One point that Bill Lind makes in this piece that I think is particularly relevant to the future of the US is that his description of present day Iraq is very similar to what I have long believed the future of the US will look like. Bill writes:

We see nominalism running all through American policy-making. Washington nominalists think Iraq is a state. It isn’t, because real power is in the hands of ethnic and religious militias. The state is merely a facade, but since it has a parliament, elections, cabinet ministers, etc. it is real to nominalists. Not surprisingly, our policy there has been a series of disasters ever since the initial disaster of invading the place.

It is quite possible that in the future the US will retain its formal governmental system (President, Congress, Supreme Court), but that these institutions will have lost most of their powers (like the British and other European monarchies) or will simply president over a trade federation (like the EU or maybe the Schengen area). The real power will have devolved to the regions and localities (like the Holy Roman Empire or ancient Greece), polycentric legal frameworks (like the Ottoman millet system), consociational representative systems (like present-day Lebanon), and a range of non-state actors representing a vast range of interests: political parties, ideologies, religions, ethnic groups, gender groups, causes, businesses, unions, gangs, militias, communes, seasteads, mercenaries, etc.

By William S. Lind, Traditional Right