It’s definitely interesting how things stay the same for a long time then everything falls apart at the same time. I have a number of mini-crisis taking place in my life at the moment, from a toothache, to computer failing me to my refrigerator’s thermostat malfunctioning.
It makes me wonder if this is some sort of portent about the future. Am I about to enter a transitional phase in my life? And if so, exactly what am I transitioning into? Ugh.
I am definitely feeling my mortality these days. I’m feeling a lot of internal pressure to speed up the pace on this novel. I’m not going to live forever and it would be pretty pathetic if my only legacy was a failed expat magazine and an unfinished novel.
But you have to work with what you got, I suppose. I just have no idea what the future brings me. Things could go a lot of different ways between now and early 2025. It could be that just about the time I begin querying my first novel, the United States collapses into chaos and anarchy.
Though, on the up side, if we just slide peacefully into autocracy, my grand macro plan for this six novel project becomes extremely timely and potentially popular.
But, who knows. No fate but what we make and all that.
MAGA has gone septic. I say this because if the entire fate of your democracy depends on pro-democratic forces winning every election for the foreseeable future — you got a problem. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work. In a functioning democracy, there is an ebb and flow with governance going back and forth between different parties.
But here we are.
If Trump wins in 2024, that’s it. America will officially being its transition into an autocracy based on blood and soil. We will wake up at some point in the next 20 years wondering why we’re invading Canada to crush the “woke mind virus” that our autocrat keeps babbling about.
I wish I was kidding.
The worst part about all of this is it’s happening right in front of us, right before our eyes. There is a solid 38% of the electorate that hates democracy and sees it only as a means to an end — their ruling the country forever. To me, the only question at the moment is not that things will get bad, but how bad they will get.
There is, of course, the greater-than-zero-sum-chance that there might be some sort of “Resistance Revolution” in late 2024, early 2025 if either Trump wins by the corruption of the administration of the election or his incoming second term agenda is just so radical that Blues decide to strike back.
I find that possibility extremely dubious, however. Not only is there no assurance that it would work, it’s just not the collective temperament of Blues to do such a thing. The people who would be the leadership of such a revolution will be too busy fleeing the country using their second passports to do anything to stop our slide into autocracy.
All good things must come to an end, I guess. I just hope I manage to avoid being put in a weaponized ICE camp.
As I always say — I simply can not predict the future. And, yet, I have an obsession about making my abstract fears about the future concrete. So, here are some ruminations on what life during either a Second American Civil War (Reds) or a Second American Revolution (Blues) might be like.
There are a few things to remember off the bat — one is in either scenario, there would be mass chaos. There would be mass chaos to the point that the most basic elements of modern life like food, water and communication would be put into doubt.
If ever there was a way to end the “woke” era, it would be everyone being faced with some pretty fucking existential issues on a daily basis rather than if a CIS white male used the right pronouns or not. No matter how fucking woke you may be, if you’re worried about dying from an artillery shell in the middle of the night you just don’t have the mental processing power left over to be offended if someone gives you the “ick” by saying “female.”
As part of that chaos, there would be a lot — A LOT — of domestic political refugees as people fled to states that better fit their personal political views. And, of course, there would be the issue of Blue Cities in Red States that might be emptied Pol Pot-style. American Killing Fields, here we come.
Also, both sides would be greatly radicalized once either a civil war or revolution broke out, to the point that all the headquarters of all the major conservative media in NYC might be gutted by angry Blue mobs. This doesn’t even address the fact that Trump Tower might be “taken” at some point during either one of the worst case scenarios.
The darkest element of either a civil war or a revolution would be race relations in the South. It’s easy to imagine a fucking race war breaking out in the South as white conservatives try to rearrange the political order in a rather vicious manner, prompting African Americans to fight back.
Overall, a civil war or a revolution would be very messy and very, very bloody. You would have to take into account the fact that WW3 would probably break out and the DPRK might take America bombing itself into oblivion over “vibes” as an opportunity to lob a few nukes our way.
I just don’t see how we thread the needle like we did in 2020. But, like I keep saying — I can’t predict the future. Maybe everything will turn out the way that Mueller, She Wrote believes and all my fears are just “hysterical doom shit.”
The thing that so many nattering nabobs of negativism are completely and totally oblivious about is the cold, hard fact that about 38% of the electorate hates democracy and wants a MAGA-themed autocracy of blood and soil. They want a theocratic, fascist state and they see malignant ding-dong Trump as the vessel, the avatar that will give that dystopian hellscape future to them.
It’s hard for well-paid talking head pundits to give anything but shitty hottakes when they make the basic mistake about the intentions of one of the two major parties. To be a modern Republican is, by definition, to be a fascist who wants to eliminate all but consumption taxes and while replacing the “administrative state” with the “moralistic state.”
That’s what people voted for with Trump in 2016 — he sold himself as an autocrat and that’s what people wanted. The quirk in our transition into autocracy was — surprise! — Trump was too dumb and too lazy to do even the most basic of autocratic things to stay in power forever. He waited until the very last step in the process to try to stay in power.
This proves that Trump is not a Great Man, but rather just an vessel, and avatar, for the severe rot within the modern day American political system.
Once we get past the final death rattle of our dying democracy, all taxes will be replaced by a 30% VAT. Meanwhile, abortion will be 100% illegal nationwide. Being gay will be illegal. The already existent ICE camp system will be weaponized and people like yours truly will find myself in a camp, if I’m not just shot by a MAGA neighbor during the transition to autocracy.
Now, for me, the issue is the United States is a big and diverse nation. So while the hellish agenda on the part of MAGA would probably be easy to peacefully make a reality in a small, more homogenous country, there is a greater-than-zero -sum chance that if Republicans screw up there MIGHT be something akin to a “Resistance Revolution.”
I’m not holding my breath, though.
Smug wealthy Twitter liberals already have a second passport. They are already gaming out how they can continue to produce their circle jerk podcast outside the United States once we’re an autocracy. I just don’t see them giving enough of a shit about we “Poors” to risk their lives and sacred honor on something as abstract and unprofitable as “democracy.”
Meanwhile, I DO think there is a pretty good chance that if Biden — or whomever — wins in 2024, that Trump will demand a National Divorce in a personal effort to stay out of prison. So, soon after we all congratulate ourselves for having defeated MAGA for another election cycle, the monster will come for our throats in the guise of a Secession Crisis.
Probably starting with Texas first.
So the key issue is I just don’t see us managing to find a “Third Way” like we barely did in 2020. This coming 2024 election cycle IS IT. Either America is no longer a democracy, or we have a civil war (Reds) or a revolution (Blues) depending on who wins and who loses.
I can not predict the future. No one can. But all signs point to either the United States becoming a MAGA-themed autocracy starting in early 2025, or the entire country going tits up because of either a civil war (Reds) or a revolution (Blues.) As such, I find myself contemplating what I am going to do if I simply can not live in my rural MAGA-loving area anymore.
But, first, I have to think about what might cause me to actually leave my home in the first place. The thing about Virginia is, it’s two states — one Red, one Blue — fused together who fucking hate each other. As such, I can totally imagine a scenario whereby Virginia is one of the first states to implode into severe intra-state political violence if there is any sort of National Divorce or Blue Revolution.
Give my nature, I suppose I will wait until it’s clear that people around me know that my politics don’t fit the vibe of the area and I get the sense that maybe I should flee. But it would have to be real. It couldn’t just be some vague, abstract sense of unease.
I have long believed that if the End of the World came, I would either be the first person to die or the person who helped bring back civilization. So, lulz, it could be that I just open my front door one day in late 2024, early 2025 and I get shot in the face.
But who knows. I guess if things get too hot for me I will grab some essential in a bug out bag and head north one way or another. I have a well-meaning relative who wants to hide out in the woods, but he’s south of me and that sounds rather fatalistic. Once states begin to leave the Union, the the force of the State will be involved in things and it makes no sense to stick around.
I have some relatives in Richmond, so I guess I’ll drive in that direction? But that’s an iffy situation if things really are collapsing, so I may just using whatever infrastructure has developed to facilitate Blues in Virginia getting to safety in Maryland and beyond and use that.
One sign that we are totally fucked in 2024 is the absolute insistence on the part of people like malignant ding-dong Trump that the center-Left wants to murder babies. This is not true. Everyone knows it’s not ture, and, yet, here we are with millions of rabid MAGA people wilfully believing this awful blood libel because of confirmation bias.
The Nazis never met a blood libel against the Jews they didn’t like and if you stir in some dumb Qanon ideas into the mix of what MAGA is up to, well, that’s a tragedy that writes itself.
It’s all part of a surge in some tectonic forces that are tearing the United States apart. I will again state that if the absolute worst happens in the United States, be in civil war (Reds) or revolution (Blues) it will be the single biggest geopolitical even in real terms since the French Revolution.
Everything will be different once everything is sorted out. Either America will be all MAGA, divided or all Blue. No matter what the outcome, there will be MILLIONS of American who will flee the re-imagined area of the United States, which will spread America ideas across the globe.
What’s more, the likelihood of World War Three increases significantly in late 2024, early 2025. The moment the United States is too distracted because it’s imploding is also the moment that a number of simmering hotspots across the globe will explode into violence — some of it nuclear tipped.
And MAGA’s Blood Libel against, well, people like me, is the tip of the spear of some potentially astonishing geopolitical events. There are any number of pretty fucking dark scenarios to contemplate if we don’t manage to just punt things down the road another four years.
I just don’t know what to expect. I just can’t predict the future. But things like the MAGA Blood Libel against people who support abortion rights is extremely alarming!
One thing I’ve noticed is a certain level of clueless, oblivious naivete on the part of some people who should know better when it comes to what a Second American Civil War might be like.
I’m working on the assumption that if there is an actual 2ACW, it will be because Trump loses in 2024 and, in a desperate attempt to evade prison and starts to rant about the need for a National Divorce and, lo and behold, states like Texas take him up on the idea.
There is a far small chance of a Blue “Resistance Revolution” if Trump wins and is incoming agenda is just too radical for Blues, but I have serious doubts that Blues, by nature, would have it in them to do such a thing.
But the issue is that any National Divorce would lead to a 2ACW because of how Purple the country is, in general. A lot of Red States have a dollop of Blue in them in the guise of their major cities. As such, if a state like Texas or Tennessee secedes, their Blue Cities will probably be the site of some serious fucking flashpoints.
There is a real risk that America will go all Cambodia on itself, with the rural areas of the country rising up and emptying the cities to establish American Killing Fields. Or something, something gruesome like that.
Way too many members of the nattering nabobs of negativism have STILL yet to come to grips with how dark our future is. American politics are collapsing before our very eyes and once we finally reach the Singularity — we’re probably going to fight it out in the real world with real weapons, instead of just being fucking keyboard warriors.
And, remember, once you crack the egg of civil war or revolution, things usually get out of control –just as the French. Once MAGA finally goes septic, loudmouth cranks like me will be right behind Jewish people when it comes to being packed up and sent to a weaponized ICE camps.
The main thing to remember is the United States is a lot less stable, in general, than we would like to think. It definitely seems as though 2024 will be the most significant election in American history since 1860. The only thing that spared us the symmetry of 2020 being it is, well, Mike Pence decided to destroy his political career by doing what he was supposed to.
But the issue remains –we are careening towards a potentially catastrophic near future. I, of course, can’t predict the future, so there is always a chance that some how, some way, we’ll do what we did in 2020 and find some sort of “third way” that allows us to punt our severe structural problems down the road another four years.
I just don’t know. They say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once, so it could be one of those things where we just don’t know what is going to happen…until it happen.
It is self-evident how much Ron DeSantis looks like the late Phil Hartman’s classic character Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. This, of course, gets me thinking about how SNL might bring back the character this fall (whenever the writers’ and actors’ strikes end.)
You open with the same opening as the original sketch, only it instead of him being a lawyer, he’s governor of Florida. You have him making a campaign speech where he talks about the “woke mind virus” and how it’s as powerful as the mastodons he had to hunt 10,000 years ago. Or something, something like that.
I would really lean into the idea that he’s “caveman conservative” and that reflects in his policy ideas. Extra points if you can somehow shoehorn those type of ideas into what DeSantis actually believes.
The inciting incident of the sketch would be him ending his speech and him walking around talking to different people. One of them might be Donald Trump and they trade barbs or something.
Another way you might do it is as a recorded campaign ad whereby Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer goes through the benefits of having a president that was born 10,000 years ago.
The whole point of the Biden “impeach inquiry” on the part of House Republicans (and Trump) is simply to create some for of false moral equivalence between Biden and Trump on election day. Either people will not vote or the calculous they use to vote will be so fucked up from a shame impeachment of Biden that Trump wins.
We have to begin to accept that we’re careening towards the most decisive presidential election in American history since 1860. At the moment, barring something none of us can predict, Trump is going to win in 2024 — or we have a civil war.
There is, of course, a very small chance that we might have a “Blue Revolution” if Trump wins, but I doubt it. Smug Twitter Liberals already have one foot out the door with second passports, so lulz, they’re going to be too busy relocating to the south of France to help Poors like us.
Eat the rich.
Anyway, as I keep saying, you go bankrupt gradually then all at once. And I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen to the United States. Once Trump is president again, America is going to have a very Germany 1933 vibe to it. I don’t think there’s going to be anything stopping MAGA’s consolidation of power in 2025 if Trump wins.
That will be that. Trump will be the transitional figure between us being in an anocracy and an autocracy. America will leave NATO and South Korea and the entire post-WW2 global order will be thrown up in the air. Russia will win its war of aggression against Ukraine and the already existent ICE camp infrastructure will be weaponized.
In 20 years — or less– Americans will wake up and wonder why we’re invading Canada to save it from “the woke mind virus.”
If Trump doesn’t win, meanwhile, we have a civil war. Or come close to one. The deep echo of the first civil war is alive and well in the South and, as such Texas will leave the Union and that will set off a cascading series of events with no obvious endgame.
And, of course, there will probably be WW3 as all of that is happening.
Any discussion of what’s going on with House Republicans being hell bent to simply be able to use the word “impeachment” a lot when it comes to Biden has to first remember how the first impeachment in American history went down. As I recall, Radical Republicans were so angry at Andrew Johnson that they impeached him without even knowing why they they were doing it.
They just wrote in the articles later.
So, here we are, with it seeming as though the United States is either going to turn into a MAGA-themed autocracy, or have some sort of secessionist crisis at some point in the near future. At the moment, it definitely seems as though late 2024, early 2025 is going to be a crucial moment in American history, where we decide our form of government for generations to come.
Anyway, it seems as though in some respects, the “impeachment inquiry” against Biden is happening for several reasons. One reason is sheer spite — House Republicans want to strike back at Biden for Trump being a criminal. They also want to both scream at the top of their lungs that Biden is being impeached and thus can’t be re-elected while at the same time poo-pooing the idea that Trump has been impeached twice.
“It happens to every president these days,” is what they want people to think.
Also, remember, this is white knuckled power politics. House Republicans simply want cover for using the word “impeachment” on Fox News, in hopes that all that white noise bullshit will lodge itself into the minds of low information voters in five swing states and be 2024’s “Benghazi.” At the moment, they don’t even have the votes to actually launch an impeachment inquiry, much less actually impeach Biden.
But, lulz, they’re going to do it anyway because they can say “the only way we can find the truth is with an impeachment inquiry.” It’s a similar logic to how Republicans vote against popular programs, then take the credit for them when they are implemented in their districts.
It’s a win-win: they get to tell Red voters that they voted against big government spending and they get to take credit for popular programs in the minds of Blues and independents.
I do find it curious that Republicans are so dumb and ill-focused that they didn’t decide to impeach Biden for the “border crisis” or any number of actual problems in the country, rather than nebulous bullshit involving Biden and his son. It’s all very strange to me.
But, regardless, we have to accept that what’s going on in the House is ping for a not-so-distant future where we either are no longer a democracy, or our political system finally collapses into real world political violence. I hate violence, but I would suggest you get ready.
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