A Civil War / Revolution Because of Ding-Dong Red King Trump Would S U C K

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue about any sort of civil war or revolution because of ding-dong Trump thrashing around history is how much it would suck, suck, suck. It would be not sexy or fun. It would be a horrible tragedy.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that we could very well be on the cusp of nothing short of the most powerful nation in the world bombing itself into the stone age because of…vibes. Once you start things like revolution and civil war, it is very, very difficult to stop it.

So, it’s very possible that we could have a solid decade of death and destruction starting in late 2024. Now that really sounds hysterical, but there is an air of inevitability when it comes to Trump coming to power again that is very eerie. It’s like we’ve just decided that we all have to “go through some things” to get it all out of our system.

And remember none of this catastrophic tragedy would happen in a geopolitical vacuum. If the United States is imploding, that will mean that the greater world is exploding into WW3. At least a billion people could die specifically and directly because of ding-dong Trump because he will have caused the US to implode into civil war / revolution.

I know how hysterical that all sounds, but we have to start taking shit like that seriously. We have to sit up and take notice about where things are heading. And part of that is taking seriously how bad this new, war-torn America would be for the everyday person.

The chief thing is how any form of communication would probably be a premium. Command and control would be the first thing each side of any war in the United States would try to knock out and, as such, there’s a good chance that once the ball started rolling most of us would have no idea what the fuck was going on outside of our immediate neighborhood.

And if the absolute worst happens, we’ll all be so busy struggling to eat and avoid various explosions that we just won’t have time to worry about what our pronouns are any other form of identity politics — it’s hard to be “woke” when everything is very, very existential on a daily basis.

But only time will tell. It could be I’m overthinking all of this and we’ll either drift peacefully into a MAGA themed autocracy or Trump will lose and he’ll just slink away into the political darkness.

We have about a year to find out.

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.

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.

Is The United States A Modern Austro-Hungarian Empire….Or The Ancien Regime?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America is an unsettled place at the moment. We all sense that we’re careening towards a dark future, a momentous event of some sort that would start within the next 18 months.

But there are a lot of theories about what we should compare modern American to. Some people point to the collapse of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of WW1, while people like me see a closer analogy to the state of affairs with the French Ancien Regime in the days leading up to the French Revolution.

I just don’t see a comparison to the Austro-Hungarian Empire being adequate to explain what’s going on in the United States at the moment. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed because it was a bunch of small nations fused together. The United States, meanwhile, has a very clear sense of national unified national identity that is being frayed by a combination of a growing sense of white nationalism and more economic agency for women.

I do think that we face not one, but three main possible futures starting in late 2024, early 2025.

The first, most obvious, option is we peacefully slide into some sort of MAGA-themed autocracy. About 1 million smug, wealthy liberals leave the country and there is a total re-alignment of the post WW2 liberal global order as the United States leaves NATO and South Korea and forms an alliance with Russia, Turkey and Hungary.

The second, less likely option is Biden wins and Trump, in an effort to avoid going to prison, freaks the fuck out and starts to rant about the need for a National Divorce. The country implodes into civil war. WW3 happens in conjunction with this and about 1 billion people die.

The third, far less likely option is a French Revolution type situation when Trump’s tyrannical, erratic behavior grows so unbearable to enough people that there is some sort of collective uprising against MAGA. The country breaks apart, but only in conjunction with the broader effort on the part of Blues to re-unite the country under a Third Republic. All of this might happen in the context of the U.S. Military stepping in at some point, as well.

But, in general, the issue is a number of macro trends are all heading to a conclusion around the same point in the future. What’s more it’s possible that we may be heading towards something akin to a “Petite Singularity” that would involve AI eliminating an unpreceded number of jobs a very short amount of time.

All of this is, of course, very speculative. Anything can happen in the future. I totally misjudged what happend with Trump in 2020. I can’t predict the future, but that doesn’t stop me from being….alarmed.

Is 2023 a New 1788?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I grow more and more alarmed about what is going to happen in late 2024, early 2025, I think I’m going to add more books about the French Revolution to books that I buy then wait years to read.

It seems to me that because of income inequality, the United States may burst into civil war and revolution as part of the 2024 presidential cycle. And, honestly, sometimes I think it’s just a matter if its Blues or Reds who are going to be the ones who get fed up and bolt the Union. (Spoiler Alert: it will probably be Blues.)

But the United States is so huge, diverse and powerful that if we collapse into civil war and or revolution, it will one of the biggest events not just in American history — but human history. The only thing I can compare it to would be the 1789 – 1799 French Revolution combined with the American Civil War.

The world really will be turned upside down if the United States should buckle – it probably would prompted WW3. The entire global order would be thrown up in the air until everything was sorted out one way or another. And just because Blues might leave the Union to start their own center-Left nation doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be mission creep and, ultimately, there would be a global conflagration that would totally re-arrange the entire global framework.

But, before I go down that hysterical path TOO much, remember — I’m always wrong. I think, in the end, that DeSantis will be elected and initially, any changes in the United States will be rather subtle. It won’t be until 20 years of DeSantis consolidating power that we’ll endup invading Canada to overthrow the “woke cancel culture mob” there.

Or, put another way — I’m probably full of shit and why are you even listening to me at all? Wink.

‘What Constitutes a MAGA Republican?’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A MAGA Republican is a fascist. And what does that mean? Well, in this particular case, it means they not only have absolute fidelity to dingus Trump, but they are racist and misogynistic in the extreme. They hate the browning of America and the rise of economically liberated women.

Often they frame what they believe in the context of the “woke cancel culture mob” wanting to ruin their lives for “just for being conservative.” There is an intense sense of aggrievement on the part of MAGA Republicans, to the point that they are willfully blind to the complete lack of popular policies on the part of MAGA Republican leadership in the name of “owning the libs.”

In fact, that is the central tenant of the MAGA Republican movement — owning the libs. They will believe any lie, follow any conspiracy to its logical extreme and ridiculous conclusion as long as they feel the warm glow of there having been libs “owned.” MAGA Republicans are so consumed by the culture wars that they have no policies other than whatever Trump rants about at any particular moment. Their fidelity to Trump is as absolute as a Christian’s to Jesus.

Another important element of the MAGA Republican movement is they no longer believe in democracy. In fact, they go out of the way to make it clear that the United States is NOT a democracy at all, but rather a constitutional republic. They say this because they know the more people vote, the less likely it is they win elections. MAGA Republicans also believe that, by definition, any election they lose is rigged against them.

MAGA Republicans want to establish an autocratic, white Christian ethno state in the United States. They are growing to see violence as means to a political end. And, ultimately, should Trump either go transactional or his second term’s radical policies be too much for Blue States — there could be a civil war.

And, typically, pick the most extreme Right wing hot take on any subject and that’s what MAGA Republicans believe. MAGA Republicans also believe that their Dear Leader Donald Trump is, by definition, above the law and even if the authorities have him dead-to-rights with it comes to {name a law} then it’s all a Deep State conspiracy to get him out of the picture. They believe this to the point that there is a good chance that Trump could be cooling his heels in prison and he would STILL win the 2024 presidential election.

The endgame of all of this is still very much up in the air. On one hand, the United States could stagger into some form of autocracy. This works on the assumption, however, that Trump will somehow get out of the way so a more palatable political figure, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, can be America’s first autocrat.

But, as history has shown, Trump is a fighter and, as such, he is a political monster who refuses to get out of the way, long after he has served his historical and political purpose.

So, it’s at least possible that Trump, unto himself, could cause a civil war and destroy the most powerful democracy the world has ever known. Good luck.

Is The United States A ‘Constitutional Republic’ or A Democracy?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s becoming MAGA Republican orthodoxy to dress up their autocratic desires — and to own the libs — by being very adamant that the United States isn’t a democracy, but rather a “Constitutional Republic.” That Republicans quibble over nomenclature like this is a tell — they have very unpopular policies (such as there are) and rather than change them to win elections in a liberal democracy, they would rather destroy America’s democratic birthright.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

One of the signs to me, at least, that the United States is probably going to slip into autocracy is my Traditionalist relatives, who should know better, parrot this MAGA talking point. What they’re really saying is not so much that they believe that the United States is a Constitutional Republic, but rather they don’t believe in traditional liberal democracy anymore.

They hate it when people vote because they know that the more people vote, the less they win and the more pressure they feel to maybe, I don’t know, change with the times? What they want is to be able to play the more obscure, undemocratic elements of the Constitutional to ensure that they, at a minimum, establish an “illiberal democracy” like there exists in Hungary, in the United States.

And my Traditionalist relatives are all-in on this canard. They talk about how democracy is “mob rule” and how Alexander de Tocqueville warned about the dangers of democracy. (Which, I think is a disingenuous or even downright wrong interpretation of what he wrote about the United States.) And, what’s more they even say shit like the Founding Fathers didn’t want democracy and you’re not doubting their wisdom, are you?

This is all bullshit. The reason is, while, yes, we are a Constitutional Republic also, at least until recently, a very stable Western democracy. There were democratic norms and, in general, the general movement of American pollical life was towards more democracy and a broader definition of who could vote. So being a Constitutional Republic is not mutually exclusive with being a democracy.

All of this, of course, is a cover for how desperate white angry Christian (men) are to establish a white, autocratic Christian ethno state in the United States for various reasons. They are afraid of the browning of America, the rise of economically liberated women and a growing secularity in the country. They point to things like the “woke cancel culture mob” because that is lot easier to sell on a political basis than, “I want to take your democratic birth right.”

The rise of Republicans believing that the United States is a Constitutional Republic is a clear sign that we’ve lost Traditionalists and, as such, we are careening towards an autocratic state the moment — any — Republican becomes POTUS. That’s all she wrote. If someone like DeSantis becomes president, then we’re going to have A Very American Autocracy and we’re going to wake up in 20 years and wonder why he’s still POTUS.

Millions of wealthy liberals will leave the country to the point that the “liberal brain drain” will replace “scary brown people at the border” as a boogie man for the American MAGA Right. On paper, all things considered, that seems to be a foregone conclusion.

And yet, there is a wildcard — Trump.

Trump is such a fucking malignant chaos agent that he could, personally, start a civil war in a variety of ways between now and, say, spring 2025. I’m not saying he will, but there is definitely a greater-than-zero-sum chance that it will happen.

Anyway, I just don’t think we’re prepared for how bumpy the next few years will be. MAGA Republicans have all the political momentum — despite their snowflake bellyaching — and either they get what they want, which is an illiberal democracy, or we have a civil war of some sort.

Figure out what you believe in the real world and what you’re willing to suffer for. Or just leave the country, if you can.

American Politics Is A Catastrophic Shit Show Right Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is a political monster who is not only personally warping American politics and law, but heightening a sense among many that we’re living in an era of lawlessness. And, yet, because the MAGA base is completely indifferent to anything Trump does or says, there’s not a lot we can do about it.

But one thing is clear — the era of “hoping things work out” is over and the era of preparation has begun. If you’re a wealthy liberal, I suppose you’ve already gotten your second passport by this point. Meanwhile, we Poors have to console ourselves with a bugout bag or something.

The looming question, of course, is what the endgame to dumpster fire shit show will ultimately be. How’s it going to end? I honestly don’t know. Logically, of course, what will happen is someone like Ron DeSantis wins the 2024 election and the United States gradually lurches towards being a political clone of somewhere like Hungary (if we’re lucky) or Russia (if we’re not lucky.)

Then, of course, there is wildcard of Donald Trump. He’s such a unique historical and political figure. It’s totally bizarre that of all the people who could single-handedly destroy the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, the hand of fate would pick such a malignant dingus like Trump.

Trump, unto himself, could cause a Second American Civil War. All he has to do is go transactional, say, by telling Red States to secede from the Union and the rest would take care of itself. The thing about this possibility is it sounds hysterical and bonkers, and, yet, this is Trump we’re dealing with. If he personally felt the risk of going to prison, it might focus his mind enough to the point that he could think up and implement something as diabolical and causing a secessionist crisis.

I say this because I just don’t see Trump causing rolling political violence. Yes, plenty of MAGA Republicans want to murder people like me in cold blood, but that’s more about how they want to be able to do so with the rules of war not law being applicable.

Their desire for a civil war says more about they wanting to murder people like me without going to prison than any desire to actually start a civil war. At least, that’s what I think is going on at the moment.

The point is — something’s gotta give. I find it difficult to believe that we’re going to simply stay on edge until some point in late 2024, early 2025 when Blues either leave the Union on the state level or shrug and bend a knee to fascism.