How It All Ends — Part I
The Quiet Drift: How States Begin Abandoning the Federal System
Author’s Note
This project began as a thought experiment rooted in current trends: What happens when a federal government stops serving the people who fund and obey it? What if the systems of mutual obligation—taxes, services, legal coherence—don’t collapse dramatically, but instead erode through attrition, mismanagement, and legislative abandonment?
This is not a dystopian trope. I started with a more straightforward premise: American federalism already allows for autonomy, and many states already operate with surprising independence. Public health, disaster response, infrastructure, education, energy policy—these are domains where states increasingly act first, coordinate regionally, and inform the federal government afterward, if at all.
From there, I mapped a trajectory—logically, not ideologically—based on what might happen if those trends accelerate under strain. If the federal government withholds funding or collapses under its dysfunction, the states don’t revolt. They replace.
Using the blueprint of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s 1918 collapse—driven by legislation, apathy, and indifference—this series imagines a United States that doesn’t implode, but quietly deauthorizes itself, line item by line item.
This is the first installment in a three-part series:
Part I examines the gradual, lawful disintegration of federal cohesion, driven by financial, logistical, and political fractures.
Part II will explore what happens when that fracture reaches the military, nuclear command, and U.S. overseas territories.
Part III will look beyond collapse, examining foreign recognition, new alignments, the fate of the U.S. dollar, and what an end-state might entail.
What follows isn’t prophecy. It’s a sketch of one possible future, grounded not in fantasy, but in the systems we already have, and the fault lines we’ve created ourselves. Others may sketch different futures—more hopeful, more unified. I was raised in Europe. For me, pragmatism tends to offer a more reliable foundation than hope.
Introduction: The Drift Has Already Begun
This essay is not about civil war or riots. It is not about dramatic secession votes or armed standoffs. Instead, it examines the gradual, bureaucratic erosion of federal authority in the United States, an erosion that is already underway.
At the heart of this unraveling is a profound breach of the social contract. The traditional bargain between citizens and government has been straightforward: individuals and states pay taxes and obey the law, and in return, the federal government provides essential services, public safety, and basic infrastructure.
That bargain is no longer upheld.
Citizens and states are being asked to continue fulfilling their financial obligations, often with rising tax burdens, while receiving diminishing returns. Programs that once underpinned the federal government’s role, such as disaster relief, healthcare support, and infrastructure maintenance, are being steadily reduced or withdrawn. Things that serve the common good, such as technology and medical research, are being hindered. We will now travel less safely, as our food is no longer being properly inspected, and our water and air are becoming increasingly polluted. In their place, federal spending increasingly flows towards transfers that benefit narrow interests.
This shift is not primarily ideological. It reflects a growing sense among states and their residents that the federal government has withdrawn from its role as a guarantor of the public good. In this environment, questions arise not out of rebellion, but out of necessity, about whether continued fiscal compliance remains sensible when the federal government no longer fulfills its obligations.
Beneath this quiet questioning lies another hard truth: the federal government has not simply abandoned its commitments, it has redirected them. Instead of funding broadly shared services, it now channels vast sums into subsidies, tax breaks, and financial transfers that concentrate wealth at the top. These programs are supported, in no small part, by extracting more from the working and middle class through higher taxes, stagnant wages, and steadily eroded public services.
It is against this backdrop that the quiet fragmentation begins. States, faced with immediate needs and an absent federal partner, begin to fill the void. Whispers have already started.
This isn’t rebellion. It’s survival.
It begins quietly, with states stepping in to cover essential gaps. Over time, these pragmatic moves snowball into something more profound—a gradual, lawful reshaping of the United States into a fragmented, decentralized patchwork of regions—not through physical or violent revolution, but through financial and political realignment.
A Government Hollowed Out
The federal government no longer governs effectively. This is not alarmism—it is plain observation.
Congress has ground to a halt. Deep structural flaws—gerrymandering, the Senate’s imbalance, and the filibuster—make it nearly impossible to pass meaningful legislation. Major programs, including Medicaid, food assistance, housing, and disaster relief, face constant funding crises.
Federal agencies, once the quiet workhorses of governance, have been gutted. Agencies such as FEMA, HUD, and HHS now face staffing shortages and budgetary constraints that hinder their ability to perform their core functions.
The impacts are visible everywhere: rising homelessness, hospitals stretched beyond capacity, crumbling infrastructure, and sluggish responses to natural disasters. Washington remains potent in symbolic terms—collecting taxes, regulating trade, and commanding the military—but its ability to safeguard basic services is collapsing.
In this vacuum, states have begun taking matters into their own hands.
The Quiet Beginning – States Step In and Triage
At first, states acted out of necessity. The public health infrastructure was overwhelmed. Unemployment systems buckled. Emergency response coordination broke down. This isn’t the retelling of some dystopian future. We’re talking about the COVID-19 pandemic. In the early months, as deaths mounted, some states realized that waiting for federal leadership wasn’t just futile—it was dangerous. President Trump (Trump 45) failed to act because he didn’t believe it was happening.
Governors from both parties, facing rising death tolls and collapsing local economies, began sourcing their ventilators, signing independent contracts for PPE, and coordinating interstate coalitions for data sharing. The Northeast formed one bloc. The Western states formed another. For a brief moment, it seemed that something akin to parallel governance was emerging—not out of ideology, but out of necessity.
This wasn’t the first crack in the system. Even before the first Trump administration, states had begun experimenting with alternative models of governance. California created its environmental standards and signed climate accords with foreign governments. Texas built a parallel disaster response infrastructure in the wake of federal FEMA failures during hurricanes. These were early signs of a shifting dynamic: the federal government was no longer seen as the default problem-solver. It had become a contingency, something to work around.
Under Trump 45, the shift accelerated. By design or dysfunction, the federal response apparatus was gutted, demoralized, or intentionally sidelined. Agencies like the CDC, FEMA, and even the USPS were politicized or rendered inert. States sued the federal government at historic levels. Governors deployed their own National Guard in ways that once would have required federal coordination or approval. In several instances, they completely disregarded federal directives.
Then came Biden, who promised a return to normalcy but inherited a fractured system. Federal aid still flowed—sometimes—but it was slow, conditional, or trapped in bureaucratic filters. States like Florida and California have forged their own paths in areas ranging from housing to climate change to immigration enforcement. Red states passed legislation directly opposing federal vaccine mandates. Blue states carved out abortion protections anticipating (and then reacting to) Supreme Court rollbacks.
What had once been a nation governed by uniform rules and cooperative federalism was quietly transforming into a confederation of necessity—fifty states navigating the void between obligation and abandonment.
This wasn’t a revolution. It was triage.
From Temporary Blocs to Persistent Networks
The pandemic’s ad hoc regional “blocs” demonstrated a survival instinct—states sharing health data, PPE, or messaging. But beneath that temporary patchwork, longer-standing networks were already in motion. These infrastructure layers, spanning healthcare, disaster response, and cooperation between the Army and Air Guard, were either activated in response to a crisis or due to operational necessity.
1. Public Health & Healthcare Coordination
Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup: A collaboration between California, Oregon, and Washington for fast-tracked vaccine review. Active during the pandemic, this group continues to set regional health policy standards and share lab capacity across state lines.
Northwest Tribal Epidemiology Center: Serves tribes across Oregon, Washington, and Idaho—linking systems for ongoing disease surveillance and outbreak response.
These structures predate COVID and now operate year-round, functioning as quasi-federal systems at a regional scale.
2. Disaster Response
Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC): A mutual aid compact used in major hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. In COVID times, EMAC didn’t just share rescue teams—it coordinated field hospitals, mobile morgues, and vaccine logistics statewide. Its routine activation hints at a new national norm in cross-state disaster operations.
3. Army National Guard Integration
278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Tennessee Army Guard): Regularly embeds Mississippi and Kentucky detachments in training at Fort Irwin and during overseas deployments. This cross-state integration operates like a permanent, mission-ready combat brigade. There are other examples, but this one stands out.
4. Air National Guard Multi-State Cooperation
In 2016, a multi-state Air Guard team built a Camp Pendleton airfield damage and repair training site, drawing personnel from several state Guard Units to design and maintain runway recovery infrastructure.
Today, Air Guard units routinely operate detachments into other states, deploying mission-generation or expeditionary force elements as part of AFFORGEN rotations (the Air Force’s new four-phase deployment model that integrates Guard, Reserve, and active-duty units into a rotational force structure).
In short:
Pandemic-era blocs → activation of regional systems
Pre-existing networks (healthcare, EMAC) → operational backbones
Guard units (Army and Air) → cross-state missions and infrastructure-building
These frameworks aren’t hypothetical; they’re functional, active, and extending across state lines, forming the potential scaffolding of a new, decentralized governance network.
Fracture Points – The Bluff Gets Called
By now, it’s clear: the United States no longer operates as a centralized system. It functions as a patchwork of regionally networked fragments—some formal, some ad hoc, but all trending toward permanence. What began with the sharing of public health data and disaster mutual aid has evolved into parallel systems across healthcare, defense, logistics, and governance.
But these systems still exist within the broader, albeit weakened, federal framework. The question is: what happens when that framework begins to break down?
The Financial Compact Fractures
At the core of American federalism is a fiscal compact: states implement programs such as Medicaid, disaster relief, and infrastructure, and the federal government pays for them. In return, states follow the rules. But when federal payments become unpredictable, politically conditional, or mathematically unsustainable, the states start asking: why should we keep playing this game?
The mechanisms for fiscal resistance already exist. States manage their treasuries. Federal dollars flow through state pass-through accounts before they reach schools, hospitals, and vendors. States already file 1115 waivers to modify how they spend Medicaid dollars. Some operate independent tax and payroll systems for public workers. And in a crisis, any state could delay, reroute, or escrow federal receipts, without technically violating the law.
The federal government may attempt to recoup funds. But it lacks real leverage. IRS enforcement depends on state-provided income data. Federal agencies rely on state systems to certify eligibility and administer benefits. If states stop cooperating—or slow-walk everything—the federal government becomes a treasury without hands.
And the threat to withhold funding? That cuts both ways.
The Trump-era promise to “cut off disobedient states” is a somewhat empty bluff for one simple reason: many of those states are net contributors to the federal budget.
California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, and others send more to Washington than they get back. If they stop forwarding funds, they don’t suffer—they save.
The threat is meaningless. It’s like telling someone, “Obey me, or I’ll stop mooching off you.”
And if those net-contributor states decide to keep all federal receipts, reroute taxes internally, or escrow matching funds? The federal government bleeds out—fast.
This isn’t fantasy. It’s an accounting war.
The States Hold the Cards
The financial asymmetry is staggering. Losing Wyoming or Mississippi wouldn’t weaken the federal government fiscally by too much. However, if California, New York, Illinois, or Washington were to withhold their participation, it would be a fiscal catastrophe.
California is the fourth-largest economy in the world. If the Pacific states—say, California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado—stopped forwarding funds or launched a parallel digital payment system, the federal government would lose not only operating cash but also its global creditworthiness:
Foreign lenders would hesitate to buy U.S. debt.
The dollar would wobble under the weight of contested tax flows.
The bond market would smell instability and demand a premium.
In response, regional blocs would likely move fast. Digital currencies—pegged to regional GDPs, carbon markets, or commodities—could replace the dollar for local trade and contracts. Fintech platforms already exist. Smart contracts, blockchain settlement layers, and even state-backed digital wallets could scale within a matter of months.
This isn’t secession. It’s a fiscal divorce.
The Fragile States
Not every state can survive alone. States like Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and parts of Appalachia depend heavily on federal funding. But their fate likely wouldn’t split along red-blue lines—it would split along fragile vs. resilient.
Some may beg to stay tethered to a shrinking federal center. Others may seek absorption into wealthier blocs. The Atlantic Corridor (NY, NJ, MA, DC) or the Pacific Compact could absorb neighbors to stabilize regional labor and healthcare markets. But these would be calculated decisions, not moral ones.
Not all states classified as “fragile” are as deeply dependent on external support. For example, some, like New Mexico, carry hidden strengths:
Energy powerhouse: New Mexico produces over 2 million barrels of oil per day, as of 2024, ranking it second nationally thanks to its share of the Permian Basin.
Nuclear infrastructure: At Kirtland AFB, the Kirtland Underground Munitions Maintenance and Storage Complex holds the world’s largest stockpile of U.S. nuclear weapons—more than 3,000 warheads.
High-tech, military, and research: Home to White Sands Missile Range, multiple air bases, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, and significant defense installations, NM has deep connections to federal investment and strategic know-how.
Rather than a drag on a regional bloc, these attributes make a state like NM an asset, a keystone in energy revenue, defense capacity, and scientific innovation. Alaska is in a similar position: a small population, an extractive yet unstable economy, and an outsized share of U.S. military infrastructure.
Even the Capital Is Vulnerable
The final humiliation might not come through rebellion; it might come through a utility bill.
The federal government depends on Washington, D.C., for power, sanitation, policing, and transit. If the federal Treasury fails and D.C. stops getting paid, it could legally interrupt services. Not out of politics, but municipal necessity.
Trash piles up outside federal buildings
Power is cut for unpaid electric bills
Rent goes unpaid on leased agency offices
Emergency services are suspended without compensation
D.C. could quietly begin evicting the federal government—not by decree, but by invoice. And where would the government go? Virginia? Texas? Not likely. Those states, already among the more fiscally liquid, may be aligned with emerging regional alliances. They’re not about to host a bankrupt bureaucracy.
In the end, it wasn’t the rifles or the riots. It was the gas bill.
The federal government cannot survive if the states stop paying into it. And the states have already shown they can live without permission. The Union won’t be shattered by guns, but by ledgers. And Washington’s pen may not be mightier than the states acting in concert.
How Blocs Begin
Blocs don’t form all at once. They begin as alignments of necessity—geographic, cultural, economic—and deepen through habit, coordination, and shared interest.
Some alignments are obvious. The West Coast has long acted as a political and policy bloc, even before the pandemic. Its states share energy grids, environmental goals, public health infrastructure, high-tech, and cultural narratives. New England, much of which was founded on the legacy of the original Massachusetts Bay Colony, already functions as a cohesive political region.
Not every emerging bloc is rooted in established institutions or traditional political ideologies. Some are built on raw utility—fuel, water, ports, and wires.
A new kind of alignment is emerging across parts of the South, centered in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. These states sit on massive reserves of oil and gas, control key refining and export infrastructure, and—ironically—are some of the most prominent investors in renewables. Texas talks MAGA, but it’s also quietly erecting wind turbines at a scale that rivals much of Europe. Solar, too.
This bloc doesn’t broadcast its cohesion. It just operates—selling energy, managing ports, and tightening cross-border economic ties, especially along the Texas-Mexico border, where trade and labor flows remain deeply integrated despite national policy theatrics. If this bloc keeps its grip on energy exports and logistics, it doesn’t need a seat at the federal table. It has leverage instead.
These areas didn’t set out to become sovereign blocs. But as the federal government faded, their cooperation solidified. Shared funding mechanisms followed, then policy councils. Then, the inter-bloc contracts. Eventually, they stopped coordinating as states and started operating as regions.
Not every bloc starts from strength. A few powerful regions move first—those that are economically stable, policy-aligned, and already well-integrated. Others follow more slowly, pulled by self-interest, survival, or inertia. Some may even join existing blocs, folding into structures already built for cooperation and resource sharing.
This isn’t a revolution. It’s a coalescence.
Retaliation – Can the Security State Enforce the Union?
When the tax base disintegrates, federal agencies go hungry—but not all at once. In a slow collapse, they don’t fund the grants. They fund the guards.
Desperate to maintain control, Washington, or wherever the federal bureaucracy lands, starts reprogramming whatever revenue it can still reach. Dollars are pulled from social programs, infrastructure, and cooperative grants, then redirected into enforcement, including DHS, IRS, federal law enforcement, cyber operations, and surveillance.
It’s not a governing strategy. It’s a tourniquet on a bleeding stump. Dollars are pulled from remaining social programs, infrastructure, and cooperative grants, then redirected into enforcement, including DHS, IRS, federal law enforcement, cyber operations, and surveillance.
The National Guard Is No Longer Guaranteed
The federal government may still issue orders, but its hands are weakening—and recent events in California prove it. In June 2025, President Trump invoked Title 10 to deploy up to 4,000 California National Guard members and 700 Marines to support federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, without Governor Newsom’s approval. The move triggered a lawsuit (Newsom v. Trump), 9th Circuit scrutiny, and a rare rebuke from 22 Democratic governors nationwide, who labeled it an “alarming abuse of power” that undermines state control.
This wasn’t a smooth demonstration of federal authority—it was a stress test revealing how brittle federal control can be. California fought back. Other governors took note. In its aftermath, states like Oregon (and even some swing-state leaders) quietly began exploring guard-activation protocols and legislative checks to prevent future overreach.
Rather than signaling a return of federal dominance, the incident serves as a warning: federal command now depends on coordination, consent, and—more than ever—political capital. Without those, it can backfire, eroding trust instead of enforcing order.
Nobody wants the military in their backyard. That’s etched in our collective psyche—red, blue, or otherwise.
The Hidden Half of the War Machine
Most Americans assume the U.S. military is self-contained: tanks have shells, jets get refueled, and some invisible, unstoppable supply chain keeps the troops moving. But that chain isn’t federal. It’s state-owned primarily, with the Reserves filling in most of the rest. The Army, for example, has moved entire logistics operating specialties into the part-time force.
If the Guard stays home, the Reserves, still a federal entity, will struggle to hold the line.
Want to shoot something down?
Most of the Air Force’s aerial refueling fleet—KC-135s and KC-46s—belongs to the Guard and Reserve. No tanker, no Maverick.
Want to fix your tanks or helicopters when they break?
Depot-level repair of major systems—such as rotorcraft, ground vehicles, and electronics—is heavily dependent on Guard and Reserve maintainers. Active-duty personnel can’t fill the gap quickly.
Want to drink water, cook food, or brush your teeth in the field?
Water purification, storage, and distribution—including Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units (ROWPUs) and Tactical Water Purification Systems (TWPS)—is essentially a Guard and Reserve mission. There’s little federal backup if the Guard stays home. The troops will get thirsty.
If the states pull back control, or the units don’t report, what’s left of the federal force will struggle to deploy, let alone sustain itself in the field.
This isn’t rebellion. It’s logistics.
Surveillance Over Services
As more systems slip beyond reach, the federal government turns inward. What remains of its enforcement capacity is retooled to confront internal defiance: federalizing any Guard units still compliant, weaponizing IRS audits to pressure state treasuries, expanding DOJ subpoenas and asset seizures, and rerouting cyber and signals intelligence to monitor tax flows, communications, and resistance coordination.
States are no longer partners. They are adversaries. The shift is already underway.
This posture is packaged as “national integrity enforcement,” but it’s functionally a siege.
In this stripped-down form, federal enforcement is incomplete. It lacks reach. It lacks trust. It lacks a workforce.
That’s where ICE steps in.
From Border to Internal Enforcement
With immigration flows declining and the nation’s economic future uncertain, ICE finds itself without a core mission. Fewer people are arriving. Fewer want to stay. Many leave on their own.
But ICE is still there—its infrastructure, agents, vehicles, detention centers, tactical units, and surveillance systems remain, ready to be repurposed.
The shift is from border control to internal compliance. Maybe now, ICE stands for Internal Compliance Enforcement.
They won’t even need new patches for their flak vests.
Under executive direction, ICE begins targeting so-called “economic disruption threats”: state banks withholding federal receipts, corporations cooperating with regional currency pilots, and individuals suspected of rerouting payroll taxes. Agents now coordinate with Treasury, DOJ, and DHS task forces. The investigative and intelligence infrastructure is already in place.
In public, it’s branded as critical infrastructure protection.
On the ground, it looks like the police portion of the police state.
The Loyalty Drift
This shift raises a deeper problem—one Washington is reluctant to face. Agencies like ICE and DHS are not inherently loyal to the Constitution. They are faithful to mission, budget, and leadership.
This isn’t hyperbole—it’s baked into how they were built.
ICE was created by executive order in 2003, not by constitutional charter, and its accountability flows through DHS to the White House. Its operations have repeatedly tested constitutional limits, from warrantless raids and surveillance to prolonged detentions and jurisdictional overreach.[¹] DHS itself was designed for executive responsiveness, not constitutional guardianship—it centralizes power, accelerates directives, and often circumvents traditional checks in the name of urgency. Unlike the military, which swears its oath to the Constitution, ICE and DHS personnel swear their allegiance to the agency and chain of command.
These are not rogue agencies. They are functioning exactly as designed.
For them, it is no longer about defending the nation. It’s about protecting the center of command.
History warns us here. In Rome, emperors relied on their Praetorian Guards—until the guards found better offers. Loyalty followed power, not virtue.
Power doesn’t evaporate—it reallocates. And those who enforced the old order don’t disappear. They pivot. The uniforms stay the same. Only the directives change.
The old regime may be out. But ICE survives—retasked, renamed, maybe even as the Imperial Control Executive. Still wearing the same flak vests.
The real question isn’t how much force Washington can project.
It’s how much loyalty it still commands—and for how long.
System Failure – When Collapse Becomes Structure
We’re Still Pretending This Is Normal
Three pillars of American federalism—operational capacity, fiscal coordination, and national governance—haven’t fallen all at once. They’ve been eroding in parallel, their functions quietly replaced by bloc-based autonomy. What appears to be adaptation on the surface is, in practice, the disintegration of federal cohesion.
Operational capacity hasn’t been sabotaged—it’s been substituted. States and blocs now coordinate supply chains, administer healthcare, manage infrastructure, and assert near-exclusive control over their National Guard units. What once required federal oversight now operates on a regional level. Washington isn’t defied—it’s bypassed.
Military dependence followed the same arc. Over decades, budget compression and structural shifts led to the federal army offloading core support functions—such as airlift, logistics, and water purification—to the Guard and Reserve. When blocs asserted control over those units, the Pentagon lost more than manpower. It lost the ability to move, supply, and repair itself.
The fiscal fracture didn’t come all at once. It began as states and blocs quietly opted out. A net-contributor state declared it was done subsidizing dysfunction and began redirecting federal receipts into its systems. Digital currencies, local payroll networks, and state-run tax-withholding mechanisms emerged, not as protest, but as policy. Others, seeing the federal government’s inability to respond or reassert control, followed suit.
The federal government kept printing dollars. But the blocs had stopped using them. They weren’t sending them back. They weren’t waiting for grants that never came. They had moved on.
Markets took notice. Credit ratings slipped. Treasury bonds lost their safety premium. The IRS continued to issue notices that were not enforced. What remained of federal fiscal authority became symbolic—a ghost ledger with no deposits.
This isn’t a countdown to political collapse. It’s already underway—not as a coup, but as a consequence.
Political Collapse: From Union to Bloc
With logistics and finances fractured, the illusion of federal control begins to break.
States no longer defer to Washington. Some openly block federal agencies from operating in their territory. Others ignore executive orders, judicial rulings, and congressional directives. National Guard units operate solely under the control of their respective states. IRS audits get stonewalled. DOJ subpoenas expire unacknowledged.
Blocs coordinate directly on trade, infrastructure, healthcare, and even foreign policy. They are no longer informal alliances. They are de facto governments.
And Washington? It still exists—but it no longer governs.
The End of National Politics
Political structures do not survive political vacuums. As federal coherence breaks down, the old two-party system crumbles under pressure it can no longer absorb.
In the West, MAGA candidates lose traction and quietly vanish from ballots. In the South, Democrats cease to exist outside a few urban strongholds. Regional blocs stop pretending that national platforms matter. Instead, they begin forming their political ecosystems, tailored to local conditions, economies, and values. Some develop stable democratic coalitions. Others drift toward autocracy, emergency technocracy, or one-party rule.
Cross-bloc politics becomes increasingly tricky. There’s no shared vocabulary, no common agenda. What counts as “moderate” in one bloc is treasonous in another.
Congress technically continues—but in name only. Lawmakers either stop showing up or treat it as a form of political theater. Quorums collapse. Committees disband in infighting. Legislation stalls or is immediately ignored. It doesn’t matter what laws are passed—no one enforces them, and the blocs don’t recognize their authority.
This isn’t gridlock. It’s abandonment.
What About the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court fares no better. It still issues opinions—but to whom? States pick and choose which rulings to observe. Some bloc courts openly defy federal precedent. Others reinterpret the Constitution based on their own compacts or legal traditions. A handful of rulings remain relevant—mostly around currency and inter-bloc trade—but the court no longer resolves national disputes. It just issues press releases in legalese.
The Rump Government
The federal government becomes a rump state, presiding over D.C. (maybe), a network of military installations, and a handful of compliant agencies. It retains nuclear weapons, some long-range capabilities, and foreign embassies. But its relevance fades by the day.
Foreign leaders adapt. When the King of England visits North America, his first stop may no longer be Washington, but Sacramento—to meet with President Newsom of the New California Republic, a name once fictional, now strangely apt. Elsewhere, prime ministers and trade envoys skip D.C. entirely, flying straight to Austin or Albany. Diplomatic norms fracture alongside the republic.
The old national identity still flickers—but it’s flickering on multiple screens at once.
From Collapse to Configuration
Despite the chaos, this is not yet a failed state. It’s a reconfiguration.
Each bloc now acts as its sovereign, but they haven’t entirely disavowed the idea of being “American.” They operate independently, but not always antagonistically. Some maintain trade with D.C. Others send delegates, but not lawmakers. Some retain old federal agency names. Others don’t bother.
It is no longer the United States of America. But it is not fully divided either.
This is the moment before the break becomes a new set of borders.
What’s Next: Prelude to Part II
The federal government has not collapsed—but it has been hollowed out. What remains is a skeletal institution: stripped of fiscal control, bypassed by governors, and ignored by newly self-sufficient regional blocs.
In Part I, we watched that slow erosion unfold. States reasserted sovereignty. National infrastructure became decentralized. Congress lost quorum. The social contract frayed—and then snapped.
But the real danger is still ahead.
Part II will explore what happens when fragmentation reaches the armed forces.
What if nuclear command becomes contested?
What if global adversaries test a country that can no longer speak with one voice?
What if Guam and Puerto Rico—long sidelined by mainland politics—refuse to be drawn into someone else’s civil unraveling?
What if foreign embassies must choose which “America” to recognize?
This next phase isn’t about budget fights or tax seizures. It’s about fractured deterrence. Strategic uncertainty. And the terrifying consequences of a military without a single flag to salute.
Part II asks not whether the United States can govern, but whether it still believes it’s worth defending.
Sources
[1] Congressional Research Service. The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: A Sketch. Updated November 2021. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R42659.pdf
CRS is a nonpartisan arm of the U.S. Library of Congress; the document includes a discussion on Title 10 and federal authority over National Guard units.
[2] U.S. Government Accountability Office, State and Local Governments’ Fiscal Outlook: 2019 Update (Dec 2019). https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-269sp.pdf
Official GAO PDF (GAO-20-269SP), including long-term projections showing expenditures growing faster than revenues, highlighting fiscal stress for states and municipalities
[3] Rockefeller Institute of Government, Giving or Getting? New York’s Balance of Payments with the Federal Government (July 1, 2024). https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Balance-of-Payments-Federal-2024.pdf
Official RockInst PDF showing state-by-state contribution/receipt balances—including New York’s net-contribution status
[4] Western States Pact. Wikipedia. Last modified July 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_States_Pact
Confirms that on April 13, 2020, the governors of California, Oregon, and Washington jointly announced the Western States Pact—a regional agreement to coordinate COVID-19 response and reopening plans based on science and public health data.
[5] Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). National Emergency Management Association (NEMA). https://www.emacweb.org/
EMAC is a congressionally ratified mutual aid agreement that facilitates resource sharing among all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories during emergencies.
[6] Kirtland Underground Munitions Maintenance and Storage Complex.** Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtland_Underground_Munitions_Maintenance_and_Storage_Complex
According to public sources, the KUMMSC (activated in 1992) is the world’s largest underground nuclear weapons storage facility, with more than 300,000 sq ft underground and thousands of warheads (including B‑61, B‑83, W‑80, W‑87) on-site
[7] National Guard Bureau Posture Statement. U.S. Department of Defense, National Guard. https://www.nationalguard.mil/Features/Posture-Statement/
The Posture Statement, available for multiple years including the most recent (2026 and 2025), is an official DoD publication detailing the Guard and Reserve’s roles in logistics, air refueling, maintenance, domestic operations, and total force support
[8] Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. State Tax Revenue and Dependence on Federal Transfers. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FGEXPND
Provides statistical data on state revenue sources, including reliance on federal transfers.
[9] At Risk: Federal Grants to State and Local Governments. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/research/at-risk-federal-grants-to-state-and-local-governments
CBPP reports that federal grants account for approximately 31% of state budgets—and 22% when combined with local budgets—highlighting the significant yet vulnerable role of federal assistance in state and local funding.
[10] “The Guard and Reserve Step Up,” Air & Space Forces Magazine. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0102gandr/
This article, published in Air & Space Forces Magazine, reports that the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command together provide 55 % of the USAF’s aerial refueling capacity and 64 % of tactical airlift, underscoring their dominant role in tanker operations
[11] Reuters, “California governor calls Trump National Guard deployment in LA unlawful” (June 8, 2025). https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-court-lets-trump-retain-control-california-national-guard-now-2025-06-20/
Covers Governor Newsom’s legal challenge to Trump’s Title 10 deployment of the California National Guard and the 9th Circuit’s decision to allow continued federal control pending further review.
[12] Reuters, “Appeals court signals it may have limited power in Trump National Guard deployment” (June 17, 2025). https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-appeals-court-rule-trumps-los-angeles-troop-deployment-2025-06-17/
Covers legal scrutiny over Title 10 invocation by CA.
[13] Wikipedia, Newsom v. Trump (June 2025 case). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsom_v._Trump
Summarizes lawsuit and judicial timeline regarding California Guard deployment.
[14] PBS Newshour, “What U.S. law says about Trump’s deployment of active duty troops to Los Angeles” (June 2025). https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-u-s-law-says-about-trumps-deployment-of-active-duty-troops-to-los-angeles
Explains legal limits under Posse Comitatus and Title 10.
[15] Time, “L.A. Mayor Says Trump Administration Is Continuing ‘All Out Assault’” (July 7, 2025). https://time.com/7300803/los-angeles-ice-raids-macarthur-park-national-guard-bass-trump/
Describes Guard presence amid ICE operations.
[16] Reuters, “Los Angeles joins ACLU lawsuit against Trump’s immigration raids” (July 9, 2025). https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/los-angeles-joins-aclu-lawsuit-against-trumps-immigration-raids-2025-07-09/
Reports LA’s legal challenge against Trump’s immigration raids.
[17] Guardian, “ICE is about to become the biggest police force in the US” (July 9, 2025). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/09/ice-immigration-police-trump-budget-bill
Commentary on ICE’s budget expansion and internal mission shift.
[18] Reuters, “What U.S. law says about Trump sending troops to quell protests” (June 8, 2025). https://www.reuters.com/world/us/does-us-law-allow-trump-send-troops-quell-protests-2025-06-08/
Examines Title 10 and legal justification challenges.
[19] Forkast News, “5 US digital dollar pilots launching to chase China’s CBDC lead.” https://forkast.news/digital-dollar-project-cbdc-pilots/
Details of U.S. digital currency pilot programs.
[20] Central Bank Digital Currencies. Congress.gov, Congressional Research Service (CRS Product IF11471), updated April 10, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11471
This CRS “In Focus” report, authored by Labonte and Nelson, provides an authoritative overview of CBDC research, including U.S. policy considerations and international developments.
Note on Source Validity and Availability (as of July 15, 2025):
All sources cited in this document were verified as valid and publicly accessible as of July 15, 2025. Due to ongoing U.S. government efforts to consolidate, remove, or relocate public records—including policy documents, state and federal reports, and independent research archives—some URLs may become inactive or redirected without notice. Where possible, alternate sources, mirrors, or archived versions have been provided. Readers are encouraged to use trusted archives (such as the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine) if sources are no longer available. I’ll revisit this list in a month to verify whether U.S. government documents remain accessible.