Wargaming A Summer 2021 Secession Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing that non-insane, non-MAGA people have to understand is the very serious dynamic surrounding the Arizona audit by Cyber Ninjas. Too many people are comforting themselves by the Biden Administration’s interest in this bonkers audit or this or that other metric that they feel will mitigate the outcome one way or another. And, thankfully, it’s still possible that despite their best efforts, Cyber Ninjas will fail in their efforts to throw the state to Trump and we can all go back to dreading what may happen in 2024-2025.

America 2021

But the whole point of this audit is, at a minimum, to give MAGA a talking point to “own the libs” on Twitter and, if possible, to set up a dynamic similar to what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, only on a national scale. So, while all the talk by New York Magazine that the Republican establishment is all-in with supporting the coup next time, we probably need to take seriously the possibly of a major secession crisis this summer.

With that in mind, let’s so a little back-of-the-envelope wargaming. What are the nuts and bolts of an actual, honest-to-God secession crisis in summer 2021?

The first thing that would happen should Cyber Ninjas pull a Trump “victory” out of their butt is a lot of shock and ridicule with the Twitter liberal echo chamber. This will last maybe a few hours. Then, unfortunately, Trump will probably hold a press conference of some sort where he rants about how this one state “proves” that he “really won” in 2020. He will babble in vague — but ominous — terms about how this “nullifies” the results of the 2020 election and he’s going to weigh his options going forward.

Again, this will evoke a wave of ridicule among the populist liberals of Twitter who will do something akin to, “There he goes again.” But on the other side of the equation, things are going to get dark very quickly. As we saw with Trump’s slow-moving soft coup attempt in fall 2020, it’s very likely that a number of people will pop up who take Trump but seriously and literally on this subject.

People who should know better, will begin to talk seriously about how, exactly, you might “nullify” a presidential election. The Fox News talking heads will spend hours debating the how many MAGA can dance on the head of a pin of all of this for a few days. Either this crisis stays something of a Right Wing circle jerk, or it doesn’t.

What I mean is — either it gets some traction among Republicans with power and they start to do something about it, or it doesn’t. This is something I can’t predict. It really could go either way. But, let’s wargame the worse case scenario.

My best guess is Texas might be the first state to seriously begin to debate what would begin as a “nullification” process and endup being a secession process. Alan West already apparently is trying Texas to do this and Texas’ Republican Party is so insane, so hysterical that it’s easy to see any number of serious, elected Republican officials there go on FOX News (or OANN) to make the case that Cyber Ninjas has “proven” that Trump is still president and, as such, it behooves “real Americans” (MAGA) to do something about it in concrete terms.

It’s possible that Texas Republicans will be the first to actually hold some sort of “convention” to determine the state’s fate. Again, Twitter liberals will chuckle at how dumb this is while MAGA will wait with baited breath to see what happens. There is a pretty good chance, of course, that because Texas is slowly shifting purple long term that such a convention will grow into nothing more than a screaming match. Add to this that Texas is pretty ethnically diverse and, well, lulz.

So, while that’s happening, events will continue to move forward. The Biden Administration will begin to grow alarmed at these developments and make it clear that legally any attempt to “nullify” a presidential election at the state level is bullshit and even more so any secession efforts. At the same time, Trump is probably going to grow hysterical in his belief that he’s still president and he will say and do things that are completely fucking insane.

It’s possible that a number of lily white mountain and plains states controlled by MAGA will race past Texas because of the specifics of their demographics and it won’t be Texas that actually “leaves” the Union, but somewhere like Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa or South Dakota. If things have gotten this far, the MAGA Republicans in the South will spooge their pants and zoom towards following their MAGA sisters in “leaving” the Union…only to smash up against the issue of race.

As such, Southern states will be in something of a pickle. Politically, they will be chomping at the bit to leave the Union because of “the Lost Cause” but on a practical level those plans might be tempered by something akin to a brewing race war.

Let’s stay together.

Now, one thing I suspect might happen around this same time is Trump finally throws down the gauntlet to the Republican Party and does something of a Gotterdammerung on them — he absolutely forces the hand of the Republican Establishment — are you with nascent “Trumplandia” or are you with the United States.

There might even be some sort of meeting of minds somewhere whereby Trump rants about how important is for the “real” president to be in the White House. He will be completely, and totally in a delusional dreamland, and, yet, Republicans will suddenly have an existential choice before them. Do they throw their lot with Trumplandia, or do they stay in the US government? At last, all their “humoring” of Trump will turn around and bite them.

They will absolutely have to make a final decision one way or another as to how loyal they are to a deranged autocrat.

Remember, all of this will happen really fast and there will be a huge amount of confusion. Once the shock wears off that states for the first time since the 19th century have decided to leave the Union, then very smart, various serious people within the Biden Administration begin plot their response. If things get bad enough, the draft may be re-instated and the U.S. Military will have to dust off shit from the first Civil War.

What say you, Honest Abe?

I guess it’s possible that even the U.S. Military might fracture into MAGA and non-MAGA…but I doubt it? That’s something I can’t game out. If you really want to get dark, you could say that what they lack in economic prowess or population size, Trumplandia will make up for with seized WMD stockpiles. That will be fun. Ugh.

All of this would happen in a few days or weeks, so by July 4th there might be a huge amount of domestic bouncing around on a macro scale as Red people in Blue states and Blue people in Red states rush to safety. All eyes turn to California to see if they’re going to stay in the Union or not.

Looking over this wargame, it seems bonkers and a bit too over the top. The only reason why I even am thinking this way is I want others to take what’s happening in Arizona seriously.

MAGA is.

Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

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