Counter point is, throughout history America didn’t have a competition that surpassed it across many standards. Japan got very close, but got contained in some ways. China doesn’t need to play ball.

I’ve mentioned it in the past as well - all actions look like a knee-jerk reactions and hail marys to try to regain the power.

“Silliness” I have masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles barking orders at US citizens in my neighborhood and zip-tying minors who did nothing but run away and cry. I have neighbors cheering it on. Not silly at all when you see it up close.

America dominance on the world is ending, it's a fact. East Asia is at least on par, India is china from 25 years ago.

It's becoming more obvious every day. And yeah, people in 1910 watched Europe dominate the world for about 1500 years. Yet it came to an end.

If you want to Speedrun the collapse, vote for trump. He sure is making a good job right now with diplomacy, lack of long term planning and just getting all your allies to hate you.

> 10y later they're richer than ever

Overall as a country, undoubtedly. However, a vast majority of Americans are worse off than a decade ago.

A lot of wealth was created, relatively little went to the people though.

Interesting you say that, because as another Canadian, I would say that the sentiment in our country is the opposite of you describe. The actions of our government reflect it.

Canada is moving further from US, not closer. Canadians who support Americans are in the minority at the moment.

I'm not sure how a new US president would be able to turn it around.. further more, what's to say that the president thereafter will follow suit? How about the next 5?

It just takes a bit of reading about American history to know that we have had authoritarian phases pretty much since our independence. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson policies against freedom of speech, native Americans and international trade, Fillmore and Buchanan fugitive slave act and Dred Scott, Lincoln suspension of Habeas Corpus, Cleveland using the military against unions, Johnson military expansion in Vietnam, Nixon secret bombings and using CIA/FBI against protesters. The nation was heavily polarized during each of these periods as much or more than it is today.

Most major industrialized nations have gone through something like this and it usually takes much longer than 10 years to escape and correct.

Your day to day is still pretty much normal. If you turned off the news and never read about Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data [1] you'd just in your head remember there are tens of millions of folks flying, going through customs and border security and all that with 0 issues. What you wrote I think regarding the decade of silliness precisely supports the point, in my opinion.

[1] I'm not defending the behavior of border control here, but I also don't think we need to overreact to this one example which is exactly what is happening.

> I don't think America can lose

It has already lost. America lost in Vietnam. Lost in Afghanistan. Turned Middle East into a humongous mess. Now losing badly in Iran. The only "wins" it had were against Countries where odds were already heavily in its favor (in other words invading tiny countries that did not have the technological wherewithal or the will necessary to fight back).

> 10y later they're richer than ever

The rich are richer than ever yes. Ask any common American citizen and he/she will come chasing after you for saying this.

> its companies have global dominance of the most world-changing technology of the last 20y. I just don't think "the collapse" is coming anytime soon.

That dominance is fast eroding. America itself has ended globalization. It is retreating from many crucial positions: like when it comes to cross-border payments, protecting freedom of navigation in high seas, deals that it had previously negotiated with all countries of the World, unable to protect allies in the Middle East and even in South East Asia, not delivering on defense commitments with partner nations... the list goes on and on.

> If anyone's interested in a friendly wager, my email is open. I'll happily go 1:1 odds that America will have a new president come 2029 and the country will still remain the world's richest and most powerful.

None of us believe America will collapse by 2029 and that there wouldn't be another President (unless Trump is really stupid enough to go down that route which I don't think he will). But by 2045? Yeah absolutely is possible.

> some level of normalcy

You are undoubtedly correct that at some point there will be new leadership in the US.

Politics makes leadership change a possibility. Biology makes it an inevitability.

But I don't think the evidence is very strong that switching from one man to a different man, even if the new man wears a blue hat instead of a red hat, will make that much difference against capital and its surveillance state.

This isn't a false equivalence "both sides" argument. I'd greatly prefer the blue hat over the red hat.

But the blue hat only makes the underlying forces of late capitalism a little slower and a little less vicious, while simultaneously legitimizing that system.

I'm skeptical that we will have an exchange of power in the next 40 years.

The USSR is a great example: it took 65 years to fall, and the collapse didn't bring it to anything particularly good.

I agree. It's actually quite insulting to other countries whose actual atrocities were measured in lives lost. I voted for Kamala but Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. He's just a loser, he's not even remotely brave enough to be Hitler Jr.

The guy doesn't have the stomach for real totalitarianism. Just populism, corruption, and weakening the country.