Month: March 2022

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A sizable portion of America has the prospect of a Second American Civil War on its mind these days. The two sides increasingly live in two different mental nations. Just listening to a moment of Right Wing media like Florida Man Radio is enough to send a shiver down your spine. The Far Right has perfected panting anything they don’t like with a huge, wide dismissive brush. Call it the “Yadda Yadda Yadda” debate technique.

Everything is reduced down to Cancel Culture, Wokeness or Critical Race Theory. Throw in a dollop of “Lock Her Up” and “Build The Wall” and you have your explanation as to why many Republican politicians seem to be speaking a language other than English. They want to throw in as many hot keywords into any thing they say in hopes that the MAGA New Right talking heads of Fox News primetime will use whatever they say as a soundbite.

 Some reasons why we might have a civil war.

1. 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.
2. 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 distablizing things that help push the country to the brink.
3. 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.
4. Steve K Bannon.
   Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that we use 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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 there’s another thing to take into consideration going into this scenario — Republicans no longer believe in democracy. They want to make it as difficult to vote as possible to solve a voter fraud problem that doesn’t exist. And if that doesn’t work, they want to gerrymander things to such an extent that, lulz, suck to be you, non MAGA person.

With all of that in mind, let’s travel to the day after tomorrow. It’s now late 2024 and Donald Trump is facing off against A Democrat. Let me be clear — given that the United States is now an anocracy and not a democracy, it’s very, very possible that Trump wins outright in 2024. And, honestly, if something happens and it’s Not Trump who is their 2024 nominee, then the likelihood of civil war drops greatly, no matter what happens. He will have no need for the dirty tricks of Roger Stone or the “administrative coup” of Steve K. Bannon. He wins and we all wait around to see how and when is veep ultimately becomes America’s first autocrat.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s propose that somehow, the election is not what I expect and it’s actually competitive. A Democrat wins the popular vote about the same as Biden did in 2020. Then what? What happens?

Well, I think we face a civil war. Let me explain.

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.

How’s that for a New World Order.

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.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Any discussion of the Republican’s obsession with the Critical Race Theory canard has to understand the context of conservative Traditionalists in America. From what I can tell, Traditionalists, because of the corrosive nature of the Woke Agenda (ugh) feel they have nowhere else to turn but the MAGA New Right.

Or, put another way, combine the extreme abstract fears of your average conservative voter about being “canceled” simply for being conservative, an extensive permission structure and extreme negative polarization and it’s inevitable that Republicans would use CRT as a budgen.

The issue is — the average Traditionalist doesn’t see themselves as racist and they sometimes live in near-constant fear that just by not following the woke agenda media agenda they will have their lives ruined. In large part, much of this comes from how rapidly the urban center-Left is receding from the rural center-Right.

The two poles of American political life are literally living in different (mental) countries. And, as such, your typical Traditionalist is dismayed by how national organizations as, say, the company they work for, adopts elements of the woke agenda that your typical urban dweller takes for granted as just a part of life. This difference in worldview is extremely destructive and corrosive to the point that Traditionalists are excited at the prospect of autocracy.

To the point that will bend themselves into rhetorical pretzels to delegitimize the very idea that the United States is even a democracy in the first place. That’s why I think when Trump wins re-election in 2024 it will be his veep who will be our first autocrat. Trump remains too stupid and lazy to be able to use the leavers of power to make his autocratic desires a reality.

But there are a dozen far younger people who Trump could pick to be America’s Putin. This seems very obvious to me because, lulz, the entire edifice of the Republican Party is now hell bent on ending American democracy once and for all. The only question for me is do they pull it off peacefully, or do they bungle it and we have a civil war.

And it would be in that civil war that we would see the end of the Woke Agenda because, lulz, if you’re dodging bullets and bombs you really don’t have time to quibble about your pronouns.

I still think — as of right now — we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy. The whole system is designed to give the fascists the benefit of the doubt and even if the worst happens and we have a the Certification Crisis in the 2024 -2025 timeframe that I believe is possible, in the end, we’ll lulz it and slip peacefully into a MAGA New Right autocracy.

Only Trump saying the quiet part out loud, I think, might spark Blue States to leave the Union and cause a massive clusterufck of a Second American Civil War.

If we do pick the autocracy route, I’m prepared to face my fate. I’ve had the luxury, the benefit of being a loudmouth kook in a Western democracy and when that comes to and end, I doubt I’ll last very long. It may not happen overnight, but sometime in the 2030s I might get drunk, rant about how fucking fat fuck President-for-Life Mike Pompeo is a fat fuck no matter how much gastric bypass surgery he gets and, next thing you know, ICE puts a bullet in the back of my head.

And there’s really nothing we can do at this point to stop that existential choice of autocracy or civil war. We’re living through macro trends in American history and, as such, we are having a real problem understanding the end game of it all. It’s not like the Woke Agenda is going to stop existing or the MAGA New Right isn’t going to continue to use CRT as a bludgeon.

Gird your loins. The end of the United States as we know it is upon us. Pick a side and be willing to suffer for your choice. Good luck.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Even if I’m wrong and we somehow manage to escape a Certification Crisis in the general 2024 – 2025 timeframe, there are some structural problems within the politics of the United States that give me pause for thought.

But I do think there is going to come a point where I’m going to face my own, personal choice. Either fat fuck President Mike Pompeo actively begins to drag the United States into a Russian style autocracy and I have to worry about ICE killing me in cold blood, or I become a domestic political refugee as part of a Second American Civil War.

Let’s go through these two choices.

Autocracy
The thing about this eventuality is initially nothing will change. It will only be gradually that there will be a shift such that loudmouth kooks like me who, to date, have had the luxury living in a Western democracy will realize that we’re fucked. What I mean is — once the autocracy comes, it could be a few years before it becomes clear that if I get drunk and rant about what a fat fuck President Pompeo is I risk getting rounded up and sent to a camp.

I’ve already decided that I’m ready to take this poney all the way down. I’m never going to shut up about how much I hate the fucking MAGA New Right, even if it means risking my life. Fuck that. I’m ready to accept my date, whatever it might be. Then my Traditionalists relatives, who only have one red line — me — are going to have to figure out how to deal with consequences of their being complicit to the rise of fascism in the United States.

Civil War
If a Second American Civil War happens, I’m heading north. I’m kind of a Blue speck in a sea of Red in my portion of Virginia. So, it seems like going north makes the most sense. But I would only head north if there was some sort of infrastructure for domestic political refugees already existed. My ultimate goal would be to get to NYC and see what happened.

Anyway, hopefully I won’t have to worry about any of that. Hopefully my “hysterical doom shit” is just that.