I’ve finally gotten past the first three chapters of the first novel in this four novel thriller series. For weeks, I felt like I was spinning my wheels trying to write those first three chapters.
But, now, at last, I’ve gotten in the point in the story beyond the inciting incident. At the moment, I’m at a very unique moment in my life where I can write as much as I like. Unfortunately, I just don’t see this ideal situation continuing forever.
So, I’m going to use it as wisely as I can.
If things go as well as I hope, I should be able to simply follow the outline I have written and things will go really smoothly. A lot — and I mean a lot — could still go wrong to throw everything out of whack and slow things down considerably.
But you have to have hope. That’s part of the point of writing these four novels in the first place, to give myself hope.
Doing just a back of the envelope scenario about a Second American Civil War leads me to one dark conclusion: the states of the American “Heartland,” the Old Midwest, would be where the heaviest fighting — and most bloodshed — would occur.
I say this because these states have high population and, in a sense, the greatest disconnect between the will of the people and government. So, it’s very easy to imagine states like Indiana and Ohio running red with blood as the two sides vie for control.
Let’s not fight!
Of course, we have to remember that at the beginning of any ACW2, huge numbers of people in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio would bounce around, looking for a state that better fit their personal politics. As such, I could see Indiana and Ohio becoming deep, deep red to the point that they would see the most severe fighting should Blue States begin to get the upper hand. Or, alternatively, they would be where WMD would be used a lot by Blue States if things got that bad.
It would be in the Heartland where an ACW2 would look the most like WW2. It would be horrific. Many, many people would die and there would be a massive number of political refugees once things got as bad as I fear. And where they would go would depend on their politics and the ebb and flow of the war itself.
Another state that is somewhat up in the air for me is Michigan. It’s a state that traditionally Blue, and, yet, has a small and deranged Red element to its electorate. If we stop using politics to solve our problems and start murdering each other for political reasons, it’s possible that Michigan would also be the site of a lot of bloody struggle.
The point of all of this is, let’s not have a second civil war, shall we?
Occasionally, the hot takes within my center-Left, anti-MAGA New Right echo chamber are so bad, so ill conceived that I get really angry. A prime example of this recently is all the laugher about Trump telling the MAGA New Right faithful “not to vote” if the Republican Establishment doesn’t “address” his Big Lie about the 2020 election.
Two reasons exist for this being very, very dangerous.
The first reason is, well, Trump is giving the Republican Establishment its marching orders for 2022 and 2024. If they don’t toe the line, he’s threatening them with destruction. Hence, how quiet they are about his threats on the matter. And, really, the case could be made that this is part of Steve Bannon’s broader efforts at an administrative coup going forward.
Steve K. Bannon
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
But the second, darker reason is Trump is dangling the prospect of the MAGA New Right no longer participating in the democratic process en mass. If they don’t feel as though they have a vested interest in democracy — if they just stop voting — then all the glad handing and backslapping that people like Rachel Maddow will do when Democrats start to win will be interrupted rather dramatically.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
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.
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 distablizing things that help push the country to the brink.
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.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse 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.
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.
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.
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.
You think we have it bad now, just wait until a huge swath of deranged MAGA New Right cocksuckers grow radicalized and see violence as their only option to get what they want in the country. That would not be cool.
I just don’t think a lot of liberal “thinkers” are taking the very dangerous future we face seriously enough. Something’s gotta give. We either turn into an autocracy, have a civil war or the military steps in and we have some sort of military junta.
But the current situation is just not stable. It can only last so long. The United States is running on fumes.
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.
It is very, very unlikely that our worst fears about what’s going on at La Palma will be realized and there will be some sort of “megatsunami.” It’s so unlikely as to not be something any of us should be worried about.
But I love me a scenario, so let’s run it. Let’s think about what would happen to the United States on a political basis, if a huge fucking wave crossed the Atlantic and destroyed a huge chunk of the American Eastern Seaboard.
My initial reaction is given how divided the country is at the moment, that the country would decend into chaos and something akin to the “Red October” that the MAGA New Right keeps babbling about would happen. The political and economic implications for the United States would, on paper, be enough to destroy the country unto itself.
But let’s think about this more deeply.
It could be that some of the assumptions I’m making aren’t right, that I’m jumping to conclusions. The country would be in shock for the first few days after the event and there would be a massive power vacuum across a huge swath of the country. It could be that the first reaction to the event would be for the country to unite. A lot would depend on how much of the Federal government was still functioning after the possible destruction of D.C.
It seems logical to conclude that it would be the massive economic depression that would strike the globe that would be the thing to cause some sort of MAGA New Right-themed “revolution” in the United States. If Trump survived the event, he would likely somehow be ranting about how now was the chance that MAGA had been looking for — it would be their time to strike. Or, more specifically, Steve Bannon would be saying that.
So, it’s very possible to imagine after the initial shock wore off and the economic implications of the event began to sink in that the usual finger-pointing would begin to happen and be taken to the next level as a huge, populous portion of the country struggled to get the lights on and to figure out what happens next.
I could easily see 20 or more small MAGA states descend into some sort of MAGA New Right themed revolution, which would, in turn, strain the already gobsmacked Federal government.
But, again, I may be assuming the absolute worst a little bit too much this time. Or not. If there was going to be a Second American Revolution, this time with the intent of “making America great again,” something like a huge fucking wave destroying a huge chunk of the country is probably the best bet for it to happen sooner rather than later.
I have to take a moment to ponder how otherwise deluded the MAGA New Right is for thinking that they could pull off a “Red October” without a massive wave striking the US Eastcoast. Revolutions usually, by definition, are Leftist and for all their talk of how much they fucking want to fuck their guns, MAGA cocksuckers have — if the January 6th Insurrectionists are any indication — proven to be massive wussies.
Anyway, hopefully this will stay just a idle daydream.
I’m just letting off some steam, like I always am whenever I write lyrics. I have no idea what I’m doing, but writing lyrics really quick is a lot of fun and is very relaxing.
Bad Art Friend Lyrics by Shelt Garner @sheltgarner please give credit if you produce or perform
bad art friend bad art friend bad art friend
here I am styling all the while you’re dying to tell me about your deeds to help the sick you won’t give up until you get in your lick
in the end you’re nothing but nothing but a bad art friend bad art friend bad art friend
I try my best to avoid your serve but you’re too good for me and not even my swerve can avoid your demands that I tell you all I know
(bridge) it’s too good to be true the things you do to woo you think I’m a hack with no talent or class but I know that’s not so
in the end you’re nothing but nothing but a bad art friend bad art friend bad art friend
I totally validate the anger on the part of the transgender community when it comes to Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix special. It get it. I understand the anger. At the same time, I’m not very much of a Leftist and it seems to me that the rise of the illiberal Left is not doing the cause of American democracy any favors.
I’m, by nature, a moderate, and there must be some way we can get angry over Chappelle comments without getting so angry that we attempt to end his right to say what he said. There is thing called the marketplace of ideas and, as such, Chappelle was simply exercising his freedom of speech and it’s up to the marketplace to determine how popular that speech will be.
The United States is careening towards a very, very dark future. And, the case could be made that what’s really going on with the debate over “cancel culture” is we’re seeing, in real time, the two sides are hardening their views to the point that if we don’t end up murdering each other for political reasons, we’re going to be lucky.
What’s more important, it’s very easy for the MAGA New Right to use the rise of illiberal Left as a bludgeon against the minds of the average person who is more interested in the latest winner of The Masked Singer than the endless political debate we otherwise live in.
We see this all the time now. This very thing. The Right latches on the most extreme examples of the illiberal Left and tries to paint the entire anti-MAGA movement as being that thing and that thing only.
But, I think in the end, there’s nothing that can be done. Ultimately, either we slip into a MAGA New Right autocracy and all the “woke” concerns of the illiberal Left will be moot. Or, we have a Second Civil War and suddenly some — but not all — of the concerns of the illiberal Left will “burn off” because things will grow so existential for everyone involved that we’ll have more, pressing issues, to address.
Steve Bannon is staging a slow-moving administrative coup in the United States in broad daylight and, at the moment, nothing is happening in response. So, it’s very easy to imagine Bannon actually pulling it off — corrupting the administration of elections on the local level to the point that it becomes very clear to the average American that the whole system is rigged.
Steve K. Bannon
And that, my gentle reader, will be the moment of truth.
The natural inclination of the liberal media will be to calm everyone down. As a part of the Establishment, they have a vested interest in making sure the average person doesn’t freak the fuck out and burn everything to the ground in a rage.
In a functioning democracy, this is a good thing because it keeps people living their lives and only really thinking about politics when they have to. But, sadly, the centrifugal forces at work on the United States’ political system have reached a critical point — we’ve crossed the event horizon of autocracy, if you will.
So, should Bannon get what he wants, what will be the reaction.
My gut reaction is…I don’t know. It could go either way. It’s very possible that because of how ineffectual the center-Left is on a systemic basis, that such an administrative coup will be met with a collective shrug. There will be long, angry Twitter threads from the usual suspect Twitter liberals. Pod Save America, Pod Save The World and Deep State Radio would have enraged conversations about how the United States is no longer a democracy.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
But, lulz, the average person won’t even notice — at first — that things have changed.
People will gradually stop voting. A MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention will be held. And, soon enough, the United States and Russia will become autocratic brothers in arms. It will be like the end of Animal Farm — we will look back and forth between the United States and Russia and we won’t be able to see any difference.
That’s one option.
The other option is we have a civil war that causes WW3 and billions die while the United States sorts out which vision of America has the better military. If we go down this path, then the “Fourth Turning” might happen not in 2025, but in 2023.
I still just can’t game out which one of these two options the United States will pick. Usually, if history is any guide, the Great Moments of History are very reliant on the tactical. Just look at the First Civil War itself — the case could be made that modern America exists because of some pretty specific, tactical events that took place at just the right time.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
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.
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 distablizing things that help push the country to the brink.
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.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse 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.
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.
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.
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.
So, too, if there was a Second Civil War and things grew existential, the outcome of any such conflagration could be determined by things that would be impossible to predict at the moment.
All I know is, Bannon is setting up a very, very destabilizing situation by trying to pull a fast one on us. If he succeeds in 2022 with his administrative coup and nothing happens, then, well, the likelihood of a civil war grows far less. It will be clear by that point that the United States is going to slip peacefully into autocracy.
It will be in the 2023-2025 timeframe when there will begin a massive migration of center-Left Americans to other parts of the globe. Hollywood might relocate to, say Perth. Europe might see a huge influx of liberal-progressive expats not seen since The Lost Generation.
Who knows?
Or, to put it another way — I suggest you be grateful for this last year of democracy in America. No matter what, the death spiral that will either lead to autocracy or civil war will probably begin the moment we start to get results in Election Night 2022.
A few days after that, Trump will announce for 2024 and things will grow very, very unstable. Good luck. You’re going to need it.
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.
Only because of a specific set of circumstances are we not in Trump’s second term. The combination of COVID, Biden and Trump being astonishingly lazy and stupid combined to tip the hand of fate. And, yet, the next year could likely be the last few months of the traditional America that we’ve come to assume we’d always live in.
Steve K. Bannon
It’s easy to imagine that Steve Bannon’s plot at an “administrative coup” is successful in 2022 and when we lulz it, he only grows more powerful and more brazen in the years leading up to 2024. I don’t think people really appricate how dire things are becoming.
The center-Left just is not prepared for what is going to happen between now and January 2025. Trump’s “Big Lie” is now the heart and soul of the Republican Party on a systemic basis and, honestly, the only thing stopped us from peacefully becoming a Russia clone is the momentum within the MAGA New Right to turn to violence simply out of bloodthirsty arrogance.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
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.
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 distablizing things that help push the country to the brink.
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.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse 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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s also easy to imagine at some point in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe that everything is in place for us to slip peacefully into autocracy and Trump just by being himself causes a civil war. One thing we have to begin to think about is Trump could be, in his own way a “reverse Yeltsin” in the sense that both men specialized in destroying things but with the exact opposite objectives.
Yeltsin wanted to bring freedom to Russia, Trump wants to bring autocracy to the United States. So, it’s possible that for all my handwringing about the possibility of a civil war in the United States, in the end, we simply slip peacefully into autocracy, just as the Soviet Union peacefully ceased to exist.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
But there is one thing I can not stress enough: stop laughing at the MAGA New Right. They just aren’t funny anymore. We’re dealing with a lingering existential crisis that is going to come to a head one way or another. We’re still too far out for me to figure out if it’s going to be autocracy, civil war or military junta.
Yet, what I do know is the current status quo is so unstable that something pretty dramatic is going to happen. Again — all the conditions exist for us to slip peacefully into autocracy and that will be that. The average American is so complacent that if Bannon gets what he wants, the liberal media will tell everyone that “the system worked” and it’s just a fact of life now that one, the administration of elections is corrupt and two, even if Democrats get past that obstacle, the only way they can gain the presidency is if they also control Congress.
Then comes the MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention. In about 20 years, we’ll wake up and realize an entire generation of Americans has only known DeSantis (or whomever) as president. We’ll also learn that the Trump family is now one of the wealthiest in the world, rivaling Putin. We’ll hear isolated reports of well known anti-MAGA people mysteriously dying, but strangely nothing will ever come of it.
All of our media will avoid talking about politics and News Corp will own The New York Times AND CNN. Who knows, MSNBC might be sold off and merged with OANN or NewsMax at some cut rate price. We’ll also here the occasional story from the BBC about the burgeoning ICE camps with political prisoners, but most people who are Good Americans won’t really care or notice.
That is, of course, until they get drunk in a bar one night and rant about how much President Flynn sucks. They vanish within a few days.
The reason why this agitates me so much is this dystopian scenario of an American future under autocracy is not an abstract to me. I’ve enjoyed the luxury of being a loud mouth kook in a free nation my entire life. I’m just not someone who could even exist in a country like Russia.
So, I feel, in a very concrete way, that if we do slip peacefully into autocracy that my life is in danger.
The main reason why I don’t think the United States will have a Second Civil War is how weak anti-MAGA forces are in real terms. Or, put another way, if there is some sort of civil war in the United States around the time I predict it may happen, a lot of heroes are going to burst onto the scene in ways none of us — least of all me — can predict.
And, remember, if we did have a second civil war, it would not happen in a vacuum. The entire world would go up in flames at the same time. Any number of regional wars would flare up — some of them resulting in limited nuclear exchanges — and the world we woke up to on the other end of the conflict would be greatly reshaped.
But again, I just don’t know which choice we’re going to make. At the moment, you can make the case for either autocracy or civil war. You can even make the case for some sort of military junta.
In a sense, this option makes a lot more sense than either autocracy or civil war because it could be just the temporary fix to our problems. The scenario I’m thinking of is rather than what the Reds want, which is autocracy or what the Blues might want out of desperation, which is civil war, we would simply turn the reigns of power over to the military.
Once we did that, it’s easy to imagine the whole point of the exercise would be a convening of a Constitutional Convention that would address the concerns of both sides. This would be a way to take the existential issues of 2025 out of the hands of our undead politics and turn it over to a hopefully objective existential body that would help us become a more perfect Union.
There, unfortunately, so many problems with this on-paper ideal solution that it’s highly unlikely it would happen. What’s more likely to happen is either we slip peacefully into a MAGA New Right autocracy or Blue States grow so enraged that they leave the Union and all hell breaks loose.
The biggest problem is, of course, the U.S. Military on a systemic basis will do everything in its power to avoid this very solution, even to the point that the whole country collapses into anarchy. This would happen when the military simply refuses to pick a side when Trump fucks everything up like he always does and we just don’t know who the “real” POTUS is and Blue and Red States go for each others throats.
Another problem might be, that the not even the military will be able to withstand the forces tearing the country apart and the largely MAGA enlisted men pick the opposite side as the brass. So, instead of a unified military being able to step in for a few crucial months, everything collapses in on itself and we bomb ourselves into oblivion using illicitly seized caches of WMD.
Yet, all I can tell you is something’s gotta give.
The moment Congress flips and Republicans are in control of Congress again, things are going to get very dark and even more unstable. You really need to enjoy these last few months of peace and quiet, of traditional America, while you can.
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.
Movies are meant to be a representation of the collective unconscious. At least, that’s the theory. As such, it seems pretty obvious that if you produced a big budget Hollywood movie about a Second American Civil War that it would be really popular.
But there are also some pretty obvious problems with that idea.
One is, given that you would have to make an editorial decision as to who the good guys were, it probably is doomed to failure. You can’t make it the Blue States because the movie probably would appeal to Red States more and you can’t make it Red States because the liberal media would put the movie in the “Left Behind” genre of content.
The only way to solve such a problem is to make the point of the movie that there would be no winners in a Second Civil War. You would have to “both sides” the conflict to such an extent that there would be no good guys and no bad guys.
This would leave us with a movie that lacked any creative vision and was nothing more than yet another excuse to see notable American landmarks be blown up in a rather dramatic fashion.
At the moment, I’m kind of living my life in oblivion. I could walk off the face of the earth right now and it would take a few days for anyone to notice what had happened — this is actually quite literal at the moment. Anyway, because of this, it’s the little things that make me sit up and take notice.
And one of those little things is a serious uptick in people interested in my brief post about the connection between Anna Marie Tendler and Kacey Musgraves. And by connection, I mean Olivia Munn. I really like all the women involved in this clusterfuck and I struggle to understand exactly what happened.
But what I do know is Kacey Musgraves’ latest album, “star-crossed” is about her divorce to Ruston Kelly who was banging Olivia Munn at just about the same time Musgraves’ heart wrenching album was being produced. So, there is a direct link between the two women — Olivia Munn.
The thing about Munn is — I have no idea how much of a homewrecker she is and how much of an opportunist she is. Did John Mulaney cheat with Munn while he was with Tendler, or was it more everything was falling apart by that point and Munn was nothing more than an opportunist?
That’s something that’s something that has yet to be determined.
Anyway, the rest why I’m getting an uptick in traffic — I think — is Musgraves commented on Tendler’s latest Instagram post and people are searching the Internet curious about why this happened.
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