I wonder how they will talk about this decline and fall of this American Empire in the future. Ultimately I think it will become clear that the constitution failed, as one of its primary purposes was to stop such populist enemies of the Enlightenment from coming to power. Well, 250 years was quite good, but eternity is a long time! Maybe parliamentary democracy has finally proven superior to presidential systems.

Has such a dominant power collapsed in this way before? Just arbitrarily decided one day to betray all its allies and start fellating its enemies? Think of the last hegemon, the British Empire, fundamentally that was unsustainable because it's a small island off the coast of Europe, but still it fought two world wars before it finally had to pass the torch. Meanwhile the USA has collapsed in on itself completely foregoing such a glorious end.