Month: November 2022

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I try to listen to the “All In” podcast if for no other reason than to force myself to listen to people I disagree with — in an more extreme way, this is why I listen to Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. I must note that on a political basis, at least, I pretty much agree with Jason Calacanis who isn’t at all as fascist as some of the other people on the All In podcast.

Anyway, what is so alarming is how fascist David Sacks is. He’s a very smart, very educated man, but fuck if that guy isn’t a fascist. He gives off German Industrialist vibes. He also reminds me of a relative of mine who essentially espouses political views that are identical to Sacks.

I’m reading up on the rise of Hitler and it’s all very disheartening how history is repeating itself in the United States at the moment. All things being equal on a macro level, it seems an immutable law of history at this point that the United States is going to slip into autocracy the moment we have another Republican president.

But there are a lot — a lot — of variables that I simply can’t game out. There is the issue of how fucking old Donald Trump and Joe Biden are. There is the issue of Trump being a low energy loser now who might — or might not — be replaced by a younger, more agile fascist like Ron DeSantis.

And, yet, it could go either way.

Maybe Trump will be the nominee and, as such, could, unto himself, spark a civil war by pushing Blue states out of the Union?

I just don’t know. I just know that all signs point to the next two years being far, far more unstable in the United States than you might otherwise think. But I’m always wrong, so it’s possible we’ll somehow manage to punt some pretty existential problems down the road AGAIN.

Only time will tell. But the rise of the fascist Tech Bro isn’t exactly helping the situation. It would be a lot more helpful if people as educated and powerful as Tech Bros still believed in democracy.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is very clear that MAGA is nothing more than white identity politics. And it’s all happening because America is careening, because of demographics, into being a majority minority nation. And the marketplace of ideas is a reflection of that and, as such, American mass media is beginning to simply reflect what is really going on in the country.

And, before I got any further, I’m currently writing a six novel project that has a lot — and I mean A LOT — of representation in it. But I do have two eyes and ears and can recognize how corrosive some of the more extreme elements of the “woke” agenda can be.

Anyway, the crux of the issue is Blue States and Red States are receding from each other on both a cultural and political basis at an alarming rate. So, you have Red States embracing white identity politics and Blues States have an amorphous ordoxy that Reds call the “woke cancel culture mob.”

But the issue is, Reds a freaked out that white, straight Christians will soon be in the minority and Blues embrace this new world. (Does just pointing this out mean I’ve been Red Pilled? God, I hope not. Jesus.) The fact that Reds and Blues are so different in their interpretation of even the most basic of facts is how we got Trump.

And, ultimately, it could be why we either turn into a MAGA autocracy or have a civil war. In short, we’re fucked. Fucked big time. Blues and Reds just no longer see the factual world in the same way and one side — Reds — is politically ascendant and want to force the other side — Blues — to bend a knee. This is exactly the unstable recipe that caused the first American Civil War when slave power thought free soil Republicans wanted them to bend a knee.

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. There are a lot of different ways this could go, none of them great.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Strictly on a macro trend basis, the United States is a powder keg of potential collapse into revolution and civil war. And, yet, you really have to unscrew your mind to think such a thing is possible. The United States is outwardly the wealthiest, most stable democracy the world has ever seen.

Reasons why we may 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 destabilizing 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.
8. SCOTUS sides with MAGA on the “Independent Legislature” concept.
   I really don’t know that much about this idea other than it would pretty much give MAGA free reign to ignore the popular vote and use its power over state legislatures to deny Democrats the White House for, well, forever. Once it dawns on Blues that they simply will never be allowed to take the White House again, that might be the final breaking point.

And, yet, there are a shit ton of things on the macro level that indicate that at some point between now and around spring 2025 the United States could go all Turner Diaries on us. They say someone goes bankrupt gradually, then all at once and that’s what would happen to the United States, probably as the passions of the 2024 presidential election cycle prove too much for the country.

Now, despite how beta male low energy Trump may be at the moment, barring something I can’t predict, he will be the 2024 Republican nominee. Talk about sleepwalking through history! The reason why he’s so dangerous to the long-term stability of the US is he even though he should lose, it’s possible he won’t lose — he could very well steal the 2024 election in such a brazen manner that that, unto itself, causes Blue States — starting with California — to call up secessionist conventions and leave the Union.

Again — let me be clear: I don’t want this. I hate violence and I hate conflict. I’m just pointing out the obvious: the United States is a lot less stable than one might otherwise think. At this point, it really just seems a question of if it will be MAGA or Blues who initiate the final countdown into chaos.

At the moment, I think it will be Blues, not MAGA who do it — if it happens — because they refuse to bend a knee to MAGA fascism in late 2024, early 2025 when it becomes clear that because of the “independent legislature” doctrine that our lovely MAGA SCOTUS is probably going to validate soon, it’s no longer possible for a center-Left person to become POTUS.

But there is just as much reason to believe that Blues WILL bend a knee to MAGA fascism and all that will happen is a lot of “resistance” podcasts will be recorded outside of the country. Otherwise, America’s decent into fascism will be a lulz. And I’ll have to worry about being snatched off the street by ICE and sent to a camp because I got drunk and ranted about what a fucking cocksucker our Very American Autocrat is.

There’s a real chance that our transition from liberal democracy to autocracy won’t be as smooth as I think — there could be a civil war. One side — or the other — won’t accept the results of the election and the country will finally buckle. All the nightmare scenarios that I came up with in 2020-2021, will just happen in 2024-2025.

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

The point of all of this is — be aware that there is a greater-than-zero-sum chance that something rather…apocalyptic…might happen to the United States between now and, say, spring 2025. Get out if you can.