the problem this time around is systemic and “bipartisan” (in that both main parties stopped representing most people and just use different styles Propaganda to herd the sheep or just turn people of from voting altogether)
Definitely. We’re well and truly overdue for the Republicans and Democrats to go the way of the Whigs and the Bull Moose.
if you look around at other nations that were once great, they tend to fall quite a lot and then stagnate for a couple of centuries before they start recovering and none ever gets back to its peak.
I really don’t think we have enough data points to be sure about that. It’s basically just Rome and China. (And Egypt, but iirc we don’t know enough about their internal politics to know why they fell) The US hasn’t reached that kind of peak. But either way, I’m fine with the US never reaching the same heights it once had. If it were to become a regional superpower instead of an international one, but treat its people better, I’d be totally okay with that.
On that last point, Rome, Greece, China, Egypt, Spain & Portugal (from the Discoveries time), several Middle Eastern nations several times (from the Babylonians to the Persians and even the Arabs - back in the 12th Century the most advanced people in the World were Arabs, then known as Moors) and so on (if I remember it correctly the Mayan civilization fell before the Spanish Conquistadores got there, which would make it yet another one that fell to internal problems rather than external factors).
Greece was only ever united for a grand total of 15 years. When Alexander died, they returned to being a loose collection of city-states.
Spain
Totally forgot about that particular empire, I admit; but their peak was in the 1700s and their “fall” was, like, a few years before I was born in the 1970s, so I don’t know if they necessarily support your point about a necessary fall and long recovery as such. In fact, lower-class workers in Spanish colonies in the 1800s were eating better than middle-class citizens in France during that time; and far from taking centuries to return to a functional status, it’s basically a world economy again.
Portugal
Did Portugal ever fall? They divested of their colonies, and the monarchy fell, but those two events happened more or less independently of one another. You’re right that Portugal lasted for a long time; but my understanding of the revolution is that there wasn’t a prolonged period of economic pressure on the citizens of Portugal and that the revolution was mostly ideological.
Babylonians […] Persians
Those have about the same trouble as Egypt in figuring out the internal reasons for its fall, in the case of both the Old- and the Neo-Babylonian Empire as well as the Persian empire and Achaemenid empire.
Arabs
Each caliphate only lasted for a few decades, maybe a century or two. I don’t know enough about them to be able to speak intelligently on their internal politics at the time of their fall.
Mayan civilization
That one definitely lasted for about 4,000 years, true, but like Greece they were an interdependent network of city-states rather than a united empire. The Classic Maya civilization declined precipitously due to unknown reasons, and the post-classical civilization was conquered by the Spanish, so there’s no real evidence there that would point toward anything here.
So yeah, common-ish dynamic; but we can’t really divine any historical information to inform our current situation from any of them, for one reason or another. At least I don’t think we can conclude that long-running or wide-ranging empires are or are not regularly destroyed by internal unrest due to economic disparities.
Definitely. We’re well and truly overdue for the Republicans and Democrats to go the way of the Whigs and the Bull Moose.
I really don’t think we have enough data points to be sure about that. It’s basically just Rome and China. (And Egypt, but iirc we don’t know enough about their internal politics to know why they fell) The US hasn’t reached that kind of peak. But either way, I’m fine with the US never reaching the same heights it once had. If it were to become a regional superpower instead of an international one, but treat its people better, I’d be totally okay with that.
On that last point, Rome, Greece, China, Egypt, Spain & Portugal (from the Discoveries time), several Middle Eastern nations several times (from the Babylonians to the Persians and even the Arabs - back in the 12th Century the most advanced people in the World were Arabs, then known as Moors) and so on (if I remember it correctly the Mayan civilization fell before the Spanish Conquistadores got there, which would make it yet another one that fell to internal problems rather than external factors).
It’s a pretty common dynamic.
Greece was only ever united for a grand total of 15 years. When Alexander died, they returned to being a loose collection of city-states.
Totally forgot about that particular empire, I admit; but their peak was in the 1700s and their “fall” was, like, a few years before I was born in the 1970s, so I don’t know if they necessarily support your point about a necessary fall and long recovery as such. In fact, lower-class workers in Spanish colonies in the 1800s were eating better than middle-class citizens in France during that time; and far from taking centuries to return to a functional status, it’s basically a world economy again.
Did Portugal ever fall? They divested of their colonies, and the monarchy fell, but those two events happened more or less independently of one another. You’re right that Portugal lasted for a long time; but my understanding of the revolution is that there wasn’t a prolonged period of economic pressure on the citizens of Portugal and that the revolution was mostly ideological.
Those have about the same trouble as Egypt in figuring out the internal reasons for its fall, in the case of both the Old- and the Neo-Babylonian Empire as well as the Persian empire and Achaemenid empire.
Each caliphate only lasted for a few decades, maybe a century or two. I don’t know enough about them to be able to speak intelligently on their internal politics at the time of their fall.
That one definitely lasted for about 4,000 years, true, but like Greece they were an interdependent network of city-states rather than a united empire. The Classic Maya civilization declined precipitously due to unknown reasons, and the post-classical civilization was conquered by the Spanish, so there’s no real evidence there that would point toward anything here.
So yeah, common-ish dynamic; but we can’t really divine any historical information to inform our current situation from any of them, for one reason or another. At least I don’t think we can conclude that long-running or wide-ranging empires are or are not regularly destroyed by internal unrest due to economic disparities.