Money-printing and the debt are certainly big problems.

Money-printing and the debt are certainly big problems. But they’re not insurmountable. The shift of generations and the advent of sentient AI will bring about significant changes in 10-20 years’ time, which we can’t now predict.

And America isn’t a civilization in the way you describe. If it is an empire, it is an empire of the mind. It is the leader in a global civilization of competing ideologies of governance. The end of deficit spending & money-printing is inevitable. It would be better if that happened before we lost reserve currency—and even more political capital than we already have. That is our greatest asset—the idea of America.

That idea traces back to our ideals and founding documents. We will move closer to them and to one another after President Trump leaves office and COVID-19 is in the past. But only time will heal the wounds of this crisis. Another financial crisis or even Great Depression wouldn’t end the USA or global civilization. That’s pure fatalism. Unless the AI decides we’re irrelevant. Then we’re in some trouble.