Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2
The problem of course with projecting right for'ard from the present is whatever you do will become almost immediately obsolete. Twilight 2000 looks quaint. Y2K looks silly. But if you're going to do it, you have an economic collapse already. Assume it really does become another Great Depression. Assume a massive flu pandemic in the next couple of years. Followed by genetically engineered Marburg or something so something like 40 million Americans die. An imaginary Republican takes power and launches another major "War on Terror" offensive to get whoever he picks as a scapegoat for the Marburg. The war spurs development of superior prosthetic limbs, and as it becomes increasingly unpopular again with the casualties mounting up, combat operations are turned over to private "contractors" because nobody counts their casualties. With increasing difficulty meeting the bills, conventional military shrinks in size. After the real work on the ground is being done by expendable but expensive mercenaries.
Meanwhile the population shortage only feeds the social pressures pushing the United States in the direction of foreign labour. A constitutional amendment is passed in 2024 saying that only children of citizens are eligible for citizenship. Executive policy leads to the restriction of social benefits to only citizens. The resurgence of the Republicans repopularizes privatisation in every way, and due to the insolvency of the American currency after hyper-inflation, corporations start paying their employees in scrip, and the employees actually consider that an improvement.
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I prefer the idea that the Dems go full on socialist /authoritarian. After years of pinko misrule, the rest of the country rises up in protest. When the feds and their hired guns begin to shoot at nonviolent demonstrators, things get ugly. A Second Civil War breaks out, and this ultimately shatters the Union. The former US is now five seperate countries.
A fragmented US allows for corporate dominated states, libertarian enclaves [think Somalia with cybertech], socialist hellholes, etc. Lots of variety. If no other country quite has the power to step in...[after the collapse of the American economy screws up things globally] then we get a very multipolar, chaotic world. It's perfect for grasping megacorps and ruthless mercenaries.