In finance and investing there is a saying " The trend is your friend" which implies that if a thing is going in a certain direction, stick with it. As far as the collapse of the american empire is concerned the trend has been pretty clear for 3 or more decades I think.

If you go back and look at Obama's pre-election rhetoric it was about kicking the lobbyists out of washington and reining in big business, the same as trump's 'drain the swamp' promises. It's what the people want of course, they know all about the corruption, so if you want the top job you have to pretend you are on the people's side. Here I don't watch TV and when I see a political news story online I just ignore it because it will be a pack of lies.