by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m pretty good at both making an abstract concept concrete and running scenarios. What I’m bad at is persuasion. I can’t get anyone to open a door for me, much less heed any warnings I may have about the fate of the United States. And, generally, I’m always wrong. Always. I have a knack for taking a little bit of information and running with it to the point that I embarrass myself. Repeatedly.
But now that the Dobbs decision has been handed down, even I have to admit that maybe my hysterical dystopian predictions about the United States between now and 2024 – 2025….might be….right?
Now, some context. I have no idea if we’re going to have a civil war or turn into autocracy, but I do know that in 2024 – 2025 those will be our two options. There will absolutely be no middle ground. The country is either going to become an autocracy with all that entails — or we’re going to start murdering each other for political reasons.
In other words, something’s gotta give. We can’t keep this drift towards autocracy up without there either being a secession crisis or we just give up our democratic birthright.
But let’s go back to the issue at hand — will anyone notice if I’m right? I don’t think so. I’m just a random nobody in the middle of nowhere. I might — might — get noticed by a few Powers That Be types but it’s not like they’re going to allow me to sit with them at the cool table. I’m a nobody loser crank drunk and always will be, though, I guess, I do manage to follow in the foot steps of my literary hero Stieg Larsson (without the dying of a heart attack part) then…maybe someone will think I’m, at last, cool?
What is more likely to happen is the base case scenario is some Thinker for New York Magazine or The New York Times will crib ideas off me and then get all the credit without mentioning that little old me influenced their thinking.
Such is the fate of people like me who are too colorful and non-conformist for our own good. They tell you to be “just be yourself”….and then here I am. Alone and unloved. But I’m content. Or, even more importantly, should I be proven “right” I will have that to make me feel good while I’m in a Trump branded ICE camp.
Ugh.
I really don’t want a civil war. But that is the other option. If it happens, I guess I head north. Virginia is going to be very, very unstable and some form of infrastructure to accommodate domestic political refugees will be established to help re-locate people like me fleeing the MAGA New Right death squads.
