Tag: Fuck MAGA Fuck Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I talk a lot about a Second American Civil War, to the point that some people like the woman who runs, “Mueller, She Wrote” calls me a “terribly negative person” and blocks me.

First of al, fuck her, but second of all, if there was a civil war, where would we expect to be the most violence?

I think there are two states that would implode at the onset of any Second American Civil War — Texas and Virginia.

I say Texas because it’s shifting Blue slowly, and this freaks the Republican Establishment there the fuck out. They know that if they let Texas go consistently Blue like California, then Democrats will have something of a strangle hold on the presidency for the foreseeable future.

So, in a sense, should the political distance between Blue and Red grow so extreme that states start leaving the Union, Texas would be a prime place for a political implosion. The state of Texas is likely to buckle into a number of warring areas. I could see Austin, in particular, facing a pretty grim fate because of how it is considered the most liberal of cities within the state.

The other state is, sadly, my own — Virginia.

Virginia is pretty much two states that are growing to hate each other. And as the middle ground evaporates, it’s more and more difficult for Virginia to function.

I could totally see Virginia collapsing into violence and chaos — probably after a coup of some sort — around 2025 should the there be a civil war around that time like I fear.

This, of course, would put me in the middle of a massive clusterfuck. If that happens, then I’m going North. If my state collapses and I find myself a Blue spec in a Red part of Virginia, I simply won’t have any other choice.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s rather rare for a war to start in the modern era for a number of reasons. One is, well, the United States. The other is, it’s just not as easy for a nation or political group to think a war would be worth it.

And, yet, here we are — the MAGA New Right is very frothy and very much making a major fucking miscalculation about what they might face in a Second American Civil War.

Here’s what I mean.

Talk to any MAGA New Right person on Twitter and their orthodoxy is that not only do they have the guns, but the center-Left is made up of a bunch of numale soyboys who are too limp wristed to put up much real world resistance should violence break out.

I call bullshit.

The reason I do this, we’ve had the luxury of peace and prosperity so long in the United States that we’ve grown fat and sassy to the point that we worry about our pronouns.

Even the most lip wristed soyboy is going to sit up and take notice if there is a gun pointed at their face. Gen Z, as a group, just like the Greatest Generation, will be forced to rise to their historic occasion even if they don’t really want to.

As such, should the time come starting around 2025 when I think we may have a Second American Civil War, the center-Left is going to up up a fight as good as the one they face from the bloodthirsty MAGA New Right.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A far smarter person than I pointed something out about my hysterical psychohistory of a Second American Civil War starting around 2025: he said it wouldn’t happen for economic reasons.

This threw me for a loop, but I’ve given this cogent critism some thought and I think my initial belief about a Second American Civil War still holds up. But my comparison to the origins of the First American Civil War require a more nuance than I originally gave it.

So, yes, as my smart friend noted, the “right” to own someone else was an economic right. While there were many, many reasons for the First Civil War, pretty much everything else hung on the economics of slavery. When Lincoln was elected, Slave Power saw his future potential anti-slavery policies as a direct threat to their economic well being.

Hence, secession.

Thus, initially, it seems my belief that there is a near one-to-one comparison between slave power fearing a loss of the “right” to own other people and the modern center-Left fearing their rights being abridged by MAGA power don’t hold as much weight as I originally thought.

But I’ve given this some thought and it seems to me that in the modern age every “right” has an economic element to it. Or, all the rights that the center-Left are worried about do.

Take, for instance, reproductive rights.

If, by 2025, Blue States face all three branches of government working actively to make any form of contraception illegal there is a definite economic element to that fear. That would be the crux of Blue States like California and New York leaving the Union in the first place — the economic freedoms of women would be highly curtailed if birth control was illegal.

The list goes on — gay marriage has a economic element to it, and so on.

My smart friend also suggested that Fortune 500 companies would have no interest in essentially destroying the gravy train that is the American economy and, as such, would put the kibosh on a Second American Civil War.

That, too, doesn’t hold much water with me upon some reflection.

We already have a move on the part of the MAGA New Right to punish “woke” corporations and it seems to me that by around Certification Day 2025 things will have gotten so bad that not even the all-powerful Industrialists would be able to stop California, then the rest of the Blue States from leaving the Union.

At the core of all of this, the thing that is eating away at the Union, making it less perfect, is Red States and Blue States are receding away from each other at an alarming rate at the same time that Red States are ascendant politically and want to force Blue States to bend a knee.

We’re still too far out for me to know if Blue States will, in fact, avoid organized political violence and “bend a knee” to the fascists of the MAGA New Right. All of that is still very much up in the air.

But gird your loins. America as we know it might destroy itself in a violent manner not seen in 160 years.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It just occurred me today why there might be a Second American Civil War starting sometime around Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025: the same reason why the First Civil War happened.

The First Civil War happened because Slave Power got so wrapped up its own paranoia that they felt that their age-old “right” to own other people would be put in jeopardy no matter what once the Republican Abraham Lincoln became POTUS.

Ok, flash forward to 2024 – 2025 and what is going on — Blue States have every right to believe that the newly re-elected Trump will actively abridge various hard-earned rights no matter what they do. Add to this how brazen Trump was in stealing the 2024 election via Bannon’s corruption of the administration of elections and you have a recipe for a Second American Civil War.

And, despite Barbara F. Walter’s insistence that it will be Reds who start a “Troubles” like civil war, it will be a Civil War based on states. If a Second American Civil War does happen, it’s likely to begin with California leaving the Union, which will spark a cascading series of events that will cause sister Blue States to leave the Union as well.

Or at least try to.

This is where things get murky in my future history — what happens with the U.S. Military?

The officer corp of the U.S. Military will be extremely empathetic to the alarm of the Blue States, but as an institution, the U.S. Military will never brook Blue States breaking the law and leaving the Union.

So, I don’t know.

Either there’s some sort of last-ditch military coup in hopes of keeping the country together long enough for a Constitutional Convention (Hello, acting President James Mattis) or we see something even more fucked up — even the U.S. Military buckles. This would involve, just like with the original Civil War, people who supported the Blue States joining the military of the Blue American Republic.

Now, there’s something to keep in the back of your mind about all of this — with the United States pre-occupied with a Second American Civil War, there would likely be a WW3.

A series of regional wars would flare up for no other reason than the United States simply couldn’t do anything about them. So, you would see the DPRK attack South Korea. India and Pakistan blow each other up. Israel and Iran blow each other up. And God only knows what Russia might think up.

And if things got as bad as I fear, you would have NATO nations supporting Blue States in an active way, just like the West is now supporting Ukraine.

A Second American Civil War would not be an overnight affair, either. It would likely last for the rest of the decade. And, what’s more, there would be no assurances that there would even be a nice and tidy endgame to any of it.

The United States could simply balkanize into a post-civil war hellscape, with Trumplandia’s radicalized government murdering POC in numbers not seen since WW2.

But, as I keep saying, I may be overthinking all of this.

We could, in fact, simply slip peacefully into a MAGA-themed autocracy.

You have a few years. Get a passport.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m not an expert, so you can actively ignore me on this one, but here are my personal thoughts on what might happen should Blue States bounce out of the Union around 2024 -2025.

The theory is, at this point, that because Republicans will be a little too aggressive in their theft of the 2024 election, Blue States, starting with California, will simply leave the Union.

But here’s the rub — this would not happen in the context of antebellum 19th century America, but, rather in 21st century America that has been a nation-state since 1865.

As such, I wonder if there’s a glaring flaw in my basic assumptions about how a Second American Civil War might play out. And that flaw is the U.S. Military. Is it possible that should we actually get to the point where Blue States are leaving the Union that the U. S. Military will step in and single-handedly hold the country together?

Given that the reason why the civil war would start would be the question of Who Is The President? it’s possible that someone like James Mattis might come in as part of a military coup. He would be president just long enough for a Constitutional Convention that would fix the structural problems the country faces at the moment.

And YET, there’s another way of looking at that — such a desperate move could simply be modern day equivalent of a last-gasp change to avoid violence like the Crittenden Resolution that happened at the beginning of the Civil War. It could be that, in the end, not even the US Military can keep the country together.

Give the MAGA New Right a few more years to marinate in their hate who knows what might happen.

The passions of the 1860 election caused a civil war, it seems that what might seem unthinkable now in 2022 could very well happen in 2024 for the same reason: civil war.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Should what we’re led to believe happen and SCOTUS overturns Roe, we will lurch towards a Second American Civil War around 2024 – 2025. All the conditions are there.

There are two major questions at this point.

One is, what will the military do should it seem the country is going to break in two and the other is, do we just slip peacefully into autocracy?

For the moment, the US Military is a real wild card whenever I try to game out a Second American Civil War. It could be that instead of what I fear — a civil war — we get a weird, hazy gray era in American politics were Acting President James Mattis holds the country together while we figure out how to hold a judicious Constitutional Convention.

Or, put another way, it’s highly unlikely that the US Military would one, sit back and watch the country collapse or two, fall apart like what happened at the beginning of the first American Civil War.

So, that, unto itself, is something of a conundrum.

And, regardless of what the US Military ultimately does, it’s possible we’ll just slip peacefully into an autocracy and that will be that. But all I do know is the moment abortion is illegal in huge swaths of America — we’re going to grow far more politically unstable than we already are.

Buckle up.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want to get some sense of how fucking cooked the Union is at the moment, look no further than how the Right and the Left are getting angry over the recent leaked preliminary SCOTUS overturning Roe.

The Left is understandably angry about the the fact that Roe is being overturned. While the Right is….

…the fact that this opinion was leaked?

That’s what they’re going with?

Apparently, yes.

So, this is an example of how the two are talking past each other. MAGA is totally wrapped up in all of this being leaked, while the Left is rightfully apoplectic about the case.

The point, of course, is that MAGA talking heads don’t want to talk about directly something that makes them squirm — their hatred of abortion rights is extremely unpopular.

And, in the end, we continue to slouch towards either a civil war or a MAGA autocracy.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

History may not repeat but it does rhyme. Overturning Roe might, in hindsight, be seen as a modern day Dred Scott decision. And it definitely seems as though the United States is careening towards the biggest political crisis since 1860 – 1861. The passions of the 2024 election could very well tear the United States apart in a way not seen since the Civil War.

I have repeatedly said that around 2024 – 2025 we will face a choice. Either we turn into a MAGA autocracy or we have a Second American Civil War. Or, put another way, starting now, the United States is going to grow even more politically unstable than it has been since Trump became POTUS.

There are a lot ways that there could be a civil war.

Everything from Republicans being angry that Democrats keep Congress in 2022 to Democrats being angry that the administration of elections has grown so corrupted in 2024 that they no longer feel they can win, period.

Part of all of this is how the overturning of Roe might be the equivalent of the Dred Scott decision. When women get angry, things tend to change in a big way. It happened during the French Revolution, it might happen now.

But I just have no idea which way things will go. It could be we simply slip peacefully into autocracy, it could be that we have a civil war.

At the moment, it could go either way.

Overturning Roe, however, definitely seems to make the idea of a Second American Civil War seem far more likely.