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The same way the USSR lost. People talk about final-point reasons like economic issues caused by an arms race or whatever, but that's just the final steps of a

The same way the USSR lost. People talk about final-point reasons like economic issues caused by an arms race or whatever, but that's just the final steps of a long lost race. Empires collapse long before they finally fall due to inertia alone. And I think the "real" cause is always the same. When enough people inside an empire want it to fail, that empire will fail. And a common cause for creating that sentiment (that applies to everything from Rome to the USSR to the US) is Empires naturally tend to spend an increasingly disproportionate amount of their time focused on affairs outside their borders rather than within them. You have urban left leaning types becoming increasingly anti-capitalist, and the more right leaning and rural types feeling neglected by both internal and external policy. People agree on less than ever, but the one thing they all agree on is that the system sucks. This will likely result in over more radical shifts between presidencies. You end up with a country that's starting to feel a lot like a boat being rocked back and forth with increasing vigor. And obviously this isn't just the US. It seems many political systems throughout the world are headed towards dramatic shifts.

ramblerman 1y ago
> And obviously this isn't just the US. It seems many political systems throughout the world are headed towards dramatic shifts. For better or worse Trump seems to have been an antidote to many right wing shifts in the western world.
- gambiting 1y ago
  And for some, if has definitely emboldened them.
deepsun 1y ago
USSR economy was heavily dependent on their export oil prices. Once they fall, USSR fell with them almost immediately.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Economic issues can cause an empire to start effectively dissolving itself, as happened with the British Empire, but that's not what happened with the USSR. It was forcibly dissolved from within as regions began literally just declaring their independence and refusing to recognize central authority, and that was largely caused by decades of increasing dissatisfaction with the system that simply reached it's final decline under the policies of Gorbachev. One can also look to examples like the US which survived numerous catastrophic economic collapses, like the Great Depression, wholly intact.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > One can also look to examples like the US which survived numerous catastrophic economic collapses, like the Great Depression, wholly intact. "Wholly intact" might be stretching things, unless you see no problem with describing someone as surviving Alzheimer's "wholly intact".
    - ben_w 1y ago
      While I would describe the economic transition of the USA going from laissez-faire to New Deal as being as much of an "end of capitalism"* as the collapse of the USSR was the "end of communism", the country of the USA itself remained cohesive in the New Deal. As Russia itself was cohesive, I guess you could analogise e.g. Texas to Kazakhstan (leaves), and Alaska to Siberia (remains)? * as it was understood at the time, and to my limited grasp of the history of such matters
    - pjc50 1y ago
      Pretty much all the "USA #1" types place Peak America after WW2, not before it. Reasonable historians would agree that it was less of a world power than the European nations before WW1, roughly on-par at the time of the Washington Naval Treaty, and surpassing them at some point between 1930 and 1945. The Great Depression did a lot of damage to individuals but FDR's response to that, and later the war, strengthened the US as a nation.
  - 1y ago

ramblerman 1y ago

> And obviously this isn't just the US. It seems many political systems throughout the world are headed towards dramatic shifts. For better or worse Trump seems to have been an antidote to many right wing shifts in the western world.

gambiting 1y ago
And for some, if has definitely emboldened them.

deepsun 1y ago

USSR economy was heavily dependent on their export oil prices. Once they fall, USSR fell with them almost immediately.

somenameforme 1y ago
Economic issues can cause an empire to start effectively dissolving itself, as happened with the British Empire, but that's not what happened with the USSR. It was forcibly dissolved from within as regions began literally just declaring their independence and refusing to recognize central authority, and that was largely caused by decades of increasing dissatisfaction with the system that simply reached it's final decline under the policies of Gorbachev. One can also look to examples like the US which survived numerous catastrophic economic collapses, like the Great Depression, wholly intact.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > One can also look to examples like the US which survived numerous catastrophic economic collapses, like the Great Depression, wholly intact. "Wholly intact" might be stretching things, unless you see no problem with describing someone as surviving Alzheimer's "wholly intact".
  - ben_w 1y ago
    While I would describe the economic transition of the USA going from laissez-faire to New Deal as being as much of an "end of capitalism"* as the collapse of the USSR was the "end of communism", the country of the USA itself remained cohesive in the New Deal. As Russia itself was cohesive, I guess you could analogise e.g. Texas to Kazakhstan (leaves), and Alaska to Siberia (remains)? * as it was understood at the time, and to my limited grasp of the history of such matters
  - pjc50 1y ago
    Pretty much all the "USA #1" types place Peak America after WW2, not before it. Reasonable historians would agree that it was less of a world power than the European nations before WW1, roughly on-par at the time of the Washington Naval Treaty, and surpassing them at some point between 1930 and 1945. The Great Depression did a lot of damage to individuals but FDR's response to that, and later the war, strengthened the US as a nation.
- 1y ago