by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I don’t know how much of this is the final Big Shrug before we either have a civil war or turn into an autocracy and how much of it is we’ve passed the event horizon for the Fourth Turning — but America feels pretty fucked right now.
Every day, Republicans prove that they have, on a systemic, existential basis become radicalized to the point of being old school fascists. They no longer believe in traditional American democracy and, as such, they will abuse any power they regain to ensure that they never give it up.
There are two upcoming events that will definitely give us some insight into our ultimate fate.
- The End of Roe V. Wade
In the next few months, the Roe decision is either going to be gutted so as to be moot or overturned altogether. If this gets a lot of women woke and there are massive protests across the country, that will be sign to me that we’re more likely to have a civil war than slip peacefully into autocracy. But there is a lot of grumbling, but ultimately nothing of note happens — autocracy it is. - January 2023
Another datapoint that will give us a very good sign as to our fate is how much Republicans abuse the power afforded them by controlling Congress again. If they go nuts and we have Speaker Trump who leads multiple impeachments of both Biden and Harris — we’re probably going to have a civil war. Or, more specifically, if they’re hijinks are so extreme that this leads to a radicalization of the center-Left…we’re going to have a civil war. If the center-Left continues to sleepwalk through history despite Republicans going nuts, then we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy.
But the fact remains that American politics grows more and more extreme by the day and there will come a point when either we get a Republican autocrat in power who becomes an American Putin or…we have a civil war. Some pretty big things would have to happen for us to have a civil war in 2024 – 2025 at the moment.
We’re just not there yet.
I still think that most Twitter liberals are just going to leave the country. The seething rage of MAGA will become the bedrock of autocratic rule and things will go from bad to worse at an alarming rate.
And while I know my far more conservative relatives think it’s laughable to think that they’re going to have to face a person decision about my fate when we become an autocracy, I still believe this is the case.
I simply will never shut up — I don’t even know if I could if I wanted to — and, as such, they’re either going to have to turn me in or suffer the consequences of being associated with me.
I have no idea how that’s going to play out.
