For our post-truth word, some fiction:

The Privatized and Fascist States of America

The year was 2029. The American Experiment had ended.  Not with a bang, but corporate acquisition has trumped all freedom.

Following Donald Trump's re-election in 2024, the U.S. government underwent a radical transformation. With Elon Musk as Chief Efficiency Officer, Trump's unofficial but all-powerful special government employee, the new administration began the largest privatization scheme in history. Agencies deemed "inefficient" were sold to the highest bidder. Social Security was acquired by Meta. The U.S. Postal Service? is replaced by Tesla Logistics. The Federal Reserve is gone and a new digital currency run by an AI, " $TRUMP dollars" takes its place.  With a picture of the smiling orange motherfucker on every god-dammed digital wallet.  This is required by law.

At first, markets surged. Investors celebrated. America became a corporate utopia, innovation replaced bureaucracy and stimulus checks squelched any resistance to Trump's profit of plunder.

By 2026, cracks began to show. California and New York, resisting federal mandates and the surging poverty, declared economic independence, refusing to recognize the authority of the newly privatized government.  California became fully independent while Texas unlike the rest of America, thrived. 

Fully embracing Musk's vision of a decentralized, crypto-backed society based on cultivated economic disparity, Texas became the go to place for slave labor and tax free profit.  The Texas economy boomed at the same time interstate trade collapsed.

Basic services became subscription-based. Water in Arizona became a premium commodity controlled by Amazon Aquatics.  Any emergency medical care required a Platinum + membership.  Nothing was free and Trump instituted an air tax on anybody deemed a useless eater.  $50 a month if your net worth was less than $1,000,000 or if your politics were considered "progressive".  The tax became known as the "progressive tax",  but nobody who had to pay it thought it was funny.

By 2028, Washington D.C. was an abandoned husk, its marble monuments covered by corporate branding. Power had moved to Austin, where Trump, Musk, and their billionaire council presided over the fragmented remains of a once-united nation, fully protected by their mercenary armies of private police.

Their Privatized States of America restored the age of great robber barons.  For a small few America was great once again.

But not everyone was happy with the changes. A resistance movement, inspired by abandoned and outdated ideals of democracy and fueled by daddy issues with the big orange daddy, emerged in the Rust Belt.

Led by ex-government officials and the legion of unemployed.  The resistance sought to reestablish a public government, battling AI-controlled security forces and corporate mercenary forces. Their leader, a former postal worker named Hope Dashed, spread propaganda through underground networks.  Distributing printed pamphlets which urged Americans to reject their status as "subscribers" and reclaim their rights as citizens.

California its own nation began to launch its own communication satellites unwilling to pay the Musk nut for use of Starlink in 2028.  A direct challenge to Musk's dominance Starlink satellites went dark in an attempt to bring California into submission as had been done successfully to Canada.  Armed skirmishes erupted along the Mississippi in the ensuing chaos.  The Mississippi is a de facto border between privatized corporate states and free territories.

Now as the battle for America's rages on, one question looms.

Will America find its way back from the brink, or is it destined to follow the Soviet Union's path.   Fragmented, leaderless, impoverished, and lost to history?

It appears to be so.  Millions now die.