In the past, I used to visit New York City about once a quarter. It was the closest I could get to visiting Seoul and I was always a lot of fun. I love the city’s energy and visiting — and daydreaming about living there — was always a great way to stir my creative juices.
But, my financial situation has changed for the worst and I just can’t afford to go anymore. Yet that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about maybe one day falling into the money necessary to buy the equipment needed to become a fashion photographer and move to NYC to see if I could pull of such a hat trick. Of course, that’s being exceedingly delusional — I’m probably simply too old to start a successful fashion photographer career.
I can have all the talent in the world, but I’m old enough to know that simply having native talent isn’t enough. It takes time to “come out of nowhere” and I simply don’t have that much time left on the planet to get what I want. And, even if I “got what I wanted” the context would not be wanted I wanted.
Instead of, “Wow, this cool new fashion photographer is making building a career in NYC,” it would be, “Jesus Christ, this old guy thinks he can have a career in fashion photography.”
Whenever I think like this — which is often — I mope. Then I am reminded that my life is extremely quirky and ironic. And I’m a notorious late bloomer. So, allow myself to be delusional and think that maybe, just maybe things will break my way and I’ll be able to live the dream of both being a successful novelist and a successful fashion photographer.
I am well aware of how delusional that is, coming from someone with no career and pushing 50. But one man’s delusion is another man’s dream. People can be so cruel.
But the thing about it is, while there’s life, there’s hope. You have to believe in yourself. You never know when something unexpected might change everything and put you in a far better position than you might otherwise think possible.
Meanwhile. I miss New York City. I hope to live there full time one day before I drop dead. Though, obviously, my best bet — given my personality — would be to move to LA instead and try my luck there. But I really do love NYC.
As I approach the milestone age of 50, I find myself dwelling, and even wallowing in, my own mortality. It’s clear that I have a limited number of time on this mortal coil and if I don’t do something of note soon then this is, well, is it. I will be only vaguely known for a failed expat magazine in Seoul.
I will leave material world unremembered and unloved.
So, I find myself trying to prioritize my time. I think that’s something that people my age do a lot, which is why it’s so difficult for us to date people younger than we are. When you’re in your 30s, it still doesn’t really register that you’re mortal and you could drop of a heart attack or a stroke at any moment.
I continue to want to get into fashion photography. But — and this is pretty deep — I’ve reached an age where the context of any success will be that I “was a success late in life.” It’s not like I have a career that lead any outsider to think, “Well, it’s obviously he would be a successful fashion photographer.”
All I have a hunch that I have a natural eye for beauty and, given the proper equipment, that I have a pretty good shot of becoming a photographer of note. Even though that is, obviously I am old. That’s probably the most jarring things about reaching my age — it slipped up on me. “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans,” is how John Lennon put it.
And this is very true.
Or, put another way, even if I get what I want, I won’t get what I want. Everything will be about how old I am and how I “came out of nowhere” to be a successful novelist or fashion photographer or both (hopefully.) I have just wasted way, way, way too much of my time grieving over ROKon Magazine and what happened in Seoul in general.
The key issue is, when such things are happening to you, you don’t really realize what’s going on. If I had a wife or a girlfriend to reflect my personality back to me, then maybe I would snapped out of my self-imposed mental jail a lot sooner.
But, you know, there comes a point when you can only mope about your lot in life for so long. I’m going to have to gird my loins for what is going to happen in my 50s sooner or later. When I’m feeling particularly optimistic, I think about how U.S. Grant was a drunk in the middle of nowhere for much of the 1850s until the Civil War gave him totally unexpected opportunities.
Then I do a gut check and think the only way I’d ever get that level of opportunity would be if, well, the end of the world came in some way — maybe via a Second American Civil War. And I definitely don’t want that. But I do believe there is a greater than zero chance that might happen.
Obviously, the more likely endgame would be autocracy. Then I have to figure out to avoid getting thrown out a helicopter by ICE.
Everything is going well with this first novel. And, yet, now that I’m just about to begin to flesh out the second half of the novel’s outline, I find myself with something of a conundrum. I have a general idea of how the story ends, and yet, I don’t.
I am really struggling with how to keep the story going. The story hasn’t collapsed as has happened so many times before, but I definitely am at a loss as to what to do at the moment. I think what I’m going to do is distract myself. I’m going to do some much neglected reading. I have a small library of books I haven’t read yet and I think if I just let my mind get preoccupied with something other than the problem at hand, then I should be able to solve it soon enough.
I feel like there’s something obvious that I’m missing. I think the thing I’ve really improved lately is character development. For way too long, I was interested in plot without really thinking about fleshing out character. But I think I have a much, much better understanding of character now. My storytelling ability has improved significantly.
Another thing I might do is turn my attention to one of the other books in the series. I know that’s dumb because I should focus all my attention on the first book, but I love development too much to stop doing it altogether. It would be nice to be able to switch gears for a few days an develop something that was still in the same universe. That might get my creative juices for the rest of the second half of the first novel going.
I think I just need a few days to clear my mind. Once I look at the second half of the novel with fresh eyes, the solutions to my current problems will probably be quite clear. At least, that’s the hope.
I just don’t think we appreciate how unstable the United States is at the moment. We’re a powder keg. A nation on edge. And, really, to some extent what’s saved us is Trump is not a Great Historical Man. He’s just an idiot who does nothing but be himself. He is too stupid and too lazy to do the hard work necessary to bring down the country.
This is unlike Hitler, who while being notoriously lazy, was adept enough to bend history to his will once he was given the opportunity. Trump is like a spoiled brat. He thinks he can get what he wants just by ranting a lot and vaguely insinuating that his supporters should do this or that thing. Hitler at least had the gumption to go transactional as necessary to get what he wanted.
Now, obviously, what everyone within Republican ranks wants is for Trump to get out of the way so DeSantis cane become POTUS and become America’s Putin. But Trump is a political monster and he won’t do that. So, we find ourselves in something of a pickle. The issue is — Trump, unto himself, could start a civil war.
He is notorious for saying the quiet part out loud to the point that he could easily breeze to re-election in 2024 (even though he will still cheat, obviously) and his agenda for his second term will be so radical and fascist that Blue States, starting with California will begin to head for the doors. The we have a National Divorce which either sees the country break into two after a brief, violent war or something far darker happens. And that doesn’t even begin to address the possibility that instead of a National Divorce we have some sort of pitched battle — with WMD used — to figure out who gets the USA “brand.”
But I just don’t see that happening. We’re most likely to just slip into autocracy and that will be that.
There are brand name members of the Far Right who say some seriously dumb shit. But they say it because there is so much frothy excitement within the MAGA base that they know it plays well. Sometimes, what they say is so surreal as to be easily dismissed by “normal” people — while the MAGA New Right laps it up and wants more, more more. Take this, for instance:
The above is a classic frothy comment. The key issue is, this type of bullshit sentiment eventually drifts drown to your crazy MAGA uncle who says it over Thanksgiving dinner without even realizing where it came from.
I try to keep my cool with all this anti-democratic talk on the part of the MAGA New Right, but it can be pretty difficult. What gets me is Republicans make it absolutely clear what their vision for America is — autocracy — and yet way too many people, especially in the press, lulz it.
We are in so much trouble as nation. We’re far more unstable than we’re prepared to admit to ourselves. And all this frothy, anti-democratic and sometimes violent rhetoric that the MAGA New Right spews out on a regular basis is all a part of that.
I don’t have any ready answers. We’re fucked. If I could get out of the country, I would. But I can’t because I’m so poor. So, I guess I’ll have to figure out some way to survive in either civil war America or autocratic America.
When talking about the idea of a Second American Civil War, you first need to define what you mean by “civil war.” It’s my impression from my Webstats that what most of the people who come to this obscure Website are looking for is an answer to the question, “When do I get to murder liberals for political reasons without having to worry about going to prison?”
Unlike civil war scholar Barbara F. Walter, I believe that it’s highly unlikely that the United States will have a civil war that’s like the Troubles of Northern Ireland. Such an idea suggests that there would come a point when MAGA would, in a spasm of hate, just start to randomly blow shit up out of spite. While I suppose that’s possible if Trump specifically told MAGA to do that — or if, say, Trump shuffled off this mortal coil for some reason — it makes a lot more sense to me that if there is a Second American Civil War, it will happen because of a National Divorce.
So, let’s say there is a National Divorce. So what? What would that be like?
Well, it would suck. A lot.
Probably what would happen if there was a 2ACW would be the extensive use of WMD by both sides. Our best bet is that there is a short, but violent National Divorce that lasts months, not years. The two sides finally won’t have to deal with each other and Blue States get a lot Bluer and Red states get a lot Redder. There would Blue USA and Trumplandia USA and they would absolute hate each other just as much as they currently do, only they would live under different government systems and have different passports.
The worst case scenario is, of course, that the two sides have a fight to the death to see who gets the USA “brand.” If a civil war becomes a zero-sum game then well, we would have a catastrophe on our hands. It would suck very, very bad. The United States, the most powerful nation in the world, would bomb itself into oblivion.
And, what’s worse, is because of EMP from a-bombs being used, large parts of what was once the United States would have no electricity and no use of any electronics at all. It would definitely have a very End of the World vibe to it.
But that’s the absolute worst case scenario. Though, I have to admit that if there is any sort of 2ACW, then WW3 is going to happen.
In short, if there is a 2ACW, it would be so catastrophic not just for America but the world that it would probably cause the death of more people than WW2. But I think if there’s going to be a civil war, it’s going to happen in 2024 – 2025 and it’s going to be because Blues decide to leave the Union. It will be Blue States, not Red States, who demand a “National Divorce.”
If what happened in 2020 is any indication, the first sign that we would have that something was amiss in 2024 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.
Or, put another way, we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked one way or another. Either we turn into an autocracy or Red and Blue begin to murder each other in cold political blood. The usual outcome of all this bullshit that we have come to expect — simply muddling along until we come to some solution one way or another — is not longer a valid option.
I only write this because I’m aware of how many private mercenaries and thrill seekers there are in the Lone Star State. Anyway, if there was a civil war like I fear might happen in the United States between now and January 2025, what happens to Texas?
Texas is very complicated because what should be happening — the state gradually becoming a safe Blue state — is being stymied by its autocratic state government. As such, there is already a real disconnect between the will of the people and how the state is actually governed.
But the key thing we have to remember is if there was a 2ACW that was started by Red States, rather than Blue States, then Texas might even be the first state to call a Secessionist Convention.
Two other things to consider. First, Texas would likely implode into intra-state civil war. There would be a pitched battle to for control of the state and I could see future school children learning all about The Battle of Austin as Reds try to take that dollop of Blue.
Also, the state would be the front line if Blue forces from California swooped across the country in an effort to re-unite the nation. I have my doubts that this latter thing would happen. I say this because the war aims of Blues might be simply to have a clean national divorce.
But Texas is so big and so Purple that I think if there was a civil war — no matter which side started it — it would be a complete shitshow. A catastrophe. Let’s not have one, shall we?
So, once Trump or DeSantis is POTUS in 2025, what’s going on with CNN right now is going to happen to all American media. The shift will happen subtly, behind the scenes and under the rubric of “objectivity.” But will happen. And what’s probably going to tip the average person of that something has changed will be a mistake or overreach on the part of the autocrat.
The most obvious place for this to happen would be late night TV. While CNN is lurching towards MAGA via “objectivity” late night hosts could just be purged in a rather abrupt manner — probably because the autocrat threatens the broadcast licenses of their networks.
But the issue is — because form follows function there is going to be a point in the near future when the only way Americans can get any news that the autocrat doesn’t want them to know about will be to watch the BBC. The only way this isn’t going to happen, of course, is if there’s a civil war. Then that’s a whole different set of changes.
And, yet, again, the point is — America is careening towards autocracy at an alarming rate. We really are an anocracy and we’re far less stable than people would like to admit.
It will be shenanigans like what’s happening with CNN that is how freedom of speech will initially be curtailed — it will be plutocrats working within the system who chill free speech, not the government doing it. Though, obviously, that will come soon enough once the MAGA SCOTUS overturns New York Times V. Sullivan.
First, let me be very clear — I just don’t see the United States having a Second Civil War. All the talk about one says more about how on edge the nation is as we transition into an autocracy. Talk of civil war is part of the transition into an autocracy. It happened with Germany when the Nazis took over and it’s happening today as the fascist MAGA are ascendant.
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.
And, yet, since there is a greater-than-zero chance that there might be a Second American Civil War, let me give you my reasoning why it will be Blues, not Reds who start it should it happen.
First and foremost, MAGA is politically ascendant. As part of that, they are doing everything in their power to sabotage American democracy in sort of a slow moving coup that, if successful, would cause the United States to turn into an autocracy through the corruption of the administration of elections. And, what’s more, if SCOTUS approves the dubious legal concept of “independent legislatures” the coup will be complete. MAGA state legislatures will be given free reign to completely ignore the will of the people if necessary to make sure a MAGA presidential candidate wins.
So, the theory of the case by civil war expert Barbara F. Walter is this: MAGA no longer believes in American democracy and they see themselves as “real” America to the point that they will become something like Colombia’s FARC and start to blow shit up around the country on a regular basis because they hold Blues in such distain.
Now, there is some merit to this idea — she is the expert, after all. But it also misses the point. Political tradition in the United States would suggest that if we’re going to do something as dramatic as a “National Divorce” it will be at the state level and it will have a thin veneer of legalism to it. While, yes, it’s very possible that between now and January 2025 there will be a significant increase in political violence across the country. That’s a real possibility and I can see how that might be marketed as a “civil war.”
And, yet.
It seems me that no matter which side demands a “National Divorce,” Blue or Red, it will be initiated at the state level. Doing so would give any effort to have a National Divorce the basic building blocks of a nation. Government. Military. Leadership. Taxation. It just doesn’t make any sense to me that we would collapse into anarchy — even though it definitely feels as though we’re doing just that at times.
There is a real possibility that if Trump feels he is going to get indicted and potentially go to prison, that he will demand Red states leave the Union to put pressure on the Federal government to lay off. He’s so bonkers at this point that anything is possible. But as I keep saying, from what I’m reading of Hitler and his ascent there’s a huge different between he and Trump — Hitler was willing to use violence, to go transactional to get his aims.
Trump, meanwhile, is so lazy and such a wussy that he’s only gone transactional once and that was January 6th. Otherwise, Trump has been all talk and violent dog whistles. This comes from how Trump is not a historical “Great Man” but rather just an avatar, a vessel for white Christian autocratic rage. And, in a strange way, this part of Trump’s personality has given us a little bit a breathing room that we would not have otherwise if Trump was more like Hitler.
So, barring Trump going transactional and demanding Red states leave the Union to save his own ass, I think if we have a civil war it’s going to happen in late 2024, early 2025.
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.
Or, put another way, we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked one way or another. Either we turn into an autocracy or Red and Blue begin to murder each other in cold political blood. The usual outcome of all this bullshit that we have come to expect — simply muddling along until we come to some solution one way or another — is not longer a valid option.
For a number of years, since 2015, we’ve been trying to “get” Trump for any number of alarming things. And, every time, to date, he’s managed to escape because of what I call the “Stormy Daniels Playbook.” This Trump “floods the zone” with bullshit long enough for Republican leaders to touch base with MAGA voters and realize that they do, in fact, still support Trump. As such, to date, at least, Trump has known that trying to hold him accountable is much like trying to get any sort of sensible gun control passed after 20 little kids are murdered.
Trump just wants us to get past the shock of whatever the bad thing he did. Once we are able to get past the cognitive dissidence of him paying off a porn star right before an election, or making a “perfect call” to get dirt on Joe Biden, or separating families at the border…he wins. The MAGA base has such absolute fidelity to Trump on a political basis that there is never a point where the people in Republican leadership demand Trump leave the public sphere.
Here are some reasons why we may have a civil war over and above the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
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.
The Stormy Daniels Playbook has served Trump very, very well since at least the Access Hollywood Tape and, as such, it’s inevitably the thing he leans into the moment he realizes whatever it is he’s done wrong isn’t just a PR problem but a Big Boy Crime.
And so, we find ourselves with yet another Big Boy Crime that Trump has committed — espionage. This is so serious that two extreme things of equal value are now careening towards each other at an alarming rate. The absolute fidelity of MAGA to Trump is rushing towards the absolute need for the Justice Department to finally, finally hold Trump accountable for something so absolutely bad that it’s inexcusable, even for political reasons.
We all may be Antifa soon.
As such, if we really do “catch” Trump this time — which I find extremely unlikely — literally anything can happen. I fear we’re underestimating not only the fanatical fidelity to dingus Trump MAGA has, but how unstable the country is in general. To me, it seems the key issue is — if Trump, in a panic, demanded Red States leave the Union in his usual dog whistle way, would they actually call secessionist conventions?
Is that even really within the realm of possibility?
I honestly don’t know at the moment. I do think a state like Texas might do it if Trump demanded it, then once that began to happen, all eyes would turn to South Carolina to see if they would be the one to actually be the first to do it. And, yet, because of race, there’s a chance that some sort of extra legal method would have to be used in South Carolina if that state wanted to leave the Union. But I could maybe see Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi begin to seriously consider leaving the Union if Trump began to rant about this possibility because he was actually going to be held accountable. There are a number of other Red States that would probably leave the Union as well, but those are just the ones that I thought of off the top of my head.
Florida would be would be a very interesting situation because Ron DeSantis would have to figure out if he wanted to risk destroying his very viable path to being America’s first autocrat to playing second fiddle in the new state of Trumplandia.
All of that is very fantastical. I think, in the end, Trump is going to get away with even espionage. We’re going to punt this grievous, severe crisis down the road until 2024 -2025 and it will be Blue States who have to do a gut check about if they want to bend a knee to dingus Trump or not.
Good luck.
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.
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