I think you should at least partly consider the Spanish Empire analogy instead. Cheap oil and technology is to America like free gold was to the Conquistadores. It has made the majority of people in the coastal US quantitatively unable to make things for themselves, the useful land is owned by a minority of people exploiting it with oil, not labor, and when it falls apart, it will be because civilians in the major population centers don’t remember what it takes to maintain civilization (cities are built by barbarians that want some sleep) and most farmers don’t even grow the food they eat. The ‘giant sucking sound’ has always been the flow of value from the land to the ivory and glass towers, and that whooshing sound you are starting to hear is from the testing of guillotines. When Spain collapsed, it went back to the Stone Age because all of its useful work and skills had been outsourced. Flyover country might be like Rome, but significant bits with all of the money and trinkets are not.