Could Harris Win In A Landslide, & Could That Prompt A National Divorce?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no particular special insight into what’s going on with the election at the moment, though I will note that I am seeing just a tiny trickle of people interested in my lazy coverage of the whole Trump blow job thing. And, as an aside, I continue to worry that some big bombshell is going to drop that derails the Harris campaign at the last moment.

But I’m hoping that she wins and we can put MAGA to bed once and for all.

And, yet, there’s something else I’m worried about — if she does win by a landslide, there is a greater-than-zero chance that Trump could begin to rant about the need for a National Divorce because Reds are “unwelcome in the Union” or some such bullshit.

If he were to say that, I think Texas would take him up on the offer without blinking and eye. That, in turn would cause many other Red states to follow suit. Anyway, all I can do is hope that that doesn’t happen, huh.

Why They Won: Harris

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If Kamala Harris wins the 2024 election, we will have at least bought ourselves some more time. There’s every reason to believe that the macro demographic trends that led to Trump will continue and four years from now someone — maybe Trump? — will still be angling to make us a fascist state.

I just don’t see our fascist problem going away any time soon.

But if she does win, I think it means America collectively decided that we were willing to fight for our democracy after all.

My main fear is, of course, that Trump will lose, but “win” by cheating in some way. If that happens, holy shit are we going to be in dire straights. But we have to hope and pray that that won’t happen.

We have to have some faith, I suppose. Some faith that Trump won’t at least *successfully* cheat. But I do think if Harris wins that the next four years are going to be pretty dramatic one way or another.

How dramatic and why they will be dramatic, I don’t know. We’ve been really lucky the last four years — outside of January 6th.

Why They Won: Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If Trump wins, then I think it means that this is who we are in 2024 — a nation that has finally sunk into fascism. Our democracy has been on its last legs for some time now and if Trump wins — even if he does so by successfully cheating — then I think This Is It: America has decided it’s no longer an idea but a nation of “blood and soil”

I have long thought that someone like Trump, if you were doing psychohistory, was bound to pop up in our political history at some point because of demographic changes. Trump has always been just a vessel, an avatar for some fucked up shit going on in our body politic.

He’s not a great man. Far from it. He’s too lazy and dumb to be a great man. But if he wins on Election Day, then it will mean that the greatest counter-revolution since 1860 is about to take place.

But if Trump wins — even if he has to cheat to do so — that’s it. We’re going to slide into an autocracy much like Hungary, if we’re lucky, and Russia if we’re not.

And, yet, there is a risk that Trump is so dumb and lazy that he’ll go full tyrant on us from day one and, well, who knows. Maybe the US Military will have to step in and depose the motherfucker. (Not that I want that, but it something to muse about in the abstract.)

Anyway. If Trump does win, holy shit are we in for some fucking chaos.

Well, I Don’t Know What To Tell You When It Comes To This One

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Sometimes, you just have to throw your hands up and move on. If things were “normal” then Trump mimicking giving his mic stand a blowjob might mean something to someone.

But, alas, it will mean nothing.

Sigh.

Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment As ‘Deplorables 2.0’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve noticed about conservatives is how often they have a huge fucking chip on their shoulder. That’s why Biden’s gaff caused by his stutter gets them worked up into a frenzy — see picture above of Texas’ Lt. Governor. They freak out at any sign of someone looking down on them, just as they are completely indifferent to the families they tear apart at the border.

It’s a very unsettling paradox.

But, here we are. Conservatives think that Biden’s remark is a “gotcha” that they can use to cruise to success. They see it as equal to the “deplorables” comment that Hillary Clinton made during the 2016 campaign.

It’s somewhat open to debate if that is the case. We’ll see, I suppose. But we are definitely in the political silly season now. Big time. Any little thing for good or bad gets warped and twisted into a Big Deal and this will continue between now and election day.

I still don’t know what’s going to happen with the election. It really could go either way at this point. I would like to think that Harris has some momentum, but I really got burned in 2016, so…I’m not prepared to accept that on face value just yet.

Even if Harris wins outright on election night, Trump could use extra legal and extra political means to “win,” such that the country implodes.

There’s Going To Be An American Diaspora if Trump Wins

by Shelt garner
@sheltgarner

I have repeatedly told my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — that late night TV will be purged if Trump wins. To date, all I’ve gotten as a reaction is a lulz. They just don’t care. All they care about is closing the border to scary brown people and putting the ones who are already here in camps before they get deported.

That’s it, that’s their only concern.

When I press them on what a disaster deporting 10 to 20 million undocumented people would be, all I get is a hand wave. They don’t really care what happens if it Trump fulfills that promise, they just want it to happen. They want things to go back to the way they were at some nebulous point in the past when America was “great.”

The idea that there would be purge of American late night TV is pretty profound. It’s something that I will be able to point to and say, “Uh, I think we’re in trouble, guys.”

It definitely makes me wonder what the conservatives in my life — whom I love dearly — will respond to such things. I suppose they will just shrug and go about their business until I eventually get arrested for refusing to stop saying that MAGA is fucking fascist bullshit and can collectively suck my cock.

But we have to appreciate that there’s probably going to be a massive diaspora if Trump wins. I continue to believe that about 1 million smug Twitter liberals will begin to flee the country at some point after Trump officially winning the election.

Things could get so bad that Trump locks the country down and it will grow really, really difficult to get out at all.

I know that sounds hysterical at the moment, but it’s definitely something we need to contemplate at the moment. All those Americans leave the country could dramatically change world culture.

Gemini Advanced’s ‘Halloween Costume’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I asked Gemini Advanced to generate it’s “Halloween costume” and this is what I got:


I thought the image above is telling as what it considers a “Halloween costume.” I pressed it to give me an image of more human-like costume and I got this:

I think that’s a really good image of what a AI might think it would look like in a Halloween costume if it was, say, a Replicant. The last picture it generated, that of a Halloween party, is also interesting.



We Have To Contemplate The Possibility That The U.S. Military Might Depose Trump (If He Wins) Using The 14th Amendment as Cover

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve talked about this at great length before SCOTUS ruled that Trump was in the clear when it came to the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. But this recent tweet about how some democrats believe Trump is not eligible under the 14th Amendment got me thinking.

My theory of the case is something like this — soon after Trump is sworn in (if he wins) he goes full tyrant to the point that the U.S. Military begins to scramble for a legalistic cover to depose Trump.

They find one in the 14th Amendment.

Now, of course, doing such a thing would probably lead to a civil war. But, I suppose, there would be a chance that the U.S. Military might be able to hold the country together long enough for a Constitutional Convention to be held, one that would push through a series of much-needed reforms.

But only time will tell.

‘Stop The Steal 2.0’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I consider myself a survivor. Being so involves trying to get ahead of the curve when disaster is possible. As such, I’m finding myself looking every which way about what might happen between Election Day and when the next president is sworn in — and beyond.

One scenario that isn’t getting enough thought is what if’s Blues, not Reds who are forced into a corner when it comes to a “stop the steal” effort. And this time, it won’t be a conspiracy theory — Reds really will be trying to steal the election, probably in a very brazen manner.

In fact, I’ve written a length in the past about such a scenario. (See below). But now that we’re closer to the actual event, it seems if it happens, it will go along the lines of this — Republicans will object to swing state Electoral votes being certified and that will either lead to a tie or Trump winning outright.

If that happens, the Blues may — (will?) go nuts and the country might buckle at the knees. At that point, the only thing that may hold the country together at all will be the U.S. Military.

Here’s the scenario I wrote up some time ago. It’s not perfectly what I image might happen if Blues feel like they have to rebel against MAGA — I don’t think they will want to leave the Union so much as the much more muddy and murky situation of “Who is the president?”

It’s pretty obvious that America is tearing itself apart. The successful election of Joe Biden in 2020 simply punted down the road a crisis that is brewing in the American political system. For historical context a lot of the shit that happened in 2020 with Republicans happened to a far lesser extent with Democrats in 2016 and so it’s logical to assume a similar problem will — only worse — will happen one way or another in 2024.

Here are some reasons why we will 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.

And, honestly, the only thing standing in the way of an autocrat becoming president in 2025 and seizing “total control” pretty quick is any potential cleaving between MAGA and the Republican Party that takes place between now and then.

Given what I’m seeing right now, it definitely doesn’t seem as though that’s going to be a problem. At this point, it seems as though Republicans will first win power in Congress in 2022, then win the presidency (one way or anther) in 2024 and that will be that.

The autocracy we feared during the Trump Era will come, just four years later than we all expected. But…

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.

‘Momentum’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In 2016, there was a certain momentum to the Trump campaign. You could feel it in the air. The country really wanted him to win and so fate stepped in an brought us the Second Comey Letter.

This time, meanwhile, there definitely seems to be some momentum with Harris.

And, yet, I have a growing concern that just because Harris might win, doesn’t mean we’re done with Trump. It seems very possible that her winning would be just the beginning of a long, drawn out process that would begin election night and only end with Harris being sworn in.

My fear is that we will see a quantum leap worse political violence from what we saw in 2020 – 2021. I’m really worried that things might get out of hand and God-only-knows what might happen.