The Trumplandia Report

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I learned a lot about myself in Seoul. I know what I’m good — and bad — at. I’m a good organizer and good at articulating ideals. I have a very broadcast type personality. But I have a huge weakness — I need help persuading anyone. In short, I have no friends and no one likes me.

But I know that under the right circumstances, I have the skillset to do Something Great. At the moment, that Something Great is writing developing and writing six novels between now and whenever I shuffle off this mortal coil. Yet there is also the possibility that should the US go tits up as part of a Second American Civil War that the finger of God will point at me.

I’m being extremely speculative — and egotistical — but given the chance, I think there’s a fairly decent chance that I might rise to the occasion and do something Historic with my life. I usually excel in chaos, as my time in Seoul as expat attests.

I think way too much about this, in fact.

I wonder if it’s still possible for me, being the big old loser that I am, to be a Child of the Revolution. Or, put another way, if I’m ever going to live up to my expectations for myself, something pretty astonishing would have to happen one way or another. And a Second American Civil War would definitely fit the bill on that front.

As I’ve said, if there is some sort of “national divorce” I’m heading north. It could be a lot of fun living in revolutionary New York City that might spring up as part of a Second American Civil War.

Then I think about how no one likes me and I have no friends. The only reason why I got to have such an interesting experience in Seoul way back when was I had a partner, Annie Shapiro, who was able to get people to listen to me.

Anyway, I guess we’ll know soon enough, huh. It could be as soon as January 2023 if we’re going to have a civil war or not. It could happen that soon, of course, if Trump becomes speaker and personally demands that Red States leave the Union in an effort to put pressure on the Senate to convict both Biden and Harris.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Gather ye rosebuds while you may — things are going to get bumpy pretty quick, maybe even as early as Wednesday. As you may know, Wednesday is the next day when SCOTUS hands out decisions. And it could be that Wednesday will be the day when we finally see Roe overturned.

Now, I’m growing more and more confident that we’re not going to have a civil war. Trump seems — seems? — to be receding in power and, as such, fucking fascist Ron DeSantis (who my conservative relatives love, love, love, love) could very well be America’s Putin very peacefully.

He becomes POTUS in 2025 and that, as they say, will be that.

But either way — civil war or autocracy — this is it. These are the before times. American life is going to change in a pretty dramatic fashion one way or another a lot sooner than you might think.

There could very well be real political violence this summer when it begins to sink in to people that Roe has been overturned. And, yet, I have my doubts. It’s not until wealthy white liberal women in Blue States can’t have abortions that shit will hit the fan. Lulz.

But stranger things have happened, I suppose. It will be interesting to see if the overturn of Roe really is a modern day Dred Scott decision or if we just continue to slouch towards autocracy.

America is on edge, has been for some time and it’s like we all feel that Something Big is going to happen pretty soon. None of us know what that Something Big is going to be.

This is the twilight of one age and the beginning of a new one. We may be about to enter a Second American Civil War with all the destruction that comes with it or we might be simply going to turn into a Russian-style autocracy. But one thing is for sure: a lot of macro trends are coming to a head right about now. It will be interesting to see how things break.

It makes you think if The Fourth Turning was on to something. (I think the writers were full of shit, but it definitely is spooky how well they predicted what’s going on right now.)

Like I keep saying — get ready. Prepare. Pick a side. Figure out what you believe in. That’s all I got.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I may be just a lowly drunk Internet crank that can’t even get literary types to give me the time of day even if I pay them, but I have a pretty good bead on politics in America.

At least, sometimes.

I know a lot of the time, ok, most of the time, I’m totally wrong. But this one time I was right — I have long suggested that Twitter liberals / progressives are so desperate for some sort of leadership that they would embrace people like Liz Cheney for POTUS.

And, lo and behold, since the beginning of the January 6th Committee hearings, this very thing has happened. A number of pieces have been done suggesting Cheney should run as either a Democrat or as part of some sort of “Unity Ticket” of Biden / Cheney.

I probably should give you links, but I’m too lazy.

But this raises an interesting question, if liberals are so ready to embrace Liz Cheney for high office just because she hates, hates, hates Donald Trump and MAGA, wouldn’t the same principle apply to the big kahuna of Mike Pence? Just imagine if Mike Pence went to the January 6th Committee, totally turned on Trump and MAGA to the fullest extent possible.

He would instantly become a liberal darling — despite everything else — and he could very well bankshot himself into being the Democratic nominee in 2024. That sounds totally fucking bonkers, but we’re in very, very dire times for our democracy. So dire that a Unity Ticket of Pence / AOC makes a huge amount of fucking sense to me.

Of course, there would have to be some sort of power sharing agreement for that to work, which would make the US government very schizophrenic, but at least we would be able to punt a severe political crisis down the road a few more presidential election cycles.

There are two obvious problems with this above and beyond the obvious . One is, the administration of elections could be so corrupt in 2024 that not even a Hail Mary Unity Ticket could work. The other is, I’m not so sure that we actually have the gumption to do something so drastic to save our democracy.

Americans talk about democracy in the abstract very well, but the country is too big and too divided for a Unity Ticket to work. If we were Canada, maybe. But we have 335 million people to get on the same page, not 35 million.

Anyway. We’re fucked. Nothing and on one is going to save us. Get ready. The next few years will be lit.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Blue States have a woeful lack of leadership at the moment. While Red States have a plethora, a panoply of very name brand leaders (most of whom want to be our first American autocrat) the center-Left is very, very weak willed and divided.

That is why I, in general, don’t believe we’re going to have any sort of Second American Civil War starting in late 2024 – early 2025. The leadership just isn’t there for Blue States. Blues just aren’t bloodthirsty enough. Nor passionate or organized enough to properly stand up to Reds.

But, as I have mentioned before, there is one group that could provide Blues with the wartime leadership necessary to pull off a successful “national divorce” — the #NeverTrumpers. It would be surreal, but if push came to shove and Blue States attempted to bounce from the looming Very American Autocracy under President Trump or DeSantis (or whomever) the one group of people who could rise to the occasion to give them the leadership they need would be people like Liz Cheney.

I think of #NeverTrumpers as “Radical Moderates.” Even though, relative to me, they aren’t very moderate, they do believe that the US is a democracy and that that democracy is worth defending. I’ve been so wrapped up in thinking about the possibility of a Second American Civil War that I totally forgot to think about what Blue war aims might be.

And, sad to say, those war aims wouldn’t be to keep the Union together, to found a Third Republic, but to destroy it. Blue States would want the very national divorce that Republicans keep beating their meet to all the time. And, the great irony will be — it will be Republicans who try to stop the very national divorce they keep talking about they believe is necessary.

It will be interesting to see if the #NeverTrump Radical Moderates will be willing to abide by the Blue State war aims of tearing the Union asunder. Given how dire things would have to be for such a national divorce to happen….I don’t know…maybe?

Anyway, the point is — keep an eye on #NeverTrumpers. They could very well play a far bigger historical role than one might think at the moment.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The big difference between Watergate and the January 6th investigation is how divided America is on a basic level. It used to be that “all politics is local.” But, now, the reverse is true — our politics has become so tribal that national concerns dominate every aspect of it.

And, sad to say, the center-Left simply isn’t as bloodthirsty as it needs to be to be successful in such an environment. While the MAGA right has gone full fascist, employing every tool at their disposal including violence and intimidation, the center-Left is lulzing it all.

Way too many Twitter liberals think the system still works and somehow if the can only bring down Trump that everything is going to snap into place. I keep complaining about this because I wish major Twitter liberal accounts like Mueller, She Wrote would spend less time on the earnest Twitter threads and more time on telling people like me how to prepare, on a practical level, for the existential choice of autocracy or civil war that we face in 2024 -2025.

But it is not to be.

We’re fucked.

Even if we bring down Trump, there are literally a dozen or more would-be autocrats waiting in the wings to finish the process that Trump started. Remember, Trump is not a “Great Man.” He doesn’t change history or shape it, he is simply a vessel for macro trends, an avatar.

It will be a President DeSantis or Hawley or Pompeo who finally seizes power and consolidates it to the point that America becomes little more than a Russia clone on a political level.

Or we have a civil war.

We can no longer punt our problems down the road. Something’s gotta give — and soon.