Category: Cold Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, as I’ve written before, a person a lot smarter than me makes it clear that the United States will never have a Second American Civil War because The Powers That Be will never let it happen for economic reasons. He says that the First Civil War happened because Slave Power feared they were going to lose money with the movement towards abolition in the United States.

Now that Dobbs has been handed down, there is now an economic wedge between Blue states and Red states. What’s more, Republicans in all their National Socialist corporate state fervor have begun to make a central tenant the idea of punishing “woke” corporations.

But, wait, it gets worse.

As all of this is happening, Steve K. Bannon is actively telling his “spiritual shock troops” to fuck with the smooth administration of elections via an “administrative coup.”

With all that in mind, on a macro level, at least, the conditions and rationale now exists for Blue States to leave the Union and, as such cause a Second American Civil War. Remember, we have a few more years for Republicans to grow ever more radical and political bloodthirsty.

So, in 2024 – 2025 we have the follow scenario — Blue States not only face the economic fear that birth control will be completely outlawed but they will have no way to get any political redress. If that’s not a recipe for severe political violence at a the state level.

Having said all of that, I still believe we’re probably going to slip peacefully into autocracy for no other reason than there just isn’t any Blue leadership with the guts to lead Blue states out of the Union when the 2024 – 2025 Certification Crisis happens. The counter argument could be that by definition the pressure of the macro forces that are tearing the Union apart would force Blue leadership to bubble up to the surface.

But I’m not prepared to assume anything like that will happen. Ultimately, I think we’re going to just slip into white autocratic minority rule. There will be no civil war, no political violence, we will, like the Biblical Jacob, willfully and trivially give up our American birthright — democracy.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve mentioned before, someone far smarter than I is adamant that there’s no chance the United States will have a Second Civil War. He says because, lulz, just because black women in a Red State can’t get a legal abortion doesn’t mean The Powers That Be in Blue States will let a anything as destructive as a civil war happen.

And, yet.

If you assume that the ultimate goal of Republicans is to catch the car AGAIN by outlawing abortion — and even contraception — nation wide, then you’re deal with economics. When wealthy white liberal women in Blue states can’t even use the fucking Pill legally, then, we got ourselves a severe economic problem. Below is the fucking smoking gun on this particular issue.

So, if the general drift of the modern American conservative movement is to force wealthy white liberal women to either leave country so they can lead a normal life or for them to use birth control at risk of being arrested…then…then idea of a national divorce and hence a civil war grows significantly.

Or, put another way, if I had any faith in Blue leadership, then it would obvious we would face a civil war because Blues would be primed to leave the Union for the economic reason of abortion — and birth control in general! — being made illegal.

But, sadly, Blue leadership is too old and too ineffectual for that to be a reality. There probably will be a lot of talk between gritted teeth about Blue States leaving the Union around 2024 – 2025….but ultimately Blues are going to peacefully submit to having a Red knee on their collective political necks.

Now, there is one possibility that might contradict this if you wanted to get all psychohistory about things. And that possibility is that, by definition, people will rise to the occasion in late 2024 – early 2025 as part of a Certification Crisis. It would be this that is simply not something I can predict.

But that is rather dubious. I’m not prepared to put all my chips on the general idea that macro forces would force individuals to do things that, to date, they have no shown any indication that they can do.

Who knows. Only time will tell.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Blue leadership is completely ineffectual to the point of being meaningless. They’re the gang that can’t shoot straight. So, unless something pretty dramatic happens that I can’t predict — America is going to become an autocracy.

The Dobbs decision is just a ping from that inevitable autocratic future. Abortion rights were always a firebreak for other rights. And now that Roe has been overturned, the path is clear for Republicans to use their hard power to win the culture wars that they lost to the soft power of Democrats.

This is where I start to grow concerned about my own future. I’m a loudmouth crank and I often get drunk and shoot off at the mouth. Whenever I mention the very dark potential future where I might get arrested by ICE (or whomever) at some point in our autocratic future for being a loudmouth crank, my bed rock conservative relatives just roll their eyes and think I’m hysterical.

But let’s take a serious look at my concern on this issue. What I’m really worried about is the one thing that I’ve enjoyed the most for my entire life — the right to speak my mind — would be so abridged by, say, President DeSantis that at some point in the future I would be rounded up like I was in Putin’s Russia or something.

How possible is this, really?

For the time being, no very possible. Even with America’s now inevitable slide into autocracy, the last right to go will probably be the individual right of an American to get drunk in a bar and rant about how President DeSantis can suck their cock.

So, in a sense, my Traditionalist relatives are right — to a point. But, and here in the key thing to remember — form follows function. President DeSantis isn’t going to over night make it effectively illegal for cranks like me to rant about what a dick head he is.

He’ll go after people in the media first, probably threatening to revoke their broadcast license for being too “woke.” That will be the first step. This will be subtle and my Traditionalist relatives probably won’t even notice the purge of late night talk show hosts who will be replaced by people who will no longer talk about politics.

But, again, form follows function.

The latter stages of DeSantis’ consolidation of power will be the weaponization of ICE. Throw in a the calling of a Constitutional Convention and there will come a point when freedom of speech will be so curtailed that, yes, even some rando like me in the middle of nowhere might find myself being visited by ICE, who will ask what this is they hear about me talking bad about the president.

And THIS will be when, of course, my Traditionalist relatives — who I love dearly –will come to me and tell me to shut up for the sake of the family. And I will politely, or maybe not so politely, tell them nope. They had their chance to make common cause against autocracy and they decided they hated the woke cancel culture mob that wanted to make everyone gay too much and hence here we are.

So, yes, logically, I do have a concrete reason to fear that at some point in the future the very thing that my Traditionalist relatives think is ridiculous — being apprehended by ICE — could, in fact, happen. It may be 2035 when it happens, but macro trends would indicate that it will, in fact happen.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s interesting how the two sides are just now beginning to overcome their shock that Roe was actually overturned and are now beginning to figure out their 2022 strategies.

If what I can see on Twitter is any indication, Blues are slow on the uptake, as usual. They throw out a bunch of dumb hot takes the involve things that will never, ever happen. They propose expanding the court or codifying Roe or any number of other things that are nothing more than social media mental masturbation.

I’m not see anyone propose the one thing that might actually address the question at hand — something like a Women’s General Strike. No, everyone wants to be a keyboard warrior and think up things that will never work just because they make them feel better.

Meanwhile, Republicans have a plan: lie.

They tell us this really doesn’t change anything. Lie. They say women still have a right to choose. Lie.

And when they aren’t lying they’re being quite clear that they’re going to try to catch the car AGAIN, by ultimately passing a national abortion ban as soon as they are in control of the legislative and executive branches again.

So, for the time being, it’s advantage Republicans. As always. And given how totally ineffectual Blue leadership is, I have every reason to believe we’re going to slip peacefully into autocratic Trumplandia and Blues won’t even put any fight at all.

Republicans will steal our democratic birthright in a very brazen manner and we just don’t have the gumption to do anything about it.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that Roe has been overturned, the argument could be made that the United States should finally cleave itself into two: the United States of Canada and Trumplandia.

But there are a lot of problems with this. On paper, it makes a lot of sense. Red States can, finally make America great again without fears of the woke cancel culture mob stopping the process in their never-ending quest to make everyone gay. Meanwhile, Blue States can remain a Western democracy.

And, yet, that’s just not how it would work out. Even if you were to have massive amounts of domestic political refugee movements there would remain problematic states like Virginia and Texas that would implode if there was any sort of political division of the country.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue how do you convince the U.S. Military to peacefully go along with such an idea. The answer is — they wouldn’t. And if it’s Blue States that leave the Union in any form of national divorce, the probability that even the U.S. Military would collapse increases.

On paper, I’m warming up to the idea of a national divorce. But just in the abstract. I hate violence too much to actually want anything like that in practical terms. The only reason why I even bring it up is the other option is autocracy and it is inevitable that I will cross our new autocrat and find myself in some ICE camp.

Such a concrete concern definitely has a way of focusing the mind on other options.

I don’t think I’m being hysterical to think that’s a very real possibility for me in the future. As a loudmouth crank who often gets drunk, I’ve had the luxury of living in a Western democracy my entire life. Now that that is beginning to fade, I’m going to have to come to grips with my possible potential fate in a few years.

We’ll see, I guess.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Listening to the latest Deep State Radio podcast, it seemed as though they all were sooooooooo close to coming to the same realization as myself — in 2024 – 2025, we’re either going to turn into an autocracy or we’re going to have a national divorce and, as such a civil war.

This is key because there’s going to come a point when either Deep State Radio fuses with the #NeverTrumper movement and you have the creation of people I call Radical Moderates. These would be the people who rise to the occasion and act as the leadership for Blue States should there, in fact, be a “national divorce”

The other option is, of course, that instead of helping organize Blue States to fight for their independence from tyrannical Red States, Deep State Radio will be produced in the south of France in 2025 when all the wealthy liberals flee the country en mass.

As an aside, as I’ve said before, it has occurred to me that if it comes to civil war, Blue independence would be Blue war aims. It would take some extraordinary leadership among the Blues for their war aims to be re-uniting the country under their rule.

It would be much similar just to bounce altogether.

Anyway, I don’t that and I don’t want autocracy. But I fear, like I said, that we’re beyond the event horizon. The die has been cast. We’re fucked. Get ready. It will be interesting which way the fine people of Deep State Radio go.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is the summer of our discontent. It’s possible that the summer of 2022 is the last summer that the United States can legitimately be called a “Western democracy.”

I say this because should Republicans gain control of Congress again in 2023, the final sequence of events that will lead to the establishment of white Christian autocratic rule in 2024 – 2025. And at the moment, it doesn’t seem like there’s any stopping this from happening.

The center-Left is too weak-willed and divided — and, at the risk of being canceled, I think they’re focused on stupid shit like pronouns when democracy is at stake.

So, at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be the will within Blue ranks to stop the slide into autocracy. We’re past the event horizon when it comes to autocracy and the only question is will we magically get the will power to have a civil war instead.

I don’t want a civil war, but I’m growing alarmed at how blasé we are about how dire things are right now in the United States. The entire system is designed to keep people thinking about things like raising their kids and paying their mortgage, not thinking about abstract concepts like saving democracy.

A lot will depend on if there is any violence after the Dobbs decision is handed down in the next few days. If there is any significant violence when Roe is overturned, then that will give us some sense that maybe we’re going to have a “national divorce” and, as such, a civil war.

But, like I said, at the moment, we’re just going to slip peacefully into white Christian autocratic rule. Then wealthy liberals will begin to flee America en mass and such a brain drain will replace scary brown caravans as Fox News’ bugaboo.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You hear a lot of people talk as if as long as we never elect Republicans again, we’ll have a functioning democracy. The problem is, of course, is this is not possible. There is going to come a point when we face Republicans in power again.

And that’s the issue at hand — what happens Republicans are in power again? That’s the issue — what will be our reaction when radical reactionaries seize power again and simply never let it ago? I know that sounds hysterical, but it’s a very real possibility.

The reason is, the Republican Party is fascist and reactionary and we either have a civil war or we turn into an autocracy. Again, that sounds hysterical, but I just don’t see how those aren’t our options. Republicans — especially people like Steve K. Bannon — are pretty open about how they want to strangle American democracy.

And it’s not like we can stop them from ever gaining power again. So, in a sense, the Republican Party is, unto itself a macro trend that we can’t control. At the moment, I think we’re going to transition into an autocracy without a struggle. There will be a lot of wringing of hands about the transition, and a lot of wealthy liberals will flee the country because they’re a bunch of fucking cowards, but, in the end, that’s what’s going to happen.

DeSantis will become president at some point after Trump (or whatever), change the Constitution and 20 years from now we’ll be talking about Generation DeSantis and how he’s been the only president that millions of Americans have ever known.

Or, like I said, we’ll have a civil war, and “national divorce” and suffer through a pretty horrific civil war that will happen in conjunction with WW3. So, things are pretty stark. It’s not like we can simply assume the Republicans will never gain power again. And their growing more radical and reactionary by the day, not less so.

And, is so often the case whenever I talk about such things, a lot depends on what happens with Trump. If he is the nominee, then we’re more likely to go the civil war route. If he’s not, we’re more likely to simply peacefully become an autocracy.

But the key thing is –we can’t simply hope that Republicans will never gain power again. All they have to do is gain power ONCE and that’s it. The die is cast. Then the ball is in our court, then we have to decide if we’re going to have a civil war or allow ourselves to slip into autocracy.