I think that's exactly what OP meant.
A bit like saying that Walmart is the best 4000 store grocery store in the USA.
I think we will see, across the West broadly, to varying extents:
- peripheral states flipping (e.g., Baltics)
- widespread looting of public assets, a new oligarchal class minted
- total destruction of the middle class, particularly those with ties to government and NGOs (I'm in this camp and miserable for it)
- at least one civil war, lots of territorial disputes kicking off, separatism
- breakdown of law and order, local gangsters as local authorities
- mass ex-migration, ethnic cleansing
- weak governments, coups, demagogues, vassalage
- hyperinflation and scammy get rich quick scams (watch crypto)
It's unlikely collapse will be felt as a singular, apocalyptic event. More like a slow, steady loss of influence and excess wealth. Countries on the periphery stop considering the empire's perspectives before making their own decisions. Other trading partners emerge. Bridges stop getting maintained until they're no longer usable.
And soft power declines. Imagine a day when the biggest pop star in the US, someone on the scale of Michael Jackson or Madonna nationally, is virtually unknown outside of its borders.
There are reasons to believe the American empire is in decline, but I maintain this will look more like Britain. It could take 50 years before American fully realize it.
Thankfully, that means there's plenty of time to reverse or mitigate the trends, or to make a decision to strengthen the Republic over the Empire.
Its former colonies experienced all I described above and more. In this case, the colonies are most of the world: where are the bases? Everywhere.
With the States, here's the scenario, not too far fetched. We will see 1) constitutional breakdown, as Trump (or his crew) digs in, and 2) economic breakdown, 2008 but exponentially worse.
This would constitute a Soviet scale collapse, to my mind.
Say, the Baltics flipping. Where the hell are we supposed to flip to? Russia? Where ethnic minorities are sent to die in expansionist wars in disproportionate numbers?
This is already happening with trade (e.g. soy beans) and with military purchases.
Canada is moving quickly with moving trade elsewhere.
When money is gone, the military is gone.
Money goes easily when a country has a large debt and need other countries to continue to buy into that debt.
It's the incredible level of interwoven left/right, progressive/conservative, urban/rural populations in more or less every state.
More people voted for the current president in CA than in more or less any other state. Yet it is viewed as a "blue" state. The millions of Democratic voters in large cities like Houston or Atlanta may not control their state legislatures, but they are not going to sit by as those legislatures attempt to secede. Rural voters across most states are not going to sit by while their urban-controlled legislatures attempt to secede.
We don't have "peripheral" states here, and we don't have "red or blue" states. We have a mostly urban/rural divide that does not follow state boundaries in any sense at all.
States in the USA have no effective history before being a part of the USA.