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[Maximum Spin]

I don't think the US is in danger of collapse, however. I expect it is going to fragment, like the Holy Roman Empire. Actually, this ongoing ICE business is likely to have significant effects on that, so I'm very interested to see how states respond.

[Teneb]

I don't think the US is in danger of collapse, however. I expect it is going to fragment, like the Holy Roman Empire. Actually, this ongoing ICE business is likely to have significant effects on that, so I'm very interested to see how states respond.

Isn't fragmenting (unless you don't mean balkanization, in which case please elaborate) a form of collapse?

[Maximum Spin]

Isn't fragmenting (unless you don't mean balkanization, in which case please elaborate) a form of collapse?

Eh, I guess that's subjective. If you consider any situation in which there won't be a United States anymore "collapse", sure, but I usually think of "collapse" as more sudden and discontinuous. I expect people in any jurisdiction in the US will experience relatively constant political continuity even as those jurisdictions diverge from each other.

[wierd]

A country paralyzed by internal conflict, is a country that cannot effectively respond to an outside threat.

That is EXACTLY what happened to Rome. The inter-regency of the fall of Rome was especially terrible to the ancient world.   

The US has many outside threats.  See for instance: Islamic Terror, Russian political meddling, Chinese "diplomacy", etc.

Having silos full of nukes means precisely dick, when the orders to launch them can never be issued, because the country is in disarray.

[Maximum Spin]

A country paralyzed by internal conflict, is a country that cannot effectively respond to an outside threat.

Yes, yes, a house divided cannot stand, yet the US has been like this since its founding.

[wierd]

State identity plays second fiddle to national identity.  It does so for the majority of US citizens.  When the trade towers fell, was there conflict, or solidarity?

Could you say the same thing today, after all the distrust of government, because of government's abuses of power?

How about in a few years, after ICE's absurdity spoils national sentiment in the most populous areas?

[WealthyRadish]

While we're swapping speculations, what seems most likely to me is that the US on this trajectory will sooner or later look like what Russia looks like today: a shambling authoritarian ex-superpower perched on a public that has been robbed blind at every institutional level, and who have been stupefied in inhibitive numbers by some combination of pervasive reverie, poverty, and meanness.

But it's completely impossible for anybody to say, of course. Groups of people are surprisingly dynamic in their ideas and thoughts, the forces holding everything together are nearly always weaker than they appear, and small things really can shove the greater course of events in directions that seem totally oblique from this perspective.

[wierd]

That is a distinctly probable route, but modern Russia is the result of the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

What form the new structure of this geographical region will take was not part of my speculation.

[Starver]

Spoiler: Implying that they aren't already (click to show/hide)

That reminds me that the only element of American Sign Language that I know is the one for Ronald Reagan.

I hear they like their signing puns, do ASLers.

[Il Palazzo]

Spoiler: Implying that they aren't already (click to show/hide)

That reminds me that the only element of American Sign Language that I know is the one for Ronald Reagan.

I hear they like their signing puns, do ASLers.

This one?
https://www.handspeak.com/word/search/index.php?id=1533
Where's the pun?

[Starver]

Spoiler: Implying that they aren't already (click to show/hide)

That reminds me that the only element of American Sign Language that I know is the one for Ronald Reagan.

I hear they like their signing puns, do ASLers.

This one?
https://www.handspeak.com/word/search/index.php?id=1533
Where's the pun?

That can't/won't play on this system. But the one I know of is each hand made into the "R" sign (crossed fingers) pulled up from imaginary holsters as if two pistols in a Wild West gunfight. R.R. the gunslinging cowboy (actor), you see.

More research indicates Bill Clinton has "C" signed over the other hand in the "affair" pose, Richard Nixon has fingers in the "N" form used as part of the sign for "liar" and Trump's sign hasn't yet been definitively settled but there are definitely some colourful suggestions in the shortlist.

[Il Palazzo]

That can't/won't play on this system. But the one I know of is each hand made into the "R" sign (crossed fingers) pulled up from imaginary holsters as if two pistols in a Wild West gunfight. R.R. the gunslinging cowboy (actor), you see.

That's rather not what the video shows.
It's two crossed fingers of the right hand passed over one's head.

Methinks you've been duped.

[Starver]

Rather than post the several links I got the other Presidential info from, here's one article I found afterwards that supports what I found (and the RR thing that I learnt elsewhere beforehand) and adds a couple of others as a bonus. One presumes (background complaints of #fakenews aside) that it is researched and not entirely made up.

Dialect/slang differences? I have no direct contact with ASL, it's second-hand knowledge. (And can't keep up with fluent B(ritish)SL in "spelling out" mode, never mind the sign-for-whole-word that might be obvious literals or might yet be far more abstract.)

[Maximum Spin]

People like to make up fake ASL names to insult celebrities, which can easily be picked up by gullible press. For example, I've heard the exact thing you describe for Nixon, but with a C, for (Bill) Clinton. (That wasn't real either.)

[Starver]

From the nature of the various (off-line, RL) sources that I can't easily point you at here, I think it's more likely that the controlling 'Acadamie Francais-like institution' of the ASL world just hasn't officially endorsed these versions, but they exist widely in the wild.

Reagan's sign ('my' version/nickname) isn't even an insult, but very much more towards celebrating/glorifying his pre-political career...

See also the fuss behind the unrelated (but also unspoken) Blissymbolics, as McNaughton's group took it in directions Bliss did not appreciate and lawyers got heavily involved at several junctures.