politically speaking.

I’m not sure how whether this really makes breakup of the US less likely, but it does seem plausible that nominally Red states like Georgia will have to focus on repressing internal dissent.

A federalism where the only real federal superstructure is the military and intelligence community... now that's possible.

Sort of the Grover Norquist ideal, right? To the extent there is a coherent Republican strategy right now (and I'm not saying it's very coherent), I think that's it. Seize more-or-less unshakable control of the federal govt, and then strip it down, dismantle the regulatory state, theoretically leave things like environmental regulation up to the states, but then of course use federal leverage to penalize California/NY/anyone who steps out of line.

It is definitely among the possible scenarios.

That’s not unlikely, but basically lose-lose for California in particular considering climate change is one of the main points of contention, CA is getting some of the worst effects of it, CA also pays more than its share of taxes, and the US military has been (and maybe still is) the single organization with the largest carbon footprint.

this was stupid, yes.

o rly

https://i.imgur.com/93Ltr2V.jpg