Political collapse of the United States (hypothetical)

Hypothesising about a political collapse of the United States as a singular, liberal democratic political entity takes place on occasion, with commentators putting forward differing reasons as to why they believe the United States could one day cease to exist as we know it.

Defining political collapse
Political collapse of the United States refers to an end (in some manner) to the open, liberal democratic political and social system of the United States. It does not refer to a physical destruction of industrialised society in North America - as might occur in a nuclear war - but a change in the political system.

Igor Panarin
Russian nationalist and academic Igor Panarin has publicly speculated about a US collapse since 1998. Panarin made forecasts about the probable disintegration of the USA into six parts in 2010 following a civil war triggered by mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation. He forecast financial and demographic changes provoking a political crisis, in which wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government, effectively seceding from the Union, leading to social unrest, civil war, national division, and intervention of foreign powers.

In 2009, Panarin updated his theories about US collapse to incorporate theories surrounding an inability of the US to service its national debt.

Mikhail Gorbachev
In 2012, the former leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, said that "disintegration was the atonement that the former Soviet Union made for its mistakes and the same fate awaits the US if Washington continues to repeat similar blunders." Gorbachev denounced the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the Cold War era as an “unpardonable mistake” and pointed out that the US is now repeating the same mistake.

US survivalists: "American Redoubt"
The American Redoubt is a strategic relocation movement - with protection in the event of a US central government collapse in mind - that was first proposed by survivalist novelist and blogger James Wesley Rawles. The concept designates three western states (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming), and adjoining portions of two other states (eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington) as a safe haven for survivalists, conservatives, Christians and Jews.

Kim Murphy, a reporter for The Los Angeles Times summed up one motivation for the movement: "For a growing number of people, it's the designated point of retreat when the American economy hits the fan. When banks fail, the government declares martial law, the power grid goes down."

Summarizing one of his reasons for formulating the relocation strategy, Rawles, who is outspokenly anti-racist, stated: "I'm often asked why I make such a 'big deal' about choosing conservative Christians, Messianic Jews, or Orthodox Jews for neighbors. The plain truth is that in a societal collapse there will be a veritable vacuum of law enforcement. In such times, with a few exceptions, it will only be the God fearing that will continue to be law abiding. Choose your neighborhood wisely."

Patrick Buchanan
In Patrick Buchanan's 2002 book, The Death of the West, Buchanan argues that no nations have held together without an ethnic majority. Buchanan believes if immigration and birth rate trends continue, young Americans will spend their golden years in a "third world America", which will reduce the nation to a conglomeration of peoples with nothing in common.

He believes this can be credited to the 1965 Immigration Act and the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He notes past immigration was European, while 90 percent of new legal immigrants are Asian, African, and Latin American and they are not "melting and reforming."