Tag: Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing I struggle a lot with is how real “woke cancel culture” even is beyond the fevered political wet dreams of MAGA New Right Republicans. It seems to me that a number of different things are happening and they’re being all referenced as the same thing — “woke cancel culture.”

I do think that on social issues younger people — the ones who are the most Very Online — do have different expectations than the Olds. As such, when Olds do something that crosses them, they’re the first to flip out on Twitter about it.

Another thing that is going on is Republicans are using any sign of the above to stoke their base’ absolute visceral paranoia about being “canceled” just for being conservative. I know from my Traditionalist relatives that the abstract fear of being “canceled” is at the very forefront of their minds. Their fear is, in general, that they will say something Not Leftist in public, it will be recorded by someone with a smartphone, it will go viral and their Lives With Be Ruined.

But there’s more going on even all that which makes things even murkier. The #MeToo movement was a revolution in gender politics that, like all revolutions, kind of went to extremes at points. (All the name brand people who were brought down by the #MeToo movement definitely deserved it, but the Aziz Ansari event is something I struggle with because of its complexity.)

And, lastly, a number of the people associated with being “victims” of “woke cancel culture” either deserved it or are doing quite well, thank you. I mean, Dave Chappelle continues, to this day, to tell “transphobic” jokes and he’s the biggest comic in the world.

Tell me, Fox News, how he’s been canceled.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s all very complicated and needs a nuanced response, something that is impossible to get in an age that lacks subtly.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A steady stream of people come to this blog interested in my (often drunk) ranting about the possibility of a Second American Civil War. I think we’re still too far out to know for sure one way or another.

But we’re getting there. Things are beginning to come to a head for us to know one way or another.

One thing that really muddles things is it’s the MAGA New Right that is the one so fixated on a second civil war of some sort. So, you hear the most buzz about a civil war from the one group that has the most to lose from one starting — the MAGA New Right.

Meanwhile, the Blue States are very blasé about the fact that the moment in time when they have to decide if they’re going to “bend a knee” to the MAGA New Right is rushing towards them at an alarming rate.

As such, I think we’ll know a lot more about what’s potentially going to happen after Roe is officially overturned in June – July. If the Blue States begin to freak out, then, yeah, there’s a chance that when the 2024 election is brazenly stolen because of Steve Bannon’s “administrative coup” then we may have a civil war. But if it’s a meh, then, lulz, no. We’re just going to become an autocracy.

So, I would say keep an eye on events between the moment Roe is officially overturned and January 2023 when the 2022 mid-term vote is certified. So, around February 2023, we’re going to know if we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy or if we’re pretty sure going to stumble into a civil war.

If Trump either or becomes Speaker of the House and / or decides to run for POTUS again in 2024….then, yeah. Blue States are probably going to seriously contemplate leaving the Union to the point that we may have a civil war.

Which, of course, would suck.

by Shelt Garner
@shetlgarner

If you don’t notice that we’re on the cusp of some big historical events, you must not be paying attention. Here are a few things to look at between now and Certification Day 2025

MonkeyPox
This is very much a downlow kind of potential crisis. It will only really be a crisis if the community spread we’re seeing here and there really begins to take off. So, keep an eye on the next two weeks. (It takes too weeks between when you’re infected and when you show symptoms — at least that’s the case with smallpox, as I understand it.)
GQP MAGA Fascism
The thing we have to appreciate is the MAGA New Right cancer has completely taken over the Republican Party. They have come to believe that, by definition, if they lose an election that it’s rigged. Of course, it’s going to get ironic when they finally gain power again and never let it go and the opposite side will have ever reason to believe that this is really the case. But anyway –the point is, even if we manage to punt the risk of GQP autocracy down the road a few election cycles, we aren’t going to be able to eliminate it totally — at some point we’re going to face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war.
A Potential Civil War
Until the GQP-themed autocracy is finally consolidated once and for all, there is going to be a risk of a civil war. Blue States may ultimately refuse to “bend a knee” and instead try to leave the Union. Then we have a civil war. But I still doubt seriously that it going to happen. But it is, at least, possible.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing that so many Twitter liberals miss is we face a long term, structural problem when it comes to MAGA. They don’t to win every election, they just have to win enough elections to destroy American democracy. Which, if we were really all that honest, we would admit doesn’t even exist anymore.

We’re an anocracy. Or, in other words, an autocracy without an autocrat.

So, we’re either going to have a civil war or turn into an autocracy. At the moment, I think we’re just going to peacefully turn into a full blow autocracy because the entire system is designed to keep people sedate and placated. It happened in 2000 and when Republicans brazenly steal the 2024 election, it will happen again.

And that will be that.

There will be the occasional huge protest over this or that thing, but in general, they will be as meaningless in the United States as they are currently in Russia. So, lulz.

If you have the means, get out the country. It would be comforting to think that maybe the center-Left might at least put up some sort of struggle…but it definitely looks as though that isn’t going to happen.

Oh well.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The rise of the celebrity candidate was mentioned in Ready: Player One when it’s mentioned off handedly that presidents were in the the future reality TV stars and so forth.

Or, put another way, were witnessing huge swaths of the American government becoming useless if Republicans are in power. I’ve called this the “Mosleyification” of the Republican Party and I think that’s what’s going on. We’ve already seen this at the height of Trumplandia during the 2017 – 2019 timeframe.

So that’s the future we’re careening into. After Blue States “bend a knee” to Red States, we’ll gradually become no different than Russia. But let me be clear — Trump is too lazy and too much of an idiot for him to successfully turn us in to an autocracy.

But whomever his handpicked successor is, that person will be the person to successfully transition our current anocracy into an autocracy. Now, obviously, there is a risk of the other option happening, which would be a civil war. I don’t want that and I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Yet it is something to think about.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m reading the new history of Watergate and it’s really, really good. I hope to learn how Watergate is different from the modern post-accountability era of Trumplandia that we currently live in.

Nixon, in the end, at least had, like, shame and shit. But Trump and his ilk are post-shame and because the people who brought Nixon down — the people I call conservative “Traditionalists” are totally co-oped by the fascists MAGA…lulz. We’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked.

Instead of seeing the traditional arc of a Washington scandal that started with Watergate, with Trumplandia we see the system has failed us. No one is going to save us, no matter how often some Blue Check liberal writes a long, breathless Twitter thread meant to leave us with the idea that the system is going to work.

It’s not. The system isn’t working. There’s no hope. No one and no thing is going to save us. We have to accept that we’re either going to have a fucking civil war or we’re going to slip into autocracy without putting up any struggle at all.

Anyone with any “hope” of the system working — as it allegedly did with Nixon — is a fucking fool and I struggle to understand how you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. You should hang your head in shame.

The system didn’t REALLY work with Nixon because he quit before it could. Had he let the system work and allowed himself to be impeached and convicted, I think, in the end, we would have been a lot better off. The crazy thing is the absolute worst elements of the Nixon Whitehouse are now tame compared to how fucking bonkers the modern GQP is now.

There are a dozen people — men and women — who want to be Trump’s autocratic successor. And we’re not going to do a damn thing to stop them. I don’t want a civil war — hell, I hate conflict of any sort — but it’s rather embarrassing that we won’t even put up a struggle at all when our democracy (which is now an anocracy) is finally snuffed out.

Anyway. I haven’t gotten very far in the Watergate history. But I am moving quite quickly. It’s really well written.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There will be no “National Divorce.” What there might be is a civil war. And we’re definitely doing to slip into the autocracy of white minority rule if we don’t have a civil war.

The United States is far more unstable than we realize. And, really, the only thing keeping us from having a civil war at the moment (starting around 2025) is a complete lack of leadership on the part of the center-Left. The center-Right, meanwhile, has more would-be autocratic leaders than you can shake a stick at.

There must be, at a minimum, a dozen men and women who could be our first real autocrat — all the have to do is get past ding-dong Trump.

But the center-Left is mush.

The argument could be made, I suppose, that between now and 2025 some sort of center-Left leadership will rise to the occasion. That, or the “radical moderates” of the #NeverTrump movement will take over and populate the leadership of the Blue States.

But that’s a whole bunch of wishful thinking — or drinking.

I vacillate wildly between thinking we’re doomed to a dystopian MAGA hellscape, to thinking we’re doomed to bomb ourselves into oblivion as part of a civil war. I just don’t see there being any middle ground when the time comes.

We’re going to face an existential choice, one way or another.

Enjoy this era of a vibe shift while you can, is all I gotta say.