I’m not prepared to seriously suggest that Trump would be so dumb as to get caught selling state secrets to, say, the DPRK or Russia. But it’s one of those things where we know the conditions at least exist for such a thing to happen. So, you’re left pondering something very dark and very dumb as being a very real possibility.
The Darkest Timeline.
Now, some context.
I don’t think Trump would really process what he was doing as “selling state secrets to the highest bidder.” He probably would see it more along the lines of “doing a buddy a solid” or something like that. While the most obvious person Trump would be selling access to state secrets to would be Russia, the DPRK is also definitely an option.
I say this because Trump loves Kim Jung Un (ick) and the whole DPRK régime is so weird that it’s at least possible that they might lean into personal relationship that Trump has with Kim to see if they can nab some state secrets from their good buddy and pal Trump.
And, given that the US is still technically at war with the DPRK because of the Korean War…well, that really does add an interesting complication to the problem at hand. And, honestly, that’s the thing that is so interesting about what is going on — why what happened for the FBI to strike now? Did they learn something? Did Trump do something so egregious that they had to move in to stop him from continuing to do it?
But the thing we have to contemplate tonight is this — there is a greater-than-zero chance that a former president of the United States has been caught selling state secrets to our most absolute sworn geopolitical enemies. And, what’s more, even if we politically neutralize him, there are a dozen other would be-autocrats who will be the ones to finally end American democracy.
What’s more likely to happen, of course, is Trump will announce his 2024 bid and there just won’t be the political will to do anything about him, ever. Good luck. Get out the country while you still can, I guess.
Unless you’re prepared to explain to me how MAGA plans to find the leadership necessary to start a civil war, I’m going to take the excited Google search that led you to this site with a grain of salt. You’re going to have to actually risk death, not just talk about it, if you want a civil war because the fee-fees of your Dear Leader were hurt tonight.
I do think that Trump is going to announce his run for office in 2024 a lot sooner now, but for there to be a “civil war,” Trump would have to go transactional immediately. He would have to tell Red States to begin the formal process of leaving the Union.
He’s so deranged and dumb that I will admit that that, in fact, is a real possibility. It would be a monumental unforced error on the part of MAGA, but we are talking about Trump. I say “unforced error” because, lulz, the entire system has bent a knee to Trump and he’s well on his way to becoming our first true autocrat.
No need for a “National Divorce” or civil war.
And we still have a ways to go before Trump is charged. And Trump always has the…trump card…(excuse the pun) of announcing he’s running for POTUS in 2024. Which, I think is probably going to happen very, very soon now. Though, if Trump panicked and announced his run now instead of the day after the 2022 mid-terms….that would be pretty funny.
Anyway. Calm down. There will be no civil war tonight. Maybe in 2023 if Speaker Trump demands it….but not tonight. Though I do believe Trump is probably going to announce for POTUS very, very soon.
I love to run scenarios. So, here’s a dumb (?) one that is mildly fun to think about on a warm summer evening.
For something to meet the Constitutional definition of treason, there has to be a state of war and a few witnesses. Ok, well, the DPRK is definitely still at war with the UN (and, as such the US) and so if when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago tonight, it’s possible that, in some way, the legal definition of “treason” was met if Trump was selling Top Secret documents to his “lover” in the DPRK.
I’m not saying this happened. I’m not “just asking questions.” I just like to run a scenario and this is interesting to think about. Or, put another way, I suspect that it’s at least possible that there’s more to come on this matter in the coming days.
Oh, where to begin with this one. There is a huge amount of froth within the Republican ranks these days. Even though they’re ascendant, the Republican MAGA New Right is trying to drill a few Big Lies into the minds of the general public in a form of Blood Libel.
The two biggest of these Blood Libels are that Democrats are fond of infanticide and that they want to “groom” young children into the homosexual lifestyle. Both of these things are complete bullshit. But the moment the political silly season kicks in, the MAGA New Right plays these canards like a xylophone. Just look at the below.
They honestly want voters to believe that Democrats are literally murdering babies. This is very close to the Nazi Blood Libel against Jews, of course. So close as to be rather startling if you think about.
And this is where you either grow really concerned that Republicans are, in fact, modern day Nazis or you lulz it and say, “Oh, you’re being hysterical.” I can’t predict the future, I have no idea what’s going to happen.
But Blood Libel is not cool, that’s for sure. And once Republicans gain power again, it will be interesting to see how bad things have to get before people sit up and take notice. What is going to happen, of course, is a lot of people who told me to “give MAGA a chance” will either leave the country altogether or they will become full blown American Nazis.
It will be interesting to see how and when the Good Guys manage to pull us out of this clusterfuck and how many people are going to die in meantime.
The fascist MAGA New Right wants to make a simple situation complicated when it comes to their so-called “martyr” Ashli Babbitt. Much like Kyle Rittenhouse, they go through a lot of conflating and intellectually false logic to get to the point where she was just a regular old person who happened to be at the wrong place and was shot by the evil forces of the Deep State.
Fuck that and fuck you if you believe it.
She was a seditious rioter who was hell bent on making sure Trump remained president, even to the point where she was willing to be the spearhead of a violent mob of crazed fascists. If she had not been shot, then there’s a good chance that several hundred other people would have followed her lead and a lot more people would have died.
It should not be as complicated as it’s become, but here we are.
But this is all part of a broader collapse of American political society. We’re so fucked. Everything sucks. Everything is way too dumb for its own good. And there’s no ready answer as to how we’re going to get out of this situation.
In the end, I don’t think we will. The American Nazis of the MAGA New Right will win and we’re all going to have to come to grips with the implications of what that means on an individual basis. A huge monument to Babbitt will be constructed somewhere in D.C. and the history textbooks will sing her praises just as it does dings enteral president dingus Trump.
Here’s what I think is going to happen. Through hook or by crook, Trump is going to “win” the 2024 presidential election. (The obvious caveats about things happening I can’t predict apply, of course.) Then Trump pushes through Schedule F and fires about 50,000 civil servants, even though he can’t. He simply assumes “the courts” will figure it out and does it anyway.
Now, here’s one major datapoint I can’t figure out — who is Trump going to pick to be his veep? This is something I struggle with on a near-daily basis. I just can’t figure out who Trump would pick as his veep. He is so unpredictable and mercurial that he could pick nearly anyone.
Trump could go with someone on the crazy spectrum of things and pick someone like Gen. Mike Flynn. Or he could go “sane” but fascist, with someone like Josh “Runway, Runaway” Hawley. There is, of course, a small chance he might pick someone like Lara Trump or Ivanka Trump just to be weird. If it’s either one of those women, then you would have the setup for a “Velvet Fist” situation where they ostensibly run the country while their loathsome veep rules the country behind the throne. I just don’t know.
But I do know that whomever he picks will be the person who ultimately the person who transitions us into a full-blown autocracy. There is a chance that Trump will try to be America’s Putin and will destroy as much of the country as he can in the process, but he is old and the real fight at the moment is the struggle to curry favor with Trump an ambitious would-be autocrat can be Trump’s successor.
Anyway, once Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, then the “fun” begins. We will lurch rather dramatically into either a Russian style autocracy or a Nazi style autocracy. It’s going to be scary and dramatic. And all of my hysterical scenarios and predictions for 2017 – 2021 will just happen at some point after 2025.
There are some other things that might upset our transition into a Nazi-style autocratic state. One is, the USA is very big and diverse. If it’s Gen. Flynn who is suddenly president upon Trump’s demise, then, oh boy. He’s so nuts and so craven that it could be HE, not TRUMP who, unto himself, starts a civil war.
Anyway, the real trouble is going to begin should the autocrat — whomever they may be — gets ahead of the curve and begins to do things that people in the United States aren’t prepared for. What those things might be, I don’t know. But the whole thing is going to be a clusterfuck.
It’s bonkers to me that the average American is so oblivious to the rise of fascism in the United States. It’s like we just don’t care. All the signs are there that we’re careening towards an autocratic fascist state…and yet there doesn’t seem to be much alarm. Some of it, of course, is that it’s difficult for the average person to wrap their minds around the idea that one of the two major parties in the United States now no longer believes in democracy.
And, what’s even worse is, a lot of people who should know better — mainly major publicans like The New York Times — seem hell bent on both-sideizing our democracy into oblivion. They just can’t accept that one side is bad and fascist — the Republican side and one side is trying to defend democracy, the Democrat side.
It will be interesting to see what might happen if we have a civil war. Will The New York Times, at last, be willing to call a spade a space? Will they become radical moderates once there’s battlefield action taking place? I don’t know. I hope so.
Anyway, things are going to get pretty bumpy in the US pretty soon. It will be quite ironic if, say, Trump becomes Speaker of the House about 90 years after Hitler became Chancellor. It’s really going to be interesting to see how alarmed the rather blase, oblivious people in the United States will finally become when it’s clear that Republicans in power will, by definition, mean the end of democracy in the United States.
But for a sizable portion of the population, democracy is very pase. They want a white Christian ethno state. They’re going to get it, too. Then all hell will break loose and we all will have no one to blame but ourselves. Here’s what a America will look like when the Bad Guys win:
The Great Liberal Brain Drain When it becomes clear that we’re no longer a democracy, probably at some point in late 2024 to early 2025, many, many, many wealthy liberals are simply going to leave the country. In fact, it could become so bad that the very people who crow about, “If you don’t like it, then leave” will be the very people who suddenly freak the fuck out when this very thing happens. We’re going to go from Fox screaming hysterically about scary brown people in caravans headed towards the border to them complaining constantly about how liberals are leaving the country. At first, of course, they will be gloat and be full of glee at this prospect….until it gets to the point that even they realize the economic impact of this happening and all they will do is complain about how wealthy liberals are fleeing to the south of France (or wherever). But make no mistake about it — it’s going to happen. The moment it’s clear we’re an autocracy, wealthy liberals will flee the United States en masse.
The Passage Of The Republican Agenda At some point after 2025 when Republicans know the coast is clear, Republicans are going to abolish the Senate filibuster and cram threw their entire agenda that they’ve been hoping to pass the last few decades. ACA will be gone. Abortion will be banned in all the states. Social Society, Medicaid and Medicare will be gutted, “reformed” and privatized. Taxes for plutocrats will be lowered, while the poor will have to start to “pay their fair share.” There may be a lot of protesting, but, just like with Russia, ultimately…lulz, nothing matters.
Plutocrats Will End The Liberal Media If what happened to Russia is any indication, at some point after 2025, we will begin to see MAGA-friendly plutocrats begin to buy and otherwise make huge investments in Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, etc to the point that in a subtle way the idea of there being a “liberal media” will begin to seem quite quaint. And what our new fascist overlords can’t get that way, they will get via brute force — they will threaten harsh regulations and broadcast companies licensing. I would suggest you keep an eye on things like The New York Times and PBS as well. If somehow, magically, The New York Times is sold to, say, Elon Musk and you look at PBS Newshour and is identical to Hannity then, well, America is an autocracy.
A Constitutional Convention Now, this is where a lot of people who still believe in the system, believe that all we have to do is wait for the Justice Department to indict about two dozen people and we’re all going to be saved — I’m looking at you Mueller, She Wrote — will think I’m being “terribly negative.” But we’re already just a few states away from a Constitutional Convention being called and one of the long-term goals of the MAGA New Right is for this to happen to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” But given how such a convention would be populated — by people selected by state legislatures — it’s very, very, very easy to imagine that the moment it convenes, it will go rouge and decide to dramatically change the Constitution. The MAGA New Right agenda will be codified in the Constitution and things like birthright citizenship, a weak executive and God only knows what else will be gone. That will be the central political issue of the day at some point after we’re finally no longer a democracy. And all the bullshit gaslighting that Republicans have been using for decades will be used to get it all passed. And the center-Left is just too weak, so, lulz, we’re fucked.
The Weaponization of The ICE Infrastructure As all of this is going on, the already existent ICE infrastructure will be weaponized so loudmouth crank drunks like me will find themselves in a lot of hot water. And, given that I, by nature, just can’t shut up, I fully expect that in the end I’m probably going to die in an ICE camp. Or something. Something bleak and dark.
The curious thing about the rise of fascism in the United States at the moment is we’re not going through any sort of depression. The major stressor that we’re experiencing is the rise of fascist MAGA itself. It’s all very curious. And, yet, here we are.
Growing numbers of people are willful in their desire to give up their American democratic birthright. They go so far as to make it very clear that they don’t even think the United States is a democracy in the first place! So we find ourselves drifting towards an illiberal democracy — if we’re lucky. If we’re not lucky, we’re going to be a cold, hard autocratic state.
At the moment, the very things that are pushing us towards an illiberal democracy will push us into something more in line with Russia or Nazi Germany. And I would go so far as to say Nazi Germany makes a lot more sense given that racism is generating the energy for our transformation into an autocracy in the first place.
Now, some context.
I don’t think the average American realizes how radical the Republican Party has become. They’re too busy raising their kids, paying their mortgage and paying their taxes to realize what’s going on. And, as such, there are two possible outcomes when we final transition into an autocracy — civil war or the side is peacefully because we just don’t care.
I, at the moment, don’t think we’re going to have a civil war. I think a lot of liberals — at least 1 million — will flee the country and that will be that. Then all of the hysterical predictions I made about a the first Trump Administration will happen, only four years later than I expected. I say this, especially with the idea of Trump’s pet Schedule F concept being developed for his second term.
I think the slouching into autocracy is a pretty good bet. But if you want my idea as to what a civil war would be like, an extensive scenario is below.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
And, honestly, the only thing standing in the way of an autocrat becoming president in 2025 and seizing “total control” pretty quick is any potential cleaving between MAGA and the Republican Party that takes place between now and then.
Given what I’m seeing right now, it definitely doesn’t seem as though that’s going to be a problem. At this point, it seems as though Republicans will first win power in Congress in 2022, then win the presidency (one way or anther) in 2024 and that will be that.
The autocracy we feared during the Trump Era will come, just four years later than we all expected. But…
There’s a real chance that our transition from liberal democracy to autocracy won’t be as smooth as I think — there could be a civil war. One side — or the other — won’t accept the results of the election and the country will finally buckle. All the nightmare scenarios that I came up with in 2020-2021, will just happen in 2024-2025.
If what happened in 2020 is any indication, the first sign that we would have that something was amiss would be on the local level. Instead of people who simply do their job as Americans and do the rather perfunctory duty of certifying the win of A Democrat, this doesn’t happen. In crucial voting districts all across swing states, Bannon’s “spiritual shock troops” either refuse to certify the win of A Democrat, or they go so far as to YOLO things and switch the win to Trump.
As this happens, the tension in United States escalates day by day. The very rallying cry of MAGA in 2020 — “Stop The Steal” will be adopted by the center-Left when it becomes clear that the MAGA New Right is hell bent on brazenly stealing the 2024 election in broad daylight.
But remember, the center-Left has a very different personality than the MAGA New Right. The center-Left, for all it’s problems with “cancel culture” and being “woke” is still actually connected to reality. So, there would be a struggle between the natural inclination of centrist Liberals to let the “process work” and Leftists who would want to burn everything to the ground given how corrupted everything had become.
All of this turmoil on the local level would find elections in crucial states thrown into the political realm where MAGA state legislatures and Secretary’s of State would begin to actively ensure that A Democrat is prevented from winning. Every day between Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025 things would grow more and more unstable in the United States as it became clear that Bannon’s long-planned “administrative coup” was actually going to work.
There would be mass confusion. Lots of lawsuits
And, remember, if Trump is involved, as all of this is going on, he would do everything in his personal power to rile up both sides. If his ongoing, progressive cognitive decline has gotten bad enough, he might even go transactional.
It would be around this point that I could see Blue governors begin to make serious plans to leave the Union. A lot would depend on what California was willing to do. But it would definitely make sense that California would be the first state to call a Secessionist Convention in preparation of leaving the Union if the 2024 election is, in fact, stolen.
But by some point between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you could see some sort of summit of Blue Governors where they debate their plans to leave the Union if the very thing that the MAGA New Right wants — to turn the United States into an autocracy — actually happens.
And as we approached Certification Day in January 2025, the last step in the crisis would happen. If you thought Certification Day 2021 was bad, just wait until Republicans are actively going over and above what they did then when it rolls around in 2025. So, the system will have been corrupted at both the local and state level. And then if that doesn’t work, Republicans will again try to throw the election into the House and Senate to buy time, if nothing else.
So, let me be clear — anyone who thinks we’re going to have some sort of MAGA New Right revolution a la The Turner Diaries — is a fool. Any Second American Civil War we have is probably going to be started by Blue States leaving the Union out of disgust that the fix is in.
Therefore, by the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, it could very well be a foregone conclusion that we’re going to have a pretty organized civil war. Republicans have no shame and don’t apparently care about the consequences of their actions, so, lulz, we could find ourselves in the absolute worst of worlds because not only are states actively thinking about leaving the Union around this time, but the whole process of figuring out who is POTUS will be languishing in Congress. Republicans, because they are politically blood thirsty and will cheat, will win the power struggle, but there’s a chance states will begin leaving the Union.
It won’t be deranged, individual MAGA New Right blowing stuff up in some sort of rearguard action. It’s going to be a Blue Nation verses a Red Nation. A lot of the same things that happened in the First American Civil War will happen in the second. The U.S. Military will implode as people from Blue States leave it to establish a new Blue State military.
But one thing we have to expect in late 2024 to early 2025 is a mass migration of people across the country as people no longer feel safe living in an area of the country that doesn’t fit their politics. It could be rather frightening.
If it were, God forbid, to happen, I would guess that a Second American Civil War will begin between Certification Day 2025 and Inauguration Day 2025. In other words, as Trump is being sworn in, mass chaos will have erupted across the United States.
Once the hollowed out American military turns it attention to the Blue rebellion at the behest of Trump, it won’t be too long before WMD are sized and used by both sides. Not only would America bomb itself into oblivion with its eyes wide open, but it will be done in the context of WW3 definitely breaking out across the globe because the US will be too busy imploding to ensure the continuation of the post WW2 global order.
The term “Antifa” has become so loaded as to be taboo. When you say “Antifa” the average America thinks people in red and black colors throwing Molotov cocktails in downtown Portland.
And, yet, I find myself thinking about what I am politically these days and I’m not a member of the so-called Twitter “Resistance,” which is made up mostly of elderly busy-bodies who think if they can only write just the right Tweet they can bring down Trump and everyone associated with him. No, I’m anti-fascist. And, as such, I think we need to reclaim Antifa as a concept from the violent thugs who cornered the market on the idea before any of us realized we were going to need it.
Because make no mistake — MAGA is fascism. MAGA is a fascist cancer that is eating away at the heart of American politics. And only when begin to think of ourselves as Antifa and not limp wristed “Resistance” will we see results. Let me be clear, I hate violence and I’m not advocating it now or in the future.
But I’m a man of words and we need to define who we are. The “Resistance” has proven itself a failure. Now that it’s far more clear what we’re up against — fascism — we need to reboot the things and buckle up for what happens when the fascists are the government and we have to risk our lives and sacred honor in the real world.
What’s probably going to happen is, well, nothing. It won’t be until the fascists have “won” that the actual transition from the Resistance to Antifa will take place. This will happen because people are stupid and can’t process that concepts are flexible and can change their meanings as necessary to fit the moment.
“During his fourteen-month term in office, Wihelm Frick gave Thuringians a preview of what would be visited upon as a whole when the Nazis came to national power on 30 January 1933. Veteran,highly skilled civil servants suspected of sympathizing with the SPD were fired and replaced with Nazis stooges.” — “Hitler: Ascent,” by Volker Ullrich.
There is going to come a point, and I think we may have already reached it, when people who ignore that MAGA is American Nazis will be, by definition, complicit in their rise. There comes a point when you’re just being wilful in your ignorance if you aren’t alarmed by what the American Nazis, I mean, MAGA are up to at the moment.
The current excuse is that Trump is such a dingus that even if he is talking about using Schedule F to destroy the Federal government’s civil service that he just won’t be able to implement it. That has got to be about the dumbest reason to ignore the rise of fascism in the United States. What are those people going to say to people like me when — surprise! — Trump is succeeded by his veep who IS able to successfully able to push through Schedule F?
It’s going to be a little too late then, now isn’t it?
As I’ve mentioned before, the great irony of the rise of American fascism and the Fourth Reich is it’s all happening in a time of relative prosperity in the United States. It makes you wonder why this might be the case. I think it may have something to do with how diverse the United States is and the underlining reason for the rise of fascism here to begin with: race.
Of course, if Republicans were honest, they would tell you what they want is something along the lines of Hungary. They think they’re going to get an “illiberal democracy,” when, in fact, things are probably going to get out of control and we’re going to zoom past that into mainlining old school Nazi fascism.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gestures toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory Jan. 6, 2021 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Some demonstrators later breached security and stormed the Capitol. (Francis Chung/E&E News and Politico via AP Images)
And, yet, the reaction to the suggestion that MAGA is fascism would be one of outrage on the part of MAGA. They will say people like me have been calling the Right in America fascists since Goldwater. They will say I’m being hysterical. They will say conflate, deflect, whatever they have to do to confront that they are, in fact, fucking fascists who are going to probably, in the end, get more people killed than the Nazis did.
I say this because either direction the US goes once it becomes a fascist state — civil war or “Fortress America,” will cause a destruction of the post-WW2 liberal order and WW3 will happen. A “Great Reset,” if you will.
That’s the future, guys. Autocracy or civil war. My only hope is that the “good guys” will win and on the other side humanity will be far more united because of the collective tragedy we’ve gone through and we can begin to address global issues like global climate change in a collective manner.
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