To accurately point out that saying that the US is in debt now, unlike 1945 is a ludicrous comparison since the US was hugely in debt in 1945? Obviously there are tons of other differences, but that's not one of them.
We are 30+ trillion in debt and 100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
I'm a deficit hawk but that's apples and oranges because the US GNP was $228 billion in 1945 and is $27 trillion today. Actual debt to GNP has stayed about the same (obviously the difference is we haven't just come out of a World War and this level of debt isn't sustainable).
The difference is that we are locked in with no hope of paying down the debt. It will just grow larger and larger until the inevitable. The rest of the world can see that. The dollar will need to be replaced. Also, America’s internal problems which are substantial and completely unfixable will just make matters worse.
I think that this stubbornly high inflation is the beginning of the end.