Even during the fall of the Roman Empire, there were a number of eras of renaissance/renewal prior to the final collapse. We are experiencing one now. There may be more in the future, meaning America doesn’t have to cease in our time. But we will never be what we have been, and the world will long regret what it did to us, with our own reckless consent.
Agreed. And if classical Greece, republican Rome, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment represent periods when legitimate human freedom was able to flourish, the next period for us will have to be some time in the future, and off-world.