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How the U.S.A. Could Come to an End

How the U.S.A. Could Come to an End

Last updated on: July 1, 2026 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

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How the U.S.A. Could Come to an End 2026-06-27T16:28:36-04:00 Gene Veith

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The United States of America has been around for 250 years, as of July 4. Might there ever be a time when this streak comes to an end, when this nation comes to an end?

Of course the U.S.A. would end at Christ’s return or some catastrophe of mass destruction, but I’m thinking of a terminus of an identifiable political order. The Roman Republic lasted 482 years, from the time the Romans overthrew their king in 509 B.C. in favor of rulers they elected, until they ceded their authority to an Emperor, Augustus Caesar, in 27 B.C. The Roman Empire lasted for 503 years, from that day until the Germanic barbarian Odoacer deposed the last emperor, Romulus Augustus, in 486 A.D. and declined to appoint anyone else.

Five hundred years for a system of government is pretty long, actually. May ours last that long! We are only halfway there! More recently, the Soviet Union lasted only 69 years, from its post-revolutionary founding in 1922 to its formal dissolution in 1991.

But, of course, dissolving a political order and establishing a new one does not mean the people or the land cease to exist. The nation of Rome is now Italy. The Soviet Union is now the Russian Federation. But those new nations are no longer what they once were.

If the United States of America were ever to be dissolved, how could that happen and what would it look like?

I propose a thought experiment. In yesterday’s post, we blogged about the rise of Democratic Socialism in mainstream American politics.

Imagine that ideology taking over the Democratic party and becoming more and more popular. The new Marxist progressives put forward a charismatic, engaging candidate for president who wins the election in a landslide. The socialist Democrats also win the House and the Senate by big margins.

The previous Republican administration had presided over an economic depression, massive unemployment due to AI, and a grinding war with China. The Democrats proposed overhauling the failing economy, providing a generous work-free income for all, and making peace with China.

The new administration comes as a breath of fresh air. Hope returns. A sense of unity is drawing people together.

The desire for something new and the good feelings about a new beginning lead to a new constitutional convention. One that would create a new order of government uncontaminated by the legacy of slavery and Native American genocide.
One that would forge a new nation, grounded not in the profit-seeking of the rich, nor in the competition for scarce resources among individuals. Rather, now that AI has made the necessity to work obsolete, we could move to a collectivist economic order of justice and equity!

The new constitution would replace the old. The new economic and political system would emulate the People’s Republic of China, allowing reconciliation with that former adversary. There would no longer be a need for divisive elections, contending political parties, and adversarial legal proceedings. Such things divide us! Rather, we will be governed at every level by committees of experts who will make decisions for the common good. The “freedom” at the heart of the old constitution’s “liberal democracy” creates personal alienation, which we will overcome by measures ensuring that everyone agrees and no one dissents. The old otherworldly religions, which allowed for so much oppression and discord in this life, will be replaced by a new religion, in which we worship our new collective nation.

Okay, stop. I’m afraid I’m making this sound too attractive to some of you! But do you see how this could happen?

As a matter of fact, the Democratic Socialists of America really do want to have a new constitutional convention and a new constitution that creates a new political-economic order. In the 2021 party platform, since toned down in light of the new attention they are getting, we are told that “the American political system was not made to serve the working class,” and that “True change — abolishing the Senate and Electoral College, overturning the Supreme Court cases that hold that money is speech — would require constitutional amendment, made nearly impossible by our ossiﬁed Constitution.” Therefore, among the list of “our demands” is this:

A new political order through a second constitutional convention to write the founding documents of a new socialist democracy

I am aware that people who hold other ideologies, including some conservatives, would also like to replace our constitution and the political system it establishes for something else.

Some conservatives are calling for a monarchy. (One poll found that 8% of Americans would favor a monarchy. Some call for ceding the country back to the British throne. Some seek a descendant of George Washington (who died childless, so they look for royal blood from the line of his brother). Some seek an elected monarchy, similar to the way the Holy Roman Emperors were chosen. Curtis Yarvin, better known by his online handle Mencius Moldbug, calls for what one observer describes as “a monarch-like figure who acts as a corporate CEO for the country, making unilateral decisions and running what he calls the ‘gov-corp,'” a corporate model of government that gets rid of politics entirely that has attracted big tech figures such as Elon Musk.

Some Christian nationalists are calling for the establishment of a “Confessional State,” whether under the authority of the Pope, Calvinist magistrates, or Pentecostal “new apostles.”

Any of these new governing arrangements, even if they keep the name of the former constitutional republic, for better or for worse, would end the current nation whose 250th anniversary we are celebrating. (Technically, we are celebrating the advent of the American revolution, with the adoption of the American revolution. A more accurate birthday would be when our Constitution was ratified in 1789. We certainly won’t be celebrating the Declaration of Independence if we give ourselves back to England.)

My point is this: If the Constitution of the United States were ever replaced by some other document or system that “constitutes” the nation, then we would have a different country.

Photo: Signing the Agreement to Eliminate the USSR, by RIA Novosti archive, image #848095 / U. Ivanov / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17824662

America's 250th birthday

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