by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
We have to be honest with ourselves. America’s political system is rotting to the point that it’s undead. And once our politics isn’t undead but just, well, dead, then we’re in deep trouble.
The events of 2020 were so unique that what should have happened — Trump being re-elected — didn’t happen. But the systemic rot within our political system that allowed Trump’s rise is still very much there. Now, I’m reading a book called The Fourth Turning which, on the face of it, seems to jibe very well with my own predictions for America’s future.
The book says that “before 2025” there will be a major crisis on a par with WW2. I agree, and, yet, I’m growing ever-more leery of how certain the book is with its predictions. There’s no reveled truth and I don’t think there’s anything all that special about America’s “13th generation.” The whole thing smacks too much of New Age pseudoscience for people like Steve Bannon for my liking. There’s something just a little bit too on-the nose for what the book claims about the ebb and flow of history.
Seems like there’s a lot of reverse-engineering on the author’s part. They came up with an idea and changed it as necessary to sell books.
Anyway, having said all that, I have to give them credit — what they say about America’s fate ‘before 2025″ definitely really does jibe with my own predictions.
The thing about Trump as a serious political figure is what he simply was not capable of doing. All things being equal, he really should have strangled our liberal democracy in the months leading up to the 2020 election. In fact, that he didn’t do so is one of the more unexpected political events of the 21st Century. He had America spread eagle in front of him, ready for him to remake her in his own imagine…and he choked.
From a macro political standpoint, it’s nothing short of surreal.
So, if you combine the pandemic, Joe Biden being very moderate and Trump being a huge ding-dong, America was spared from tyranny for at least another four years.
And, yet, it’s only four years.
I just don’t see America lasting through the passions of another presidential cycle. The country is either going to implode into a vicious, bloody civil war or descend into a fascist managed democracy where people like me either get pushed out of windows for not shutting up or put in an ICE camp for the very same thing.
What’s more, under either option there’s probably going to be World War III because the United States is either going to be too busy destroying itself or our new autocrat will pull all our troops out of our bases across the globe.
Something very unexpected would have to happen to prevent such a fate. It’s not like we can punt our systemic political problems down the road forever. The Republican Party hates democracy, POC and women and it’s only a matter of time before they start to draw very heavily from the fascist playbook.
That will either cause a civil war or they’ll be successful in turning us into a managed democracy like they have in Russia. I honestly don’t have any ready answers for any of this.
The simple answer is to leave the country now if you have the opportunity and means. The more complicated answer is, well, YOLO. The moment the Republicans take over Congress in 2022, the fuse will be lit for The Fourth Turning to happen.
