But as for Trump -- my take on him is directly from Hayek's "Road to Serfdom." He is the authoritarian that arrives when (a) government gets too large and promises too much, and (b) the populace gets fed up with the perceived inability of parliamentary democracy to deliver, so (c) they go with a "strongman."

Of course the strongman will fail to deliver as well. I agree the end result is the collapse of the USG, by fiscal failure primarily. I just hope that can be handled in such a way as to produce the minimum amount of suffering for the (former) Americans as well as the rest of the world.