What people seem to not comprehend is how much interest we will pay if rates got to say 5%. It will be multiple trillions a year just in interest. Interest rates must stay below 2-3% forever just to survive. Try explaining $1 trillion to someone then say we have 18 of those we owe, soon to be $20 trillion +. We are done. It just depends on when the music stops because there are no more chairs.
On the contrary - the people the debt is owed to (namely, us) will be forced to forbear, because they will not be able to collect without destroying civilization and rendering the collected money worthless. In a way, it's the perfect scam - and it can go on indefinitely until stopped by military force from without.
We'll be playing these games for the rest of our lifetimes, as the paper debt spirals into the quadrillions.