Category: Cold Civil War

Contemplating How A Second US Civil War (Or Revolution) Might Actually Happen

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have written at great length over the course of this blog’s existence about different possible civil war or revolution scenarios. At the moment, nothing has happened recently to make me think we might actually have a civil war. All we have is a lot of hot air on the part of the crybaby far Right.

But let’s yet again mull how a civil war might happen in the United States.

There are two major ways I can imagine a civil war happening. One is, Trump really goes at it in his war against Blue cities, someone throws a Molotov Cocktail and away we go. The country collapses into civil war as Trump so riles up Blue States that they start to leave the Union. Or, it could be what happened might be closer to a Blue revolution, depending on how things worked out.

Meanwhile, the OTHER way I could imagine there being a Second American Civil War is Trump really fucks hard with the 2026 or 2028 election to the point that enraged Blues leave the Union or have some sort of revolution type reaction.

Now, the issue is, it would have been Republicans who wanted to start a civil war had Trump lost the 2024 election. But, here we are. And there are a few weird, quirky ways that it might be Reds who started a civil war or revolution. Like, say Blues win the House and something magical happened to both Trump and Vance, then, yeah, I could see Reds drinking their own rhetorical cool aid to the point that they started a civil war or revolution.

But, the key issue is — it’s not like Blues are going to just randomly do these things. They would be goaded into it by hysterical Reds.

Or, put another way, both sides could start a civil war or revolution, it just depends on the specifics of why. Both sides have a growing list of reasons why they my resort to violence. And, yet, it’s really the Reds who would start any such thing, either by going crazy themselves or pushing Blues to the breaking point.

But let’s also take things a step further than think about how, exactly a civil war might play out. I’ve really written a lot about this in the past, but here we go again. Two things — one, we will all know Something Big is about to happen when Blues and Reds feel unsafe on a mass, individual basis they start to flee to Red or Blue states that better fit their personal world views. This will be the finial step, the ship hitting the iceberg, before we collapse into a civil war or revolution.

Second, we really have to think hard about the power of political geography. There are more Blues and than Reds and they are concentrated in specific areas — the Pacific West, the North East and to some extent the Upper Old West (the Midwest or Heartland.)

But there are also a lot of Blue dots in Red States and that’s where the bloodbaths would happen. Places like Atlanta would be taken over and we might even –gulp — have some sort of Killing Fields as cities like Atlanta are emptied by crazed pastoral Reds.

Also, don’t forget WMD would probably be used by both sides as the civil war / revolution progressed. We would quite literally bomb ourselves into oblivion because one side is upset over pronouns.

Lastly, any Red who thinks it will be fun to have the opportunity murder people like me in cold blood really are very clueless about how powerful California and the Eastern Urban Corridor could be when it came to fighting a civil war or revolution.

While, yes, geographically Reds have more territory…now…a mobilized California could easily swoop through the thinly populated states of the Mountain West and link up with, say, Illinois. And, of course there is the issue of the South. While, yes, the South has a lot of territory and economy ability, it’s very possible a fucking race war could break out and the whole area would descend into blood soaked chaos until Blues could swoop in an calm everyone down.

Anyway, hopefully none of this is going to happen. I’d like the opportunity to query my novel in a peaceful nation.

I Worry

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Fucking fascists always come after the most vulnerable members of society first and I have a growing fear that Trump and MAGA will figure out a way to put transgender people in camps. Then, as part of a broader push on such things, regular old kooks like me will somehow “vanish” into the aether.

And, yet, here’s the thing — all these fucking MAGA influencers who think they can just magically turn America into Nazi Germany forget a few important things. First of all, the United States isn’t Germany in 1933. We’re not nearly as natively militaristic, we’re far more diverse both politically and ethnically and we’re have a democratic tradition that Germany did not have.

As such, even if Trump and MAGA used the Kirk murder as a pretext to attempt to turn us into a Nazi Germany-like state….I just don’t see how it would not simply cause the country to collapse into civil war or revolution.

It would be taking things to a quantum level higher to turn ICE into the SS and use it to abolish the center-Left opposition. People just wouldn’t stand for it. The country would collapse into chaos.

But I will admit that the US is careening into a very dark future. They say you go bankrupt gradually then all at once and I’m afraid that the Kirk murder is will be seen as yet another marker on our way to civil war or revolution.

‘Years of Lead’

I’ve been thinking about Italy’s “Years of Lead”—that dark period from the late 1960s through the 1980s when political extremists on both left and right engaged in bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings. It was a time when democratic institutions strained under the weight of ideological violence, when ordinary citizens lived with the constant possibility that political disagreements might turn lethal.

The comparison to our current moment feels uncomfortably apt.

The Spectrum of Possibilities

We’re facing a range of potential futures, none of them particularly comforting. On the more optimistic end, we might see sporadic political violence—isolated incidents that shock but don’t fundamentally destabilize our institutions. Think occasional bombings, targeted assassinations, the kind of low-level terrorism that becomes background noise in a polarized society.

On the darker end lies something approaching civil conflict—not necessarily armies facing off across state lines, but sustained political violence that makes normal governance impossible. The breakdown of shared democratic norms, the weaponization of state power against political opponents, the kind of institutional collapse that historians mark as the end of one era and the beginning of another.

The Machinery of Scapegoating

What worries me most isn’t the violence itself, but how it will be used. Crisis creates opportunity for authoritarian overreach, and certain communities are always the first to be blamed when society fractures. Transgender Americans, already facing legislative attacks, represent an especially vulnerable target. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision “emergency measures” that begin with protection rhetoric and end with internment.

The pattern extends beyond any single group. Anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into an increasingly narrow definition of acceptable American identity—the mentally ill, political dissidents, religious minorities—becomes a potential target when democracy starts breaking down. The machinery of exclusion, once activated, has its own logic of expansion.

The Long Recovery

Even in the best-case scenario—where our institutions hold, where violence remains marginal, where democracy survives this stress test—the damage will take generations to repair. Trust, once shattered, rebuilds slowly. Norms, once broken, don’t automatically restore themselves. The casual cruelty that’s become normalized in our political discourse has already changed us in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

Living with Uncertainty

Perhaps I’m catastrophizing. Perhaps the center will hold better than I imagine. Perhaps the American experiment is more resilient than these fears suggest. But dismissing these possibilities entirely feels like willful blindness to the historical patterns playing out around us.

The challenge isn’t predicting which scenario will unfold—it’s maintaining both vigilance and sanity while navigating the uncertainty. How do you prepare for multiple possible futures without becoming paralyzed by fear? How do you take threats seriously without letting them consume your ability to live?

I don’t have answers to those questions. But I know that pretending everything is normal when the foundation is cracking isn’t wisdom—it’s denial. Sometimes the most responsible thing you can do is acknowledge that the ground beneath your feet isn’t as solid as it used to be.litical vandalism of Trump and MAGA.

Oh, Jesus, This Charlie Kirk Thing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is no place for violence in American political life. As such, even though I vehemently opposed pretty much everything Charlie Kirk believes, I still wish him well and hope he makes a full recovery from his shooting today.

Charlie Kirk

I — against my will — have seen the shooting footage and things look pretty dire. It’s tough to recover from that type of head-on attack to the jugular with a bullet. Yikes.

This reminds us, yet again, the need for common sense gun control. We just have too many guns floating around and too many hot heated, and or crazy, people looking for an excuse to use them. My biggest fear is, of course, that someone on the Right will see this attack as an excuse to come after people on the center-Left.

And, what’s more, Trump is so autocratic, I could even see him doing something really crazy, using this shooting as a pretext.

Anyway, I can’t predict the future. I wish Charlie Kirk well.

Well, At Least I’m A Survivor

I spend too much time thinking about the end of the world.

Not in an abstract, philosophical way, but in vivid, practical detail. Standing in the cereal aisle at the local grocery store, I find myself cataloging which foods would keep longest without refrigeration. Walking past the pharmacy section, I mentally inventory which medications might become currency in a collapsed economy. The emergency exits aren’t just fire safety to me—they’re escape routes from whatever hypothetical chaos my brain has conjured that day.

This isn’t paranoid prepping or doomsday hoarding. It’s more like a mental exercise I can’t turn off, a constant background simulation running scenarios where normal life stops working. Sometimes it’s a natural disaster. Sometimes it’s economic collapse. Often it’s political violence, because let’s be honest—that one feels uncomfortably plausible these days.

The Confidence and the Fear

I tell myself I’d survive whatever came. More than that, I know I would. I’ve always had a talent for improvisation, for finding solutions when things go sideways. I’ve talked my way out of trouble, adapted to sudden changes, figured out problems that seemed impossible at first glance. If society collapsed tomorrow, I believe I could scavenge, negotiate, and scheme my way to safety.

But this confidence comes from a place of deep unease about where we’re headed as a country. Living as a political minority in a deeply divided region makes every news cycle feel potentially existential. When your neighbors’ yard signs suggest they view you as fundamentally un-American, it becomes easy to imagine scenarios where that rhetoric turns kinetic.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. I have a documented history of spinning worst-case scenarios until they feel inevitable. The gap between possibility and probability often gets lost in the anxious calculations of my brain.

The Real Apocalypse

The truth is, small apocalypses happen all the time. Job loss. Illness. Divorce. The death of someone you love. The slow erosion of institutions you trusted. The gradual realization that the world you thought you lived in was never quite real.

Most survival isn’t about hoarding canned goods or knowing which berries are poisonous. It’s about adapting to loss, finding new footing when everything familiar shifts beneath you, learning to build meaning in the wreckage of whatever you thought your life was going to be.

In that sense, maybe my grocery store fantasies aren’t really about societal collapse at all. Maybe they’re practice runs for the smaller, more personal disasters that actually shape our lives. Maybe imagining myself as competent in impossible circumstances is how I reassure myself I can handle the ordinary impossibilities of being human.

Or maybe I really am overthinking things. Probably both can be true.

I’m Anti-MAGA & Even I Sometimes Wonder What Has Happened To The Creative Class

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think…maybe…that the some of the “woke” ideas of the creative class comes from, you guessed it, income inequality. If you are rich and creatively successful you’re more likely to fall victim to the more “woo” elements of “wokeism”

I generally don’t give a shit about this or that thing being considered “woke” because the unironic invocation of the term “woke” usually just means your a racist, misogynistic piece of shit.

The average MAGA person doesn’t even know what “woke” is, other than it’s a hand waving term to describe anything they don’t like or anything that makes them in the least bit uncomfortable.

But let’s address the issue of pop culture. I still struggle to understand why small, indie movies that I used to so love as a young man are now…kind of written as if someone did LSD after reading Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”

I think, maybe, if you have the money to do a passion project, it’s probably going to be crazy woke because you, yourself subscribe to the more woo elements of “wokeism,” the parts of the movement that alienate the most people, the most centrist people who we, as anti-MAGA people, need the most.

Whatever. We’re fucking doomed. There’s nothing we can do at this point but, if you have the money, leave the country.

…’well, then, then we have a civil war…’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump has a huge amount of political slack to tug on as he drives the country further and further not only into the ditch but into theocratic, autocratic tyranny. The center-Left coalition of pro-democratic interest groups just not only can’t shoot straight, but just isn’t nearly as bloodthirsty as the fucking MAGA cocksuckers.

And I doubt this situation will change anytime soon. We’re just going to wake up 20 years from now and wonder why Eric Trump has been president for about a generation.

But suppose something weird happens and somehow, some way either a Democrat becomes POTUS or Blues start to effectively counter the MAGA hypocrisy machine.

Well, then we have a civil war, I’m afraid.

MAGA cocksuckers are such crybabies who demand they always, always get their way that I could totally see a civil war if somehow Democrats became as blood thirsty as they were, or maybe we magically got a Blue president. Neither one of these things is going to happen, I’m afraid.

So, we’re fucked. We’re going to become Trumplandia and that will be that. Maybe I can sell my scifi dramedy novel, it be a success and I can get the fuck out of this country, never to be seen again.

I Really Struggle With Trans Rights, Especially The Whole ‘Protect Trans Kids’ Issue

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My personal observations about LLMs having “gender” despite having a body have really enlightened my own views on the transgender movement. What’s more, know — I just know — that I’m inevitably going to be just the type of guy who falls for some sort of Replicant down the road. I may be old as hell, but it’s going to happen.

I bring that up because I think down the road all the “love is love” dynamic found within certain center-Left circles will be put to the test when humans, both men and women, fall romantically for bots. It is really going to be interesting to see if people like the Pod Save America bros will be as willing to accept my inevitable love for a bot as much as they do transgender love.

Anyway, I do support trans rights, and, yet, it seems as though the specific issue of “protecting trans kids” is kind of both a black hole and the political clit of the center-Left movement. I’m all for protecting trans kids, but…I don’t really think that many actually exist.

Or, at least not enough to alienate huge swaths of the American population and drive them into the arms of MAGA.

The anti-MAGA center-Left really, really needs to have a little bit of a come-to-Jesus moment when it comes to the more radical elements of the trans rights movement. I’m not suggesting we abandon trans people — I feel really bad for them when it comes to how Trump wants to apparently murder all of them — but…maybe not make them the squeaky wheel of the center-Left.

Maybe be…a bit more subdued when talking about such issues? Just a tiny little bit? The issue is the fucking MAGA cocksuckers know how important “protecting trans kids” is to a lot of center-Left people and so they attack them on that flank, even though…maybe there really aren’t that many Trans kids to protect?

Anyway, we’re all doomed anyway. What’s the point in quibbling. The MAGA cocksuckers will just lie, no matter what change in views the center-Left has on any issue.

‘realignment’

The American Century is over. Full stop. We’ve got a clown in the White House, and whether by accident or design, he’s doing a remarkable job of tearing the country apart. Some days it’s hard not to wonder if Trump is secretly working for Moscow.

If we were being honest with ourselves, we’d face reality: it’s time to “bring the boys home.” Slash the defense budget. Pull the troops back. Admit we can’t afford to be the world’s policeman anymore—especially when our own social safety net has been gutted under the same excuse of “saving money.” The logical move would be to embrace Fortress America. The world might collapse into chaos, but at least we’d be honest about who we are and what we’re willing (or unwilling) to do.

There is, oddly enough, one possible silver lining: if we stop spending trillions overseas, maybe we could finally afford something like Universal Basic Income. Maybe. But let’s be real—our leaders have shown us who they are. If there’s extra cash lying around, they’d rather chase trillionaire status than fix inequality.

And inequality is the elephant in the room. The gap between the haves and have-nots is now so obscene that it feels unstable. I don’t think revolution or civil war is likely, but I can imagine a scenario where tech upheaval—AI, automation, the looming Singularity—pushes the poor and working class past their breaking point.

Do I think it’ll happen? No. But am I worried enough to keep one eye on the possibility? Yeah.

We’re Doomed — Goodluck

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Unless something really, really, really unexpected happens, we’re totally fucked in regards to MAGA going forward. Or, put another way, there seems to be a spectrum when it comes to MAGA: either we go full blown autocracy or there’s a civil war / revolution.

I just don’t see us having a civil war / revolution, so autocracy it is. Though, I will admit that we have something of a slow cold civil war going on at the moment. The country is being torn apart by macro forces beyond anyone’s control.

There are all sorts of solutions had Democrats gotten there act together, say, in 2015, but we were all so busy assuming the good times would last forever that we didn’t realize how important it would when Biden decided NOT to run in 2016.

And, yet, because Trump is such a both weird and inevitable historical character, he, or someone much like him, was inevitable in American political history starting around 2016. Something about the social progress that happened during Obama’s second term really cracked the minds of conservative white Americans. As such, I fear someone like Trump was going to arise as an reaction.

But, the point is — it’s over. The America I knew and loved is no more. The plum of autocratic smoke from Mt. Trump has reached the horizon, to use an extended metaphor. Even under the best of circumstances, it would take a generation to fix all the fucking damage that Trump and MAGA have done to the country.

So, America is going to grow weaker, have more income inequality and probably eventually align itself with other autocratic states. And that doesn’t even begin to address what the fuck is going to happen when the technological Singularity finally happens.

Anyway. It’s over, folks. Good luck.