A famous Twilight Episode involves a man who loves to read. It gets him in trouble at the bank he works at. Then the End Of The World comes and he realizes he has “all the time the world” to read — until he breaks his glasses.
I keep thinking about this as I sit here with a badly broken ankle in a cast for the next few weeks. I’m keeping a close eye on his the situation between Russia and Ukraine as well as the the various variants of COVID19. The thing I’m worried about is the apocalypse may happen and I’ll be stuck with a limited ability to move around.
I’m being extremely paranoid, but for the time being at my most vulnerable. I can just see the possibility that things might grow existential and I’ll be in a real pickle. But, again, I think that abstract fear has more to do with my love of scenarios than anything else.
It’s just very easy to run the scenario where somehow I have to survive a post-apocalypse hellscape with a cast I can’t get taken off because the technology to do so doesn’t exist anymore.
If, as is currently being suggested, Russia is going to attack Ukraine in a major way on Christmas Eve, it’s very possible that all of Trump’s political and criminal concerns will simply fade away. Such a huge war in Europe would suck up all the attention in the United States and dramatically change the domestic media narrative.
Instead of things like COVID19 and Trump being a seditious piece of shit, all those scary images of war in Europe and the prospect of WW3 will be what everyone will be talking about. I still think there is a decent chance that Trump and Putin still talk to each other and Trump knows it’s not the 2022 mid-terms that will save him, but rather Putin invading Ukraine this year that will save him.
The fucking Patriot Party flag. Cocksuckers.
By the time we come to grips with what is going on with Ukraine, three crucial months may have elapsed. We’ll wake up from our daze to discover, mysteriously, that Trump has gotten off scot free and is well on his way to becoming Speaker of the House in 2023.
Or, put another way, on paper at least, Trump’s historical work isn’t done quite yet. He still has to finish the job he started. And even if he somehow doesn’t become president again, someone else is going to murder American democracy. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat and either we slip peacefully into autocracy or we have a civil war.
I still don’t know which one it will be, but I’m leaning towards a peaceful transition into autocracy. I will have a better sense of things in 2023, once we find out if Trump is going to be named speaker or not.
According to somewhat dubious reports in the British press, British intelligence believes there is a “strong possibility” that Russia will invade Ukraine on Christmas Eve.
Now, I’m of the opinion that this isn’t going to happen for a lot of reasons, chief among them being Ukraine is going to blink and give Russia whatever it wants. But if a huge war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine, it would definitely be enough to throw American domestic politics into chaos.
I say this because Trump is such a Putin knob polisher that just Trump blabbing about how Ukraine “isn’t a real country” could be enough to cause something of a civil war between MAGA and the Republican Establishment. Or not. Trump has such absolute power over Republicans that could be a moot issue.
And, as I understand it, there are two historical issues that would lead Putin to attack on Christmas Eve. One, that is same day the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and, two, it would change the narrative about the 30th anniversary of the demise of the Soviet Union.
It would also change the media narrative in the US. It’s possible that the January 6th investigation will fade into oblivion because we’ll all be glued to our TVs watching the Russians start a massive war in Europe that might be compared to WW3. I still believe Trump may know this and he knows that all his political problems will fade away as everyone’s attention turns to Russia-Ukraine.
I’m totally rewriting and restructuring the first book in this series. The more I think about it, the more I realize how massive this project has become. But I review in my mind time and again what I’m doing and each novel has a concept strong enough to write.
It helps, of course, that essentially I’m writing a very fictionalized version of my own autobiography over the course of these five novels. But, as I have mentioned, I’m going to focus on the first book for the most part in the near term.
It’s time to put up or shut up.
Living the dream.
I need to produce something so I can query an agent and see if I can sell the first book. From the beginning, I’ve just wanted to go through the entire process of getting to the point where I could sell a novel.
It’s just that this project has ballooned into something that I so huge that sometimes I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. But it is a lot of fun. And here’s how I see it — I’ve finally reached land. The question is, will I reach the mainland of the New World, or will I just hang out in Cuba, thinking I’ve discovered a direct route to the East Indies?
My life.
In other words, do I write one novel, or things work out so I am successful enough that can write and sell FIVE NOVELS that are essentially my person history told by a drunk person with marbles in their mouth.
Anyway, things are going really, really well.
I still have a number of other novels, short stories and screenplays rolling around my mind at the moment. But, for the moment at least, I just don’t feel like taking any mental energy from these five novels.
Ok, I get it. I guess I must come across as something of an Internet crank and people want to poke around this site without giving me their URL — hence the use of the Internet Achive.
This is both extremely funny and extremely frustrating to me.
I hate how snooty some people can be when I know damn well if I somehow weaseled my way into a cocktail party where they were, I could fake being “normal” enough that they would find me very memorable. I have a larger-than-life personality and you liquor me up I can be quite colorful.
Or just drunk, depending on how you look at it.
I’ll put a move on you.
As I grow older, I find that my “colorful” personality is both a boon and a bane. It’s a boon because, if nothing else, people remember me. It’s a bane because a lot of people who are successful under the normal metrics of success — who are my peers — think I’m completely bonkers and want to have nothing to do with me.
To the extent that they use the Internet Archive as some sort of propylitic so my kooties don’t get on their computer. Ugh. Fuck that and fuck them. The worst thing anyone has every said about me was I was a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”
I can see what someone would think that. But I would stress the “good heart” part of that statement. I’m well aware that I can be very, very annoying — hence my lack of friends — but I mean well.
The fact that so many people keep asking some variation of this question and end up and this very small Website is kind of depressing. But, here goes. I’ll answer the question for you.
Short answer: I don’t know.
Long Answer: Just wait and see.
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.
A Second American Civil War is one end of a spectrum that has a peaceful slide into autocracy on the other end. That so many people have a Second American Civil War on the brain is, “Not Great, Bob.” Most Traditionalists think people like me who say a 2ACW is an actual, real possibility are “hysterical” and peddling “doom shit” for broaching the subject.
And, yet, a lot depends on what happens on a tactical level in late 2024 – early 2025. If human tumor Steven K. Bannon is successful with his “administrative coup” in the context of Trump running again and being a huge dingus and saying the fascist part out loud, then, yes, there is a good chance that Blue States will leave the Union — starting with California — and we promptly bomb ourselves into oblivian.
What’s worse, there are any number of scenarios you could game out where said 2ACW starts as early as next year. Should Trump drop dead of natural causes, or there’s a major political domestic terrorist event, it could be Red States that leave the Union and…we bomb ourselves into oblivion.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
For so many people to keep looking for an answer to the “Are we going to have a civil war” question which leads them here, that, in itself, is an ominous metric. It’s like how they are able to monitor COVID19 levels by monitoring the sewers in major cities. The popularity of this question makes one wonder if maybe we may have a civil war just because, well, a lot of people want to murder people they don’t agree with politically.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
But, honestly, I think we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy. That definitely seems our best bet at the moment. There will be a lot of bloodthirsty daydreaming about a civil war on the part of the GQP, but, in the end, President DeSantis — or whomever, will simply strangle Lady Liberty in her sleep and center-Left people will flee the country in hordes until they can’t anymore.
So, I talked to a creative writing prof from Tuffs University recently and it helped so much. I was left with a lot of problems to fix with the first novel I’m working on. One of these problems is there’s just too much going on. So, I’ve decided to slice a huge chunk out of the novel and to start it much later in the story.
They tell you to start your story as late as possible AND there’s a famous quote that says something like, “It’s in the second draft that storytellers really do their best lying.”
Now, this all works well in the context of me throwing myself back into writing at some point at the very beginning of the year. Things have begun to go wrong for me to the point that I might have to get a job of some sort. But plenty of people have written novels while working jobs, so I can only be so angstful about things.
But that hasn’t happened yet.
I do need to produce something, anything as soon as possible. And it’s possible that if I work REALLY HARD that the next draft will be so good I will consider it a second draft and will actively begin to solicit beta readers.
A lot of ink has been spilled by people complaining about Disney’s handling of the Star Wars franchise. They’re slowly getting better, but that improvement has come largely on the edges. The main franchise continues to be a shit show of half-measures and muddled movies that seem to be just crap put together in a hap-hazarded way.
The last few franchise movies have been so God-awful that I have simply walked out of them. The issue is not Kathleen Kennedy being “woke,” is that apparently Disney on an institutional level is not fans of the franchise and have no idea what to do with them.
For me, Disney has not one, but several existential problems they have to fix with the main franchise of Star Wars. All of these are extremely difficult to fix because of what Star Wars has become as a cultural and, most importantly financial standpoint.
Off the top of my head, the biggest problem of Star Wars is what you might call the “Bloatware Problem” Disney looks at Star Wars and sees dollah bills — selling toys — and also an opportunity to sell the “woke” agenda to a fan base of mostly center-Right men. Disney has done this to the point that the whole thing is unwatchable now.
But it gets worse.
Star Wars has always been camp for little kids. Despite the best efforts of middle-aged fanboys, Star Wars has no internal logic that functions. Things just happen for no fucking reason. They have begun to try to fix this problem by using the rubric “A Star Wars Movie” for some of the darker films, but Disney wants to sell toys, so it’s difficult to have sex or gore in a Star Wars movie.
There are no ready fixes to these problems.
I do think if they just would cool it with do ANY Star Wars movies for a few years, it might help to clear the air. Then I would really lean into using the massive universe that Star Wars has and explore the stories of lesser known characters.
Go to a planet that doesn’t have just one type of climate, for instance. Anyway, whatever. Until Star Wars gets its act together, I’m going to try to make my own interesting worlds for people to play in.
It’s still sinking in that I’ve (essentially) written the first draft of a novel. It’s not perfect, but it is, at about 87,000 words, a novel. Since it’s a first draft, I’m going to soon throw myself back into the project in a big way. I’m trying to use the very end of the year to do a lot of reading, development and mulling how to take this first novel, in what I hope will be a series, to the next level.
I’m scheduled to talk to a manuscript consultant this evening and I’m really looking forward to it. I hate how, because I have no friends and no one likes me, I have had to do all of this hard work in what is essentially a creative vacuum. So, every once in a while, I’m willing to pay someone so I can get some sense of if what I think is going on, is, in fact going on.
Anyway, I really do need to do a lot of reading right now. I’m feeling a lot of pressure within myself to read the book on Hitler’s ascent that I have. It’s a huge, deep tome, but I have to read it if I want to understand what’s going on in the United States right now.
On the development front, once my ankle situation is finally worked out in a few more weeks, I’m going to begin to switch things up every once in a while by dabbling in development with the other four books I’ve come up with.
I have a huge amount of work to do. But after three years of hard work, I’ve finally, finally come up with a first draft that I can be proud of.
In any normal time, there would be no way in hell that I would support Liz Cheney for any reason. But these are not ordinary times. Winter is coming, as they say, and the clock is ticking for an enormous clusterfuck that would start in late 2024 to early 2025.
The United States is slowly — right in front of our eyes — transitioning into an autocracy. The center-Left is powerless in the face of the rise of autocratic fascism. Because of the Electoral College, we’re being lulled into a false sense of security about where things stand because the fact that the Democratic Party is actually an array of center-Left parties while the Republican Party is an actual fucking fascist party is being hidden from us.
U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivers an opening statement during the opening hearing of the U.S. House (Select) Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on July 27, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. During its first hearing the committee, currently made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, will hear testimony from law enforcement officers about their experiences while defending the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob on January 6. (Photo by Jim Bourg-Pool/Getty Images)
The GQP is hell bent on destroying the Republic and, as such, it’s going to take people willing to stand on principle to stop them. At the moment, Ms. Cheney is the only person I can think of who makes me sit up and take notice and say, “Now, THAT is principled. That person could give us the leadership the save the Republic.”
It definitely seems as though we’re careening towards either the death of Lincoln’s Second Republic, or the birth of a Third Republic based on a new American Covenant inspired by somewhere like California. Ms. Cheney is all about what The Mooch calls “front stabbing,” just the type of thing we’re going to need from those Radical Moderates that need to exist to re-found the Republic should we have a civil war.
The really sad thing is we have a few years to game out how we’re going to defeat humor tumor Steve K. Bannon’s administrative coup and we’re not rallying behind Ms. Cheney the way we need to. If we’re going to defeat Red States, should things grow…uhhh…existential…for the duration of the crisis we’re currently in, AOC and Ms. Chaney would have to make common cause for the specific purpose of defeating MAGA.
If we’re going to defeat MAGA on the plains of war, we need to build out the political leadership and infrastructure to support such an astonishing event. If we don’t have a civil war, then we’re going to turn into an autocracy and an obscene number of center-Left people will simply vote with their feet and leave the country. (Until that becomes impossible, of course, after the autocrat gets mad.)
The point of all of this is — winter is coming. If we don’t want the United States to become a political clone of Russia starting around 2024 – 2025, we’re going to have to start to think outside the box. Forge strange, surreal alliances with people we may not agree with on a tactical level, but do agree with that we want to keep living in a liberal democracy.
I would suggest you start to read up on the First American Civil War, as well as the rise of the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. Also, figure out what you believe in and what you’re willing to risk your life and sacred honor for. At best, we’re going to turn into autocracy peacefully and that will be that. At worse, we’re the most powerful nation in the world is going to bomb itself into the Stone Age.
The thing that isn’t going to happen is we continue to drift through history as white people in America become a minority. The rise of Trump, onto itself, should be enough to dissuade anyone from thinking we aren’t in for a few eventful years.
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