Great piece, Greg! I had trouble following it, partly because I'm not all that educated, mostly because the future (during my remaining life) looks so hopeless, I've tuned out on it, including the dialogue about what crises and remedies lie ahead.

My two cents is systemic US economic leadership will collapse in the next several years along with US soft power. We'll become at best "another BRIC in the wall" (see Pink Floyd) so to speak, and at worst an economic wasteland a la other failed states.

This suggests the strategy Isaac Asimov offered in his "Foundation" trilogy -- rather than prop up the galactic empire, a seed was planted at the rim of the galaxy that in the ruins of the empire could provide a benign elite leadership to create a new civilization.

Perhaps more practically, with the tide lifting states' right, parts of (or all of) the US could secede, creating several new nations (say California, the Northeast, etc) some with sovereign progressive governments. (There's the Dead Kennedy's song "California Uber Alles.")

I can only imagine Washington DC as a ghost town, inhabited only by oligarchic politician vultures with hardly any carrion left in sight.