History Main / FallenStatesOfAmerica

Not explicitly stated, but implied in order for the settings of video games where you play as a VillainProtagonist who did criminal acts, mostly WideOpenSandbox games, like ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'', ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'', and ''VideoGame/PAYDAY2'' to exist. Those games feature largely autonomous city-states run by criminals with easy access to military-grade firepower fighting against systematically-corrupt and highly-militarized police forces, while the political leaders are even more cartoonishly corrupt than they are in real-life, approaching an odd mix between post-collapse former Soviet states and war-torn African nations.

* The setting of UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}} Creator/MarvelComics version of ''[=Deathlok=]'' was a future United States where [[ANuclearError a limited nuclear war]] has left the country devastated, with roaming gangs and independent groups vying for control with factions and remnants of the CIA and the military.

Not explicitly stated, but implied in order for the settings of videogames where you play as a VillainProtagonist who did criminal acts, mostly WideOpenSandbox games, like ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'', ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'', and ''Videogame/PAYDAY2'' to exist. Those games feature largely autonomous city-states run by criminals with easy access to military-grade firepower fighting against systematically-corrupt and highly-militarized police forces, while the political leaders are even more cartoonishly corrupt than they are in real-life, approaching an odd mix between post-collapse former Soviet states and war-torn African nations.

* ''Series/DarkAngel'': After the denotation of an EMP device by terrorist groups in 2009, the United States is barely more than a third world nation.

* Even before nuclear war broke out in the universe of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'', the United States was on the decline, with the government growing increasingly tyrannical and warlike in the wake of resource shortages. Hundreds of years after the bombs fell, there's nothing left of the U.S. government but the Enclave, who are always the antagonist when they show up and were secretly responsible for [[spoiler: the many inhumane experiments conducted on the citizens of the Vaults.]]
* {{Downplayed}} in ''VideoGame/FarCry5'', but radio broadcasts make it clear the United States isn't doing great. The reason the Federal Government hasn't gotten involved with stopping Eden's Gate are the ongoing tensions with North Korea in the Pacific and across the Middle East, with many response teams moved to cities along the coasts. Meanwhile, America is also facing terrorist threats, a multi-state drought, a security breach at a major credit company, a nuclear power plant having to be shut down following a malfunction, and major federal budget cuts and many store chains declaring bankruptcy, suggesting a depression is on the way. [[spoiler: Made worse following a nuclear attack on Moscow that leaves millions dead, eventually spiraling into a full-scale nuclear war.]]

* The news reports in ''Film/ChildrenOfMen'' mention that the USA has collapsed, with a nuclear bomb going off in NYC, and militias taking control of the cities of Spokane, Cincinatti and Bozeman.

* ''VideoGame/AMindForeverVoyaging'' depicts a world where the US is in danger of becoming this. The player experiences several simulations of a possible future, each one set 10 years after the previous one. The situation worsens with each simulation, as the economy collapses, law enforcement becomes more brutal and corrupt, a border security force frequently searches homes (and becomes less apologetic and more harsh about it in each period), racism and religious intolerance become more overt, and dusk to dawn curfews are enforced. In the final simulation, the last vestiges of authority have collapsed, and anarchy ensues with the city streets now home to violent gangs and wild dogs killing weaker people for food. Naturally, the player's goal is to prevent these possible futures from coming to pass.

* Parodied [[PoesLaw (probably)]] in Creator/{{Greg Egan}}’s story “In the Ruins”, which extrapolates America’s cultural AntiIntellectualism to such an extreme that the result is a country in which infrastructure is falling apart because of the populace’s embrace of every kind of pseudoscience, and the scientists who are trying[[note]]and failing, due to society’s refusal to cooperate[[/note]] to fix things are now AcceptableTargets, being called [[BigStupidDooDooHead “poopyheads”]] [[SophisticatedAsHell even on national news broadcasts]] at best, and outright hated at worst. It’s implied that the US took the rest of the Western World down with it, and its place on the world stage taken by the Middle East, which has become secular and democratic. This ultimately means that the direction of “brain drain” has been reversed, as now it’s young Americans who want to move to other countries to seek better lives than they would live if they remained at home.

* Something like this is also the result of the supervillains' takeover in the ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} story ''ComicBook/OldManLogan''. The United States is divided into the warring fiefdoms of various major Marvel villains, so that, for example, the Red Skull controls what used to be the Eastern Seaboard.

* Even before nuclear war broke out in the universe of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'', the United States was on the decline, with the government growing increasingly tyrannical and warlike in the wake of resource shortages. Hundreds of years after the bombs fell, there's nothing left of the U.S. government but the Enclave, who are always the antagonist when they show up and were secretly responsible for [[spoiler: the many inhumane experiments conducted on the citizens of the Vaults.]]