Tag: A Very American Autocracy

The End Of Pax Americana?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As of late 2023, it definitely FEELS like we’re fucked here in the United States in regards to some sort of MAGA counter-revolution. There is an air of inevitability to the return of Trump to the point that anything that prevents it from happening will be jaw dropping — by definition.

Maybe Blues should become Blue Meanies.

Should Trump return to power, it will market the official end to the post-WW2 liberal order. The US will probably leave NATO, South Korea and Japan. We will probably align ourselves with Russia, Hungary and Turkey. All this will happen just as the wealthiest, most powerful nation in human history suddenly becomes very, very, very unstable.

Trump will try to rule Blue portions of America as King Trump I, while ruling Red parts of the country as more of a traditional autocrat. At least 1 million smug liberal Blues will leave the country, dramatically transforming global culture. Just imagine how a steady flow of well educated, well trained Americans being pumped into nations like Canada, New Zealand, Australia, The Philippines and a lot of Latin American nations could change the global order.

I don’t know how much Mexico will benefit from the collapse of the United States, but I could see Argentina, Chile and Brazil seeing so many Americans flood them that their general standard of living improves rather dramatically and abruptly within a few years.

And that doesn’t even begin to account for how Europe will change when many, many Americans flood to cheap places in the Balkans — it’s already happening.

This is where there are people on the MAGA Right who will roll their eyes and say none of this will ever possibly happen. Trump won’t be a king, he will bring peace and prosperity to all Americans through a combination of being an “alpha male” and rainbow unicorn farts.

I dunno. I guess we won’t know for sure one way or another until, well, they call the 2024 election. Good luck.

I’ve Figured Out Trump’s 2025 Strategy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some scenarios for the day after tomorrow:

  1. Trump Loses — gives up
    It’s a real possibility that all the wet dreams of earnest, well meaning liberals like Mueller, She Wrote will come true and lulz, not only does Trump lose, but he just gives up. The “Good Guys” win and that’s it. We punt our structural problems down the road another four years.
  2. Trump Loses — demands a National Divorce
    In this scenario, Trump loses, but instead of just slinking away, he frantically demands a National Divorce. A lot — A LOT — would depend on, say, Texas in this scenario. There is a greater-than-zero chance that Texas could very well call up a Secessionist Convention if Trump demanded a National Divorce. This would, in turn, cause a civil war.
  3. Too Close to call (1876 / 2000 endgame)
    If this happens, then, holy shit are we in trouble. The country would collapse into civil war and revolution. If we just didn’t know who the next president was going to be…whoa buddy. Chaos. Violence. Collapse. Fourth Turning.
  4. Biden Loses — It’s a Lulz
    If Biden loses and 1 million smug Twitter liberals leave the country ASAP, then, lulz, we turn into an autocracy and that’s that. We wake up in a few years and President-for-Life Trump is invading Canada for some dumb reason.
  5. Biden Loses — Glorious Revolution
    In this scenario, Trump wins but goes full Tyrant in such a way that Blues stand their ground and organize things like a General Strike and or a Women’s Strike. The U.S. Military, rather than being Trump’s SA goons, stands down and maybe uses the guise of the 14th Amendment to overthrow Trump and we have President James Mattis for a few months until a Constitutional Convention can be called up.
  6. The 1872 Election Endgame
    Look it up. It’s bad

Here’s how malignant ding-dong Trump plans to rule starting in late January 2025 if he wins re-election.

On a basic level, his animal brain knows he can rely upon Red States to give him free reign to be a more traditional autocrat. As such, he realizes he has two things standing his way — Blue States and the “Deep State” found lurking within the Federal government.

So, what he believes he can do is purge the Federal government of anyone who opposes him, knowing that he can rely upon the MAGA hacks of SCOTUS to back him up. He will also use his pardon power in a gratuitous manner to allow his fascist toadies to do any number of otherwise illegal things.

Then what he does is “crush” opposition in Blue States using the U.S. Military using the Insurrection Act. So, in Blue parts of the country Trump plans to rule not as an autocrat, but as a military dictator. Meanwhile, he will browbeat the national press so no one will know how bad things have gotten in Blue States. Remember — in an autocracy, communication can be a weapon. I could even see domestic social media being regulated to an unprecended extent as 2025 progresses.

Ok. There are some weaknesses to this plot. The key one being the United States is pretty porous to the point that if the U.S. Military was killing thousands of people in Blue States, it would inevitably be discovered in Red and Purple States. ALSO, I’m not 100% sure that the U.S. Military is totally prepared to be Trump’s MAGA SA-like goons.

But I have to give Trump credit, he’s a lot closer to being the type of autocrat he admires. But there are at least two issues he simply can not avoid — the whole setup will be EXTREMELY UNSTABLE and he’s fucking old.

I feel better now, though. I have figured out what we’re up against should Trump win in 2024.

Radical Moderates: Renegades Of Funk

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Some scenarios for the day after tomorrow:

  1. Trump Loses — gives up
    It’s a real possibility that all the wet dreams of earnest, well meaning liberals like Mueller, She Wrote will come true and lulz, not only does Trump lose, but he just gives up. The “Good Guys” win and that’s it. We punt our structural problems down the road another four years.
  2. Trump Loses — demands a National Divorce
    In this scenario, Trump loses, but instead of just slinking away, he frantically demands a National Divorce. A lot — A LOT — would depend on, say, Texas in this scenario. There is a greater-than-zero chance that Texas could very well call up a Secessionist Convention if Trump demanded a National Divorce. This would, in turn, cause a civil war.
  3. Too Close to call (1876 / 2000 endgame)
    If this happens, then, holy shit are we in trouble. The country would collapse into civil war and revolution. If we just didn’t know who the next president was going to be…whoa buddy. Chaos. Violence. Collapse. Fourth Turning.
  4. Biden Loses — It’s a Lulz
    If Biden loses and 1 million smug Twitter liberals leave the country ASAP, then, lulz, we turn into an autocracy and that’s that. We wake up in a few years and President-for-Life Trump is invading Canada for some dumb reason.
  5. Biden Loses — Glorious Revolution
    In this scenario, Trump wins but goes full Tyrant in such a way that Blues stand their ground and organize things like a General Strike and or a Women’s Strike. The U.S. Military, rather than being Trump’s SA goons, stands down and maybe uses the guise of the 14th Amendment to overthrow Trump and we have President James Mattis for a few months until a Constitutional Convention can be called up.
  6. The 1872 Election Endgame
    Look it up. It’s bad

    Oh boy. Now that it is clear to me that Trump is so fucking stupid that he wants he thinks he can get away with imposing an actual military dictatorship on the United States…yikes.

It would take a next level amount of stupidity on his part to try to do such a thing. But here we are, with the idea that that is exactly what Trump might try to do. Any other Republican and I would tell you to prepare for a garden variety autocracy.

But Trump’s fascination with the Insurrection Act is very, very troubling. If he actually tries to establish a military dictatorship because his abstract thinking ability is too weak to think of the power plays of an autocrat, we are all in A LOT of trouble.

And, yet, as I keep saying, I can’t fucking predict the future. There are plenty — plenty — of known unknowns that might allow us to punt all of our structural problems down the road. But if Trump goes full tyrant not as an autocrat, but as a would-be military dictator…you got me.

There just would be no viable endgame.

We would be going beyond just “bad optics” to the type of tyrannical behavior that might even make Traditionalists who just want brown children in cages again….to sit up and take notice.

Radical Moderates are found in William Safire’s novel “Freedom.”
If that were to happen, then a group of people not seen since the American Civil War might appear in American politics — Radical Moderates. These are people who are usually Traditionalists, but, for a very brief amount of time are willing to adopt otherwise radical measures because of tectonic forces of political history.

But maybe I’m overthinking things. Maybe Trump will lose. Or something. We still have a year of stewing in our political juices to find out one way or another.

Bulls On Parade

By Ender

So. What are we going to do if ding-dong Trump goes full tyrant and starts to shut down the free press? The issue is *ANY* Republican who becomes president would do all the same shit that Trump wants to do, but they would be a lot more sly about it and stagger the throttling of our American birthright — democracy — over the course of a few years.

But Trump is sooooo dumb and lazy that he is going to thrash around in the first few days of his Second Term and scare the shit out of a lot of Traditionalists who are more than willing to give a huge amount of slack as long as brown children would put back in cages.

It’s because drunk cranks like me who are harmless might get thrown into a camp that Trump might, at last, lose some of the not-so-tacit support that he has with Traditionalists. But for how dumb and lazy Trump is, these Traditionalists would be more than willing to be “Good Americans” as life for every day Americans grew more and more autocratic.

It’s because of what a shocking, jarring — and conspicuous — counter revolution the first few days of a Trump second term would be that we’re potentially going to see some pretty fucking astonishing things happen. And, remember, of course, that it’s very possible that none of this will happen.

It’s POSSIBLE that either Trump loses and doesn’t manage to start a civil war through demands for a National Divorce, or he wins and because 1 million smug Twitter liberals flee the country the whole thing is a fucking luzl.

If Tyrant Trump fucks up, we may ALL be antifa starting in early 2025.
Who knows. We’re still a year out from when things will probably go haywire, so maybe….we’ll just punt our problems down the road another four years like we did in 2020?

Who knows. I’m not advocating anything! I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas. I hate guns. I hate violence. I just am growing more and more alarmed at what MIGHT happen starting Election Day 2024.

We Are Lulzing Ourselves Into Autocracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s clear we’ve given up on liberal democracy in the United States. At the moment, at least, it seems as though Trump will win a second term and I will end up in a camp — if I’m lucky. I dare not think what would happen to my sorry broke ass if I’m not lucky.

All of this is happening in broad daylight. Trump has made it clear that he wants to be an autocrat — specifically a military dictator. And yet the mainstream press can’t even trouble itself to frame the debate around Trump’s pending re-election in the right way.

Meanwhile, I find myself having arguments with conservative relatives about over how it’s a “free speech” issue when it comes to trying to not give Nazis a platform online.

It definitely seems as though our only shot is to hope enough chaos erupts in starting in 2025 that the country becomes so unstable that the military stands down and maybe even deposes Trump. (I AM NOT ADVOCATING ANYTHING.) If that happens, then maybe we could refound the republic and have a Third Republic take the place of the failed Second Republic.

Something, something like that.

But I have my doubts. I think this is it. It’s over. The US is just going to slide peacefully into a Russian-style autocracy and that’s it.

The Late Great Second American Republic

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. Are we in trouble. As I often do, I used my far, far more conservative relative as something of a one person focus group. And, yet again, what I learned startled me. They key take away is that there is way too much slack in what Tyrant Trump could get away with before this relative — whom I love dearly — would sit up and take notice.

This is not the first time that I’ve realized this, but as we lurch closer and closer to the end of the Second Republic, my alarm grows more severe. To recap — the First American Republic was founded by George Washington, the second, Abraham Lincoln.

Now, we’re at a crossroads. Either we somehow found a Third Republic or we collapse, at last, into autocracy. Either we have a moment of crisis and then national renewal….or we’re very fucked. I just don’t know which option we’re going to pick at the moment.

It could be that this is it. We’re just going to slide peacefully into autocracy and won’t look back. The Era of Democracy will be over once and for all and I will never again live in a “liberal democracy.” Ugh. Or, of course, I may somehow escape the country and finish my six novel project in some other nation.

I just don’t think we’re prepared for how many smug Twitter liberals are going to flee the country the moment it becomes clear Trump is going full tyrant. It’s going to be quite jarring. All us Poors are going to have to fend for ourselves. Also, I still struggle with what group will serve the purpose of the Nazi SA in our transition into autocracy.

So many known unknowns.

The Fall of The House Of Trump?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Is it possible that as it becomes clear that Ron DeSantis is the only way that Republicans can win the White House 2024…that NOW Trump will face accountability? Will, magically, the wheels of justice begin to turn faster and suddenly throughout 2023 Trump might actually be indicted a few times?

Maybe.

But there are a few problems with this.

One is obvious — any criminal accountability for Trump will turn him into a martyr and the base of the Republican Party will cling to him even fucking tighter. The other is not as obvious, but just as certain — barring something really unexpected, rather than forcing Trump into political retirement, DeSantis winning the nomination would just cause Trump to jump to the Patriot Party.

And, remember, one of the reasons why I think we might have a civil war starting in 2024 – 2025 is Republicans, probably using the newly-validated “Independent Legislature” concept will brazenly steal the the 2024 election. To the point that the country buckles into Turner Diaries-like chaos. (I’ve never read that book, but it’s a shorthand for my worst nightmares about the future of America even though it’s politics are at the far end of the exact opposite of the political spectrum from mine.)

Anyway — the point is, Trump isn’t going anywhere.

He is either going to be the nominee in 2024, or he’ll destroy the Republican Party in the process. And, really, my only question about Trump is — was his historical purpose to be a transitional figure in America’s descent into autocracy, or is he meant to cause a civil war?

Regardless, we’ve officially entered a very, very bumpy time in American history. We either slide into autocracy, have a civil war or maybe have a military junta of some sort. But the America that we have known since the end of the First American Civil War is running on fumes into a dark, dark future. Anything can and will happen and the sooner you start to game out what you’re going to do when the so-called “Fourth Turning” happens, the better.

The Ascendant MTG

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know what to make of Marjorie Taylor Greene because on one hand, she’s just another deranged MAGA moron and on the other she seems to want to be a real player in Washington. The only reason why this is both alarming and unnerving is she not only has incoming Speaker Kevin McCarthy over a barrel, making all these demands of him, but she’s also apparently in the running to be Trump’s 2024 veep.

MTG

Oh boy.

So, there there is a good chance that we may trade ding-dong Trump for ding-dong MTG at some point after 2025. Should she — gulp — become president either she would be a far more effective version of Trump or she would name someone like fat fuck Mike Pompeo to be her veep and he would would behind the throne. I call this the “Velvet Fist” scenario.

I just don’t know. While I do think it is very, very possible that MTG could become POTUS by being Trump’s veep, her actual ability to turn America into some sort of MAGA hellscape is debatable. But anything is possible, I guess.

I will note, however, that if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee, the likelihood that America will have a Second American Civil War increases significantly. Let that marinate in your mind whenever thinking of MTG as POTUS one day.

The Mystery Of Ron DeSantis’ Height

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Americans like their modern presidents tall. And so I wanted to know how tall Ron DeSantis is — and I couldn’t find a straight answer. I finally found an answer, of sorts, on Twitter. But, even then, the answer was up in the air, with some people saying he’s 6’1″ and others saying he’s 5’9″.

How tall is would-be American Putin, Ron DeSantis? It’s a mystery!

Hmmm.

If he’s 5’9″, there’s no chance he’s going to become president unless he somehow manages to break the tradition — or he’s running against a woman who might be shorter. (The question of if modern TV audiences mind that a woman is probably going to be shorter than any male political opponent is still up in the air.)

But, I just don’t know. DeSantis is a very, very strong candidate because he hides his innate fascism behind a smoother image. Even if that image is boring as hell. He’s such a compelling “moderate” fascist candidate that I have one Traditionalist relative who is eager to vote for him “three times” given the chance.

Update — mystery solved?

Ugh.

Remember, by definition, to be a modern Republican in good standing is to be a fascist, moderate or otherwise. So, really, the only difference between Trump and DeSantis is if DeSantis becomes president, there’s a lot less chance that we’re going to have a civil war. DeSantis is so fucking smooth that he’ll strangle what’s left of American democracy in broad daylight with a shit eating grin on his face and no one will do anything about it.

Meanwhile, Trump is such an idiot that he could, unto himself, cause a civil war simply because he would gloat so much after winning, or stealing, the 2024 election. Blue States may leave the Union in late 2024, early 2025 out of spite towards Trump if he wins, if nothing else.

But we just can’t count DeSantis out yet. He may look like the old SNL sketch Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, but he’s primed and ready to be America’s first autocrat — but for ding-dong Trump standing in his way.

Did Trump Admit To Yet ANOTHER Crime? — Lulz, Who Am I Kidding, He’s Above The Law

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, there’s this.

What does it mean? Anything? It’s one of those things that might go either way. Trump is such a loudmouth dingus that he could very well be admitting to a very, very serious crime…or not. And, lulz, what would it matter, anyway. He’s above the law to the point that he can admit to any crime and nothing would come of it.

For the time being, I think Trump is just making shit up to prove a point — vote for him, not the upstart DeSantis. But time will tell, I guess.