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Yes. That's why they're doing it. They want to destroy the government so they can convince us to replace it with the feudal society they have in mind. They think they have enough control over sufficient resources that they'll be safe from any violence you might offer thanks to their private armies.
Strange, considering they have no skills and their money will become useless. How do they keep their guards from becoming warlords when the only thing between them and that title is an unworked body?
Control over food, housing, entertainment, and other non-monetary valuables. Then they can start printing their own script to pay their mercenary forces.
You do have a point, I guess it really depends on the damage done from the fallout. A government crashing, and a nation dissolving is sure to cause a ruckus. If modern commodities are gone and we're banished back to primitives, the billionaires will have a rough time holding modern survivors. What are you lording over? My xbox is dead and I can set my tent up 49 yards to the west. Food supplies and clean drinking water would probably become the highest factors of control. I just don't see any of these "elite" piss babies actually being hard enough to survive in a world where you have to shit on the street and bury it. Hell, if they got what they wanted and our government did dissolve, I promise other nations will be swooping in to grab land and this conversation would have to take a new form.
They're living in gated communities with tall walls and private police forces. As long as they promise their mercenary armies a cut of the spoils, they're not worried about continuing to control resources. They don't need to be physically hard, they're sociopathic enough to justify any cruelty to anyone they want in order to get their way. They're all sure they'll become royalty in the new order, if not the king/queen of their domain.
They have a plan, and they've gathered the means to accomplish their goals. What remains to be seen is how well their defenses will stand up in the ensuing chaos.
That is probably my point. The upheaval would be of biblical proportions. They are not ready to weather the storm. No one is. You saw what happened to supplies when Covid lockdowns were announced here. Imagine if the end of society was announced.
They think they're ready. That's why they're pulling the trigger on this, and damn the consequences.
Gamma World it is then. I hope the villages of our descendants prosper.
Also, it wouldn't just be the end of US society. Remember how much stuff is tacked to the US dollar, how much trade and business is reliant on US industries. If the government suddenly collapsed entirely, taking the entire economy with it pretty much, it'd start a HUGE chain of dominoes. I feel like several countries could become the new superpower, but until that settles out, the entire WORLD would start falling apart in quick order.
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe was a feel-good story about this very phenomenon.
I actually wrote a poem for a writing prompt on bad site that was really just this. Instead of the Red Death, Governor Goodwill was suprisingly confronted by the survivors of the society he helped overthrow.
They assume I guess that China and Russia and rest of the world will just not do shit when we have no government ie no armies to defend us with?
They are so fucking stupid.
Killbots and nuclear dead man's switches. Ruling from secret locations. Playing subordinates off each other. Offering them another faction to fight but tying their arm behind their back so they can't ever win that fight. Putting someone no one wants to follow next in line of succession. Living in a fortress where someone in a security room can lock the whole place down to prevent any coup from establishing their power. Setting fake honeypot assassinations as traps so that no one is willing to risk not reporting real ones because anyone who hears about one and doesn't report it gets executed. Threatening families and other loved ones if anyone steps out of line. Only trusting people that they have significant dirt on that will be released on the leader's death so that people in positions to take him down know they'll go down with him, so instead protect him from any who decide they are willing to go down.
Though the position will be tenuous, even with all of that.
IT people will be in the security people's position for the killbots and dead man's switches. Enemies can work together to take down a common enemy. Someone who suggests not tying their arms behind their back vs enemy faction could seize power. A coup could take out any in the line of succession they don't like. Buddy in the security room would gain the power of IT/security people, or they could send in other assassins. The fake honeypot assassinations could serve as cover for a real one (if they report it, good job you passed the test! If they don't and instead succeed in assassinating, good job, you got him!). Relying too much on threats to loved ones can leave you vulnerable to psychopaths that don't care about anyone else, or those who don't have anyone (not to mention group punishments tend to create more enemies). And relying on compromat might be risky in the age of fake news and deep fake videos.