Month: June 2022

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The reason why Texas’ Republican Party seems to have gone full-fascist is Republicans know that if Texas finally shifts purple that Democrats will have a long-term lock on the White House. The same process that turned California into a safe Blue State is happening with Texas and Texas Republicans see this as an existential threat.

So, they’re turning into radical fascists.

But the key thing we have to remember is for all their hysterics, it’s pretty self-evident that fascist Republicans are ascendant. They’re on the cusp of getting everything they want through politics. All they have to do is be patient.

As such, it’s very curious how Republicans continue to want to shoot themselves in the foot by doing something as radical as leaving the Union. On a political basis, it makes a whole lot more sense for Blue States to leave the Union around 2024 – 2025 as part of a broader Certification Crisis than it does for Texas to just randomly leave the Union in 2023 because they feel their feelings are getting hurt.

I really don’t know what to make of this clusterfuck. But it does definitely lend credence to my fears of 2024 – 2025 existential choice of autocracy or civil war. The Republican Party grows more radical and fascist every day and by the time we’re talking about certifying the 2024 presidential election, well, we’re either going to see Blue States leave the Union en masse or we simply peacefully turn into an autocracy.

Right now, it could still go either way.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the heart of what’s wrong with America is that Traditionalists have grown totally detached from everyone else because of an intense, deep seated sense of disenfranchisement. From my conversations with my Traditionalist relatives, they literally believe that the woke cancel culture mob is turning everyone gay. I’m not joking or exaggerating.

That’s literally what they believe.

The reason why this is a problem is Traditionalists are the bedrock of any stable democracy. It’s the constant struggle between Leftists and Traditionalists that is what causes a democracy’s politics to be functioning. Traditionalists are important because they temper the passions of Leftists while at the same time gradually, begrudgingly come to accept progress. This can be a messy, confusing and uncomfortable process, but for much of the last 250 years we’ve managed to make it work.

But now, now things are totally out of whack. Traditionalists have grown radicalized. Because of a combination of negative polarization and an extensive permission structure, American Traditionalists are now Good Germans who just need an autocrat. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat — an anocracy.

One thing that is disturbing and interesting is how Traditionalists really have homophobia on the brain these days. It’s replaced being “canceled” as their number on concern — the “woke gay homosexual agenda” is the first thing they go to whenever you broach the idea of, say, a unity ticket for 2024.

I don’t know how much of this is just because it’s the current Fox News scare tactic and how much of it is a legitimate freak out on the part of Traditionalist about what they see as “everyone turning gay.” It’s all very strange. It’s a prime example of some dark forces that were unleashed because of the Leftist culture war victory at some point in Obama’s second term.

Traditionalists are enraged with the social changes taking place in the United States and they will even come out and say, “I like Trump’s policies, I just don’t like Trump.” That’s like saying, “I don’t like Hitler, but I like his policies.” If our democracy has lost Traditionalists, then we’re on step closer to the existential choice of autocracy or civil war at some point around late 2024 – early 2025.

It’s because I honestly don’t know how to fix this problem that I think we’re either going to have a civil war or turn into an autocracy at some point around 2024 – 2025. We’re in a crisis and there’s no obvious solution or endgame. I have no idea what is going to happen. But I do know that Trump probably is going to run again — and win — and all those Traditionalists who love, love, love Ron DeSantis are going to end up voting for Trump again even though they tell me so adamantly that they don’t l like him.

Things are dark and getting darker.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I’m the red headed step child of my family when it comes to politics. Everyone else in my family is a bedrock conservative. And, as such, I decided to use that to see if my idea (stolen from How Democracies Die) that the USA should try a Unity Ticket in 2024 might work.

The results — nope.

The reason is, we are so divided that the idea of doing such a thing — even with an extensive power sharing agreement in place is so alien that the conservatives in my family simply can’t process it. They can’t seem to see that just because someone identifies as a Democrat solely for the purposes of heading a Unity Ticket in 2024 (without changing any of their conservative policies) doesn’t mean they’ve succumb to the woke cancel culture mob that is the Democratic Party.

So, we’re back to square one.

Or, put another way, something really, really dramatic would have to happen for something as abstract as “have a Unity Ticket in 2024 that will make everyone unhappy but will save American democracy for at least one more presidential cycle” will make sense to Traditionalists like my family members. They hate, hate, hate, hate, hate anything to do with Democrats to the point that they would rather support an autocrat that save democracy. So, in a sense, they’re Good Germans waiting for the opportunity to be Good Americans.

The cancer that is MAGA has simply grown too big and powerful for the quick fix solution of a Unity Ticket to take place. Though if some sort of tragedy happened, something big, that kind of preempted our slip into autocracy, THEN, I think you might be able to sell a Unity Ticket to Traditionalists.

But, for the time being, we’re fucked.

In late 2024 – early 2025, we’re either going to have a civil war because of a “national divorce” or white minority rule will be established once and for all. And if it’s the latter my family — whom I love dearly — will be cheering that transition on.

It won’t be until things get personal — when ICE rounds me up for getting drunk and saying President DeSantis is a cocksucker — that they will grow alarmed at the loss of freedom they’ve taken for granted all their lives. When the red line of it getting personal is crossed, THEN they might think back and realize a Unity Ticket might have been a good idea.

But, alas, it’s not looking so great for the idea now, when it would matter.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Steve K. Bannon and I could not be more different. He is on one end of the political spectrum and all the way on the other side is me. And, obviously, even though he’s not nearly as powerful as he use to be, he’s still got a lot more political power than than I have.

And, yet, I think he and I have similar personalities, even if how expression mine in a dramatically different way.

One element that he and I share is we tend to run with a microscopic amount of information, speculating about this or that theory of the moment that we may have concocted.

And I think he probably does a lot of scenario running in his mind like I do.

Some of what I may be noticing is both of us are, relative to normal people, cranks. We’re both full of shit. I think I’m a little bit more self-aware of how full of shit than he is, but, lulz.

The reason why this is important is, what separates the two of us is opportunity. He’s a member of the elite and I’m a nobody. And yet, the United States is entering an unprecedented era of instability. And there’s a greater-than-zero-sum chance that nothing short of a revolution is going to happen. And, as such, even a nobody like me, who thrives in chaos, might find myself with the finger of God pointing at me in a rather dramatic fashion.

Or not. Who knows.

It’s something to think about.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Democracy is America’s birthright. I say this knowing that 38% of the electorate — the Republican part — will say at this point “actually…. we’re a constitutional republic.”

The issue with the argument that the United States has never been a democracy is how brazenly partisan it is. This argument on the part of well meaning Republicans — some of whom I’m related to — is such bullshit because even though, yes, technically we’re a constitutional republic, being a democracy is part of our collective self-perception.

Additionally, there is a specific point to Republicans denying that the United States is a democracy — it’s the way they get out of having to explain their coming minority rule. They hate the browning of America and the economic liberation of women so much that they would rather establish white autocratic minority rule than risk losing power.

Of course, this opens up the very real possibility that instead of simply becoming an autocracy that we’ll have a “national divorce” between Blues who think we’re a democracy and Reds who think we aren’t and never have been.

But, as I keep writing, I find the notion that we’re going to have a civil war dubious. I think, in the end, because “democracy” is such an abstract concept and the getting the country to focus on anything is too difficult…we’re just going to drift into autocracy and it won’t be until it’s way too late that a lot of people — many of them supporters of fascism — will realize how bad things are going to be from here on out.

In other words, it won’t be until things get personal that a lot of people who otherwise want autocracy will sit up and take notice. But, by then, things will be way too late, especially for people like me.