Category: Cold Civil War

What The Fuck, Republicans?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Sometimes, when Republicans do something really, really dumb on a macro scale like gut Medicaid, I feel like I get a vision from the future about how history will report about it.

On a macro basis, Republicans seem determined to cause a revolution of some sort. They are very cocky and they lean into the cult-like status of Trump to get away with some really, really dumb things. This can only go on for so long before the US experiences some severe political and social upheaval.

And Trump is very much the Nero to all of this. All Republicans want him to do is sign the bills they give him gutting the social safety net, or disfranchising married women. Otherwise, they give him pretty much dictatorial power by default.

No good will come of this. It may take a decade or more, but the USA is careening towards some sort of revolution — the civil war — at an alarming rate. And the only reason why we dodged the bullet of civil war in 2024 is, well, Trump won. Otherwise, the country would have probably collapsed into political anarchy.

I hate living in interesting times.

And, yet, here we are, everything is interesting, too interesting.

But I think we’re just going to circle the drain for a few more years. People just are still too fat and sassy, too reluctant to risk their “lives and sacred honor” in the real world to do anything about fucking MAGA.

If I fell into a little bit of money, I would totally go to, like, the Philippines to retire or to just get the fuck away from MAGA Nazis.

Imagining A Second American Revolution….And Of Course, The Second Civil War That Would Come With It

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A lot of commentors on Twitter keep saying, “We can’t go through four years of this.” Sadly, we went through four years of it last time and I think we’re probably going to live through more than four years of it this time.

But, just for “fun” let’s imagine what a revolution might look like. Well, at the moment, I can’t really game it out. I say this because there are huge protests in the States all the time and…nothing happens.

So, I think if there was an actual “Second American Revolution” it would have be a lot more dramatic that anything we’ve seen before. One way I could imagine it happening is if there were big protests, Trump ordered the troops to fire on them and then all hell broke loose and Trump imposed marital law.

Even then, I think Trump Tower would have to be stormed in a big way. Or NYC would have to be turned into a commune or something. I guess….maybe Blue States might rebel en masse against Trump and that would buckle the country to the point that Trump MIGHT be deposed.

But I think the US military would probably stay loyal to Trump, so lulz. But if Trump really went full Mad King on us and the US military decided to step in, I think it would collapse because most of the enlisted men and women would be MAGA.

Once that happened, all bets are off. The whole thing would be a massive culsterfuck. It would be far, far worse than the French Revolution and many, many, many, many, many people would die for no damn reason.

If Trump was successfully deposed, then Red States would bolt from the Union and a huge, long, protracted civil war would happen.

The truly sad thing is I’m even thinking about this bullshit. But, here we are. America is ripe for this type of shit to happen. We’ll see, I guess.

I’m A Little Worried About America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I saw today where the United States has greater income inequality than France before the revolution. Yikes. And, given the absolute existential push towards tax cuts for plutocrats on the part of Republicans, its only going to get worse. Much worse.

I’m a little worried that Trump and his toadies are going to push the USA into revolution then civil war. I really don’t want that to happen. It would be horrific because of the number of WMD floating around the USA domestically.

And that doesn’t begin to address how WW3 would happen while the USA was indisposed. Ugh. It’s just horrible. Just the idea of a revolution then civil war gives me the heebeejeebees.

The thing about Trump is he’s a one person stress test for the system — and right now the system is failing, collapsing. Just don’t know what we’re going to do about that.

I just don’t see us doing what we want to do, which is “muddle through.” I think something painful and dramatic MIGHT happen within the next four years. I hope not, but I tend to try to make my abstract fears concrete, so here I am worried about a Blue revolution then a civil war between Blues and Reds.

Trump & War Powers: Worried About War With Iran

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m really worried that Trump in an effort to consolidate power and to distract the American populace is going to strike Iran’s nuclear sites in a big way very soon. He is positioning the aircraft necessary to do it.

If he did something so dumb, then there’s a good chance he would start a new war in the Middle East and then time Israel and Iran would be going at it.

Trump really, really seems to want some sort of Reichstag Fire event so he can consolidate power in an even more meaningful manner. People will be so angry and distracted at what Trump has done with Iran, that he can really speed up his Elon Musk-inspired destruction of the Federal government domestically.

Everything sucks. Sigh.

‘Buying Winter Boots’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jon Lovett on his podcast Lovett or Leave It really got into it when one of his producers (writers?). They rhetorically tussled over how some people on Tik-Tok thing our evil corporate overlords are fucking with us and the only way to get around their manipulation of the Tik-Tok algorithm is to use a code phrase like “buying winter boots.”

This is supposed to mean something like, “fight the power,” or “we need a revolution,” as I understand Lovett.

What got me was that Lovett was doing that thing where someone comes out swinging with a bold premise then they get cold feet and bob and weave rhetorically in an effort not to offend someone they’ve already made mad. He should have stuck to his guns and said what he wanted to say which is, “anyone who thinks the ‘buying winter boots’ thing is important is an idiot.”

He posited — at least at first — that people who think they have to work around an evil algorithm are completely oblivious to the actual media environment. Also, he thinks the “buying winter boots” thing is performative 2017-like Resistance Twitter bullshit.

But he kept tweaking what he really believed and backtracking that, in the end, he just looked weak in his willingness to backup what he really believed. Things sure did get unusually heated between Lovett and the other person though. You don’t see (or hear) that type of stuff very often.

I don’t know what my own hot take on such matters is. I do think that it’s useful to know that “buying winter books” is same same to “viva la revolution.” I can use that in my own Tik-Toks since I so often get flagged for just being declarative about the possibility that we may have political turbulence in the coming days.

Forget Studio Ghibli, Why Aren’t People Producing Thomas Nast Art?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just realized recently that ChatGPT can generate Thomas Nast-like political cartoons. As such, I’ve become low-key addicted to thinking up different political cartoons.

I’ve Decided To Kind Of Just Tune Out From The News

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I continue to get my news passively from Twitter, I’ve really cut back watching late night TV for infotainment. I just can’t handle it anymore. Nothing is going to happen and we’re careening into autocracy with a lulz.

So, I’m just going to try to focus on my novel(s) and go from there.

I also continue enjoy screwing around with AI. That’s a lot of fun. Sometimes so pretty interesting things happen out of the blue with AI, enough to keep me interested.

We’re Not Sleepwalking, We’re *Racing* Towards Autocracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw a headline somewhere in which it said we were “sleepwalking” into autocracy. Baby, we ain’t “sleepwalking” to anything, we’re zipping towards autocracy. Probably a very Russian-style autocracy that likes to pretend it’s a democracy with a thin veneer of legalism, but, lulz, is just a regular old autocracy.

As of right now, at least, it seems like we’re going to slouch straight into autocracy without the blink of an eye. There’s currently nothing to stop Trump from crashing the global economy, declaring martial law and then running for an illegal third term.

Nothing. Not a thing.

And, as I’ve said before, I think that’s his historical point — to either destroy our Second Republic so a new one can be founded, or destroy it so we can turn straight into an autocracy.

Given macro trends, here’s what I suspect is going to happen — the USA is going to be an autocracy for AT LEAST 20 years starting now and then once enough Baby Boomers die, gradually, some sort of true resistance movement will begin to take hold and at some point, maybe around 2060, we’ll snap back into a functioning democracy.

But that’s kind of iffy.

It could be that, lulz, this is it. We’re just going to be an autocracy for the rest of time. We just did not have it in us to protect the democracy republic we said we loved so much.

A Perfect Storm

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This summer, it seems as though we are determined to careen directly into a techno-government-economic perfect story clusterfuck. All three of those elements of our society could be “disrupted” in a big way for various reasons and it will all happen at the same, exact time.

The key thing everyone is missing, of course, is Trump would rather murder people in cold blood than relinquish power. And, what’s more, the press is so beholden and co-opted by the fascist Trump MAGA regime that whatever protests there are would have been REALLY BIG and last for a LONG TIME before they would be willing to give them the proper attention.

Though, I suppose if the Social Security Administration collapses then there is a good chance that Trump will be in SERIOUS TROUBLE….but not enough to be deposed. We’re suck with the fucker for the rest of his life.

So, lulz, my prediction is if there are some protests that Trump will just declare martial law and that will be that. That will give him the excuse he needs to start shooting people or rounding them up and maybe even going so far as to end regular elections — at least on the Federal level.

There’s a chance that he will let state and local elections continue as either a safety valve for discontent or make them so unfree and fair that they’re moot anyway.

Meanwhile, as all of this is happening, what might otherwise be a moderate recession might become a severe one as AI causes a huge disruption. The economy will stumble as huge swaths of it are revolutionized by extensive AI use.

At the moment, it seems as though programming and advertising will be two sectors that will be really disrupted in a huge way. They will either contract or be so revolutionized that thousands — millions? — of people simply will not be able to find a job in those fields anymore because of AI.

A lot of people are so wrapped up with how excited they are about the new developments in AI that they totally miss the cold, hard reality of this new world: I just don’t see how many jobs will be left in any number of fields because the changes are just happening too quickly.

We’re Stuck With Fucking Trump For The Rest of His Fucking Life, Baring A Revolution (Ugh)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Despite all the gnashing of teeth by liberals and progressives, Trump simply is going nowhere for as long as he lives. He’s going to be president for life. I don’t know, exactly, he’ll do it, but he will.

He’s going to destroy everything before he shuffles off this mortal coil and it will take decades — generations maybe — for us to sort things out afterwards. I think that’s Trump’s historical purpose — to destroy the Second American Republic founded by Lincoln.

What happens after that, I don’t know.

Probably some sort of dystopian techno-autocracy is my best guess. Maybe the Singularity will come while Trump’s still alive and Elon Musk will upload Trump’s into the cloud and he’ll be our Max Headroom-style AI overlord.

Now, obvious, we might have a revolution — especially if Social Security checks stop being cut on time — but then we’d have a civil war and I really would prefer not to have either one of those things happen.

I just want to live in a traditional liberal (Western) democracy. But that is not to be because we just don’t have to grit to fight back against Trump. We’re totally fucked. Totally, completely fucked at least for the rest of my life.

Leave the country if you have the means.