Here you go. This is about the rise of fascism in the United States as well as the five novel project I’m working on.
Category: The Resistance
Now Is The Time For People Of Good Conscience To Prepare
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Despite what the feel-good liberals of the “Mueller, She Wrote” Twitter account may think — we’re fucked. Trump and his coterie are above the law. The United States is a failed political state running on fumes of an established political order based on 250 years of Western democracy.
But this is coming to an end.
We’re in America’s twilight. We’re an anocracy, which is a fancy word for being between autocracy and democracy. When a nation is anocracy, it’s at its most vulnerable because it’s either transitioning to democracy or sliding into autocracy. It’s when a nation is an anocracy that the probability of it having a civil war is at its highest.
This is just basic political science so I’m not being a “terribly negative person” to point it out — it’s just what’s going on.
A key thing for us to remember is the American electoral system hides how bad things are because of the two party system. Right now, the United States has a Fascist Republican Party that runs against an array of liberal interest groups that call themselves the Democratic Party. As such, when push comes to shove, the Fascist Republicans are probably going to bowl over anti-fascist groups without breaking a sweat.
So, what does this mean?
It means that you have a few years to figure out what the fuck you believe. As I keep saying, the key to anyone’s success — or failure — in the coming years will be knowing what you believe in, what you believe in to the point that you’re willing to suffer for it.
I say this because things are going to grow existential starting far sooner than you might believe. Once Roe is officially overturned and Republicans take Congress….all bets are off. The United States is going to go through a very bumpy political moment in time that will stretch from 2022 to beyond 2025. Either we sink into the maw of autocracy, or we collapse into a civil war that will pit brother against brother and sister against sister.
And the only way to at least feel good about your fate is to know what you believe in the real world. No more angry Twitter threads. Now is the time to figure out what you’re willing to risk in the real world. What are you willing to risk your life and sacred honor for?
There is no middle ground anymore. Either you’re a Good German or you’re not. Either you’re with the autocrat, or your not. And there will be consequences to your decision one way or another.
And, what’s more, there is the other alternative of a civil war. Then things will really grow existential — your life could depend on making the right choice about what you believe at, say, a highway check on your way to a place in the county that better fits your political views.
I know that sounds “terribly negative” but I refuse to continue to participate in the Twitter liberal circle jerk that assume if we just get mad enough on Twitter and write a long enough, earnest enough Twitter thread that somehow magically the the thing that hasn’t happen — Trump being held accountable — will somehow magically happen.
And, what’s more, it’s not even about Trump anymore.
Even if Trump somehow is taken out of the equation, there are a dozen — a dozen! — would be autocrats chomping at the bit to finish what Trump was too stupid and lazy to finish.
Or, put another way, we can not longer to make some of the basic assumptions about political life in the United States. Things are about to change in a big, dramatic fashion — all we don’t know is what exactly it will be. Either it will be autocracy or civil war.
And, for the moment, it could go either way.
So, figure out what you believe in the real world now. You’ll thank me later.
What’s A Matter With Michigan? America’s Political Future Is Fucking Messy
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Jesus Christ, are we as a nation in trouble. These are the times that try men’s souls and all that. The key thing we have to understand is we’re an anocracy, not a democracy. We’re in between democracy and autocracy. This is when a country is most likely to have a civil war when it’s either transitioning into democracy or sliding into autocracy.
We, unfortunately, are sliding into autocracy.
Our form of autocracy will be white Christian minority rule. That’s the end game of what’s going on — white Christians will have a permanent strangle hold on national elections going forward and that will be that. We’ll become nothing more than a wealthy version of apartheid South Africa. White Christians will transform the United States into Trumplandia.
We will become identical to Russia in some form and lulz, sucks to be me since I’ve always been something of a loud mouth crank. I couldn’t shut up even if I wanted to, so…oh boy. A weaponized ICE — or whatever — is probably going to come after me at some point in the near-ish future.
Anyway, it’s eerie when your dark “terribly negative” fears about the nation you love so much begin to come true. Take, for instance, Michigan. It’s a crucial swing state each presidential cycle and recently Republicans replaced the people who certified Biden’s win in the state.
As such, it’s easy to imagine that MAGA Republicans are going to YOLO the 2024 election and steal it to the point whereby there is going to be serious, serious talk of some sort of secession among Blue States. Or, it could be that it’s even messier than that with there being coups and counter coups within state governments until the whole country collapses and we have a real knock down, drag out civil war that will leave us bombed into the Stone Age and take a generation to recover from, if we ever do.
Anyway, something’s gotta give. We can’t stay an anocracy forever.
The ‘Mosleyification’ Of The Republican Party
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Way back when, there was thing dingus in Great Britain named Oswald Mosley who was Hitler’s “Man in London.” As I understand it, Mosley was a useful idiot who was laying in wait to be Hitler’s stooge in Britain should Operation Sealion have been successful.
Flashforward and growing numbers of elected Republicans are nothing more than useful idiots who will do whatever our Republican autocrat says whenever the time comes. Many, many Republicans — many of them Senators — are abjectly idiotic.
They got elected not only because they’re dumb, but they are willing to toe the MAGA New Right orthodox into the sun itself if need be. In other words, they’re willing to destroy the United States, burn it to the ground, turn it into Trumplandia in the name of their equally dumb god-king Trump.
But, really, this is just a setup for whenever an actual non-idiot MAGA autocrat becomes POTUS at some point. Of course, the other option is we have a fucking civil war and we bomb ourselves into the Stone Age. Yet, for the time being, I think it’s safe to say that we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy.
Something’s gotta give for me to think Blue States are going to put up any sort of fight when the time comes. In the end, America will be governed by a party full of Oswald Mosleys who step and fetch for the autocrat whenever he asks them to.
That’s the general trend at the moment, at least. There are macro trends at work in the United States that make me believe that this really is the twilight of America.
Around 2025, we’re going to be in a new era, one way or another.
If You’re Not Getting Nervous About America’s Future Political Fate, You’re Not Paying Attention
By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Man, oh, man, oh man. I’m getting nervous — and I mean really nervous — about What Happens Next for the United States. A number of different things are converging at the same time and will ultimately crash into each other around late 2024, early 2025.
Right now, two things are making me feel kind of jumpy.
The first is, the rush to control women’s bodies on the part of the entire Republican Party. When it becomes clear that abortion rights will be ended not just for poor women in Red States but wealthy liberal women in Blue states…that could knock the United States on the backfoot. If Blue States feel that the entirety of the Federal government wants them to “bend a knee” to MAGA…oh boy.
And then there is another element of America’s instability that is not as cut and dried on an economic basis — the rise of a MAGA New Right orthodoxy that is based exclusively on “owning” Blue States to the point that they’re blinded to the consequences of their actions.
In other words, Republicans for a variety of reasons keep catching the political car without — to date — any consequences. But there’s a chance that because of the passions of the 2024 presidential election that just might change.
Or not. It could be that we really are slouching towards autocracy and the whole thing will be a lulz. There will be a lot of talk about secession or civil war…but nothing will happen, nothing will come of it.
We’ll wake up 20 years from now and President DeSantis, or Hawley or Pompeo or whomever will be the only president that most Americans have ever known. They will be extremely powerful (probably because of a Constitutional Convention) and extremely wealthy because of graft. Form follows function, after all.
For the time being, I think it’s a safe bet that we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy. In the end, no later than 2042, we’re going to be politically identical to Russia.
Shut It Down: The Women’s General Strike
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m a CIS white male, so please, if you’re a woman reading this please aggressively ignore me. But generally no one listens to me anyway, so here goes.
We need a Women’s General Strike.
The issue is — when women are wiling to risk real things in the real world history is made. It happened during the French Revolution, it happened during the Suffragette Era and it happened during the Women’s Movement of the late 1970s.
So, I grow very very frustrated as I watch on Twitter all these Blue Check liberals grow overwrought about the end of Roe. There comes a point when you have to put up or shut up.
Either Blue State women “bend a knee” and accept the end of Roe and we careen into a very dark Handmaid’s Tale future or we don’t. As of right now, it definitely seem a forgone conclusion that when it comes down to the whole house divided upon itself problem that we’re going to take the autocratic white Christian ethnostate route.
It’s going to happen if women simply accept it and just get mad on Twitter when any form of birth control is made illegal in all 50 states. And, if you want to get all intersectional feminist about it — if you can’t get wealthy white liberal women in Blue States to care about poor POC women in Red States, well, man are we fucked.
Desperate times call for desperate measures — we need a Women’s General Strike. And for it to be success, it would need to be national and and it would need to be intersectional. Everyone from a white stock broker in NYC to a African American house cleaner in Mississippi.
I would propose we use the existing organization infrastructure associated with the Women’s March to do it. And you would really need the entire liberal infrastructure in the media to educate people as to the risks associated with doing such a thing.
A lot of women could lose their jobs — especially in “Right To Work” states in the South. But that’s the whole point. If women are willing to risk their lives and sacred honor in the real fucking world to make a point about their right to reproductive control, then, there you go. Problem solved.
Do New Yorkers Have It In Them To Fuck Shit Up In 2024 – 2025 During The Likely Certification Crisis?
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I hate violence. I hate conflict. This is just me wondering out loud if one of my idle “terribly negative” daydreams have any basis in fact. You see, as I’ve written before, there are two places where a Second American Civil War could start. One is California (by simply leaving the Union) and the other is New York City.
As you may know, in the early days of the First American Civil War, New York City dallied with the notion of becoming a Free City as the United States was beginning to tear itself apart. Nothing came of it, but it is enough to make you wonder if something similar might be in the air should a Second American Civil War begin because we don’t know who the fuck POTUS is around late 2024, early 2025.
I’ve already mentioned the scenario I have in mind — at some point after Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025, it becomes clear that Steve K. Bannon’s “administrative coup” has worked and even though Trump would otherwise win fair and square, the whole process is so fucking corrupt that we can’t agree on who won the election.
As such, the passions of the day become so much that New Yorkers grow enraged and storm Trump Tower, Fox News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal. It would all be very dramatic and historic and would likely cause our incoming ding-dong tyrant Trump to do something complete insane that would cause a number of Blue States to bounce out of the Union in unison.
And, yet, is this really possible?
I don’t think so. I just can’t imagine it would be spontaneous. You would need some sort of leadership and even in New York City — as far as I can tell — there really isn’t much leadership in the anti-MAGA movement.
For the time being, I think my prediction that we’ll just slip peacefully into autocracy is the right one. American democracy is in its twilight and, really, there is so much slack available to the forces of tyranny in the United States that we will all wake up in twenty years and wonder why a huge statue to Trump is being constructed on the Washington Mall.
It definitely seems as though gradually after 2025 the United States is going to become a fascist autocracy and that will be that. Things won’t change all that much at first, but soon enough, just like with the end of Animal Farm, we’ll look back and forth between ourselves and Russia and realize we’re the same animal.
Trump Could, Unto Himself, Single Handedly Cause A Second American Civil War
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Jesus Christ is Trump an idiot. And, what’s more, he is simply an avatar for white Christians who feel threatened by their coming minority status. If Trump was a “Great Man” we would already be something akin to a Nazi state.
I say this because the people who voted for Trump in 2016 wanted an autocrat. They wanted what I feared. Their dream was my nightmare. Trump had four years to destroy American democracy, but he was so lazy and stupid and spent so much of his time bemoaning the non-existent “deep state” that when the time came, he simply didn’t have it in him to seize control.
And, so, we are in something of a twilight era at the moment. We’re an anocracy. We’re not quite a democracy and not quite an autocracy. We’re in between. According to Barbara F. Walter’s book “How Civil War’s Start” it’s when a nation is an anocracy that they are most at risk of having a…gulp…civil war.
Let me be clear — I can’t predict the future. It’s very possible that something will happen and Trump won’t be the 2024 Republican nominee. If that’s the case, then, lulz, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that’s that. But it definitely seems as though Trump is going to be the nominee in 2024. And if that happens, then, by definition, the risk of a massive political clusterfuck in the United States grow exponentially.
Trump is notorious for saying the “quiet part out loud” and if he runs and wins in 2024, I could totally see him ranting at length about all kinds of crazy shit that would enrage Blue States to the point that they begin to leave the Union. He could get into his orange ding-dong noggin the idea that there ABSOLTUELY HAS to be a Constitutional Convention in his second term to “pass a balanced budget amendment.”
I don’t know what to tell you. To think, the entire fate of 330 million Americans rests on total fucking idiot like Donald Trump. It’s all very sad. In general, however, I would suggest that things are going to get lit the moment SCOTUS actually does, in fact, overturn Roe.
Buckle up.
Thoughts Upon Being On The Cusp Of The Third Act Of The First Draft Of My First Novel
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
After several years of struggle, I’m finally — finally — about to enter the third act of the first draft of my first novel. One interesting thing about this process has been how much my outline changes once I start to actually write scenes using it.
I compare it to the difference between using Google Maps and using Street View Google Maps. Once you plop yourself into the actual location first hand and walk around in the real world, everything changes. But, thankfully, it definitely seems as though I’m about to wrap up this first draft pretty soon.
If things go according to plan — and they still may not — I should wrap up the first draft of my this first novel by the end of May. Then I pause for a month, work on fleshing out the next two novels in the project (along with a “second track novel) and then throw myself into working on the second draft of the novel starting probably around July 4th weekend.
I already have a lot of ideas about how to make the second draft of this novel a lot — and I mean A LOT — better. I’m holding off reading and re-reading some how-to novel books because I don’t want to spook myself before I finish the first draft. Once I actually finish this first draft, everything, in a sense, will be thrown up in the air.
I’m going to deconstruct everything then throw it all back together in a way that is hopefully a lot better than the first draft.
Gird Your Loins
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m growing very frustrated with all the keyboard warriors who seem to think that getting really angry on Twitter is going to change anything. I definitely don’t want any violence, but something’s gotta give.
If we continue to waste our time on Twitter instead of preparing in the real world for our coming choice of autocracy or civil war, then, lulz, our choice has already been made for us — it’s autocracy. What’s even worse is at our time of greatest need, the people who would otherwise serve as the core of any real-world resistance to our coming MAGA themed fascist autocracy — Blue Check Liberals — are all going to decamp to the south of France.
I have very low expectations for the United States politically going forward. There may be some chaos here and there going forward, but as of this moment, it definitely seems as though we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy. And if it’s Ron DeSantis not Trump who is the GQP nominee in 2024, it’s extremely unlikely we’ll have a civil war.
DeSantis (or whomever, as long as it isn’t Trump) is so smooth in a traditional political sense that at first nothing will change until we wake up 20 years from now and they’re still in office. We’re extremely close to having a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention. Maybe three or four resolutions, I think? In fact, I would go so far as to say the big political debate of Trump’s second term, should there be one, will be the fact that the Constitutional Convention has gone rouge and now we’re going to be a full fascist state.
Anyway, lulz, nothing matters.
At the moment, it seems as though we just don’t have the gumption to address, in the real world, the rise of autocratic fascism in the United States. The center-Left is too divided, weak willed and misguided for there to be much fight when the time comes.
I don’t want violence and I don’t want a civil war. But a nation divided upon itself cannot stand. We’re going to go one way or another. Something huge is going to happen between now and 2025. It could be that we have something akin to a civil war, it could be that it becomes conventional wisdom that it is, on a Constitutional level, nearly impossible for a Democrat to become POTUS.
And once that happens, it’s over. All the extremely unpopular policy goals that Republicans have will gradually — or not so gradually — become law and by 2042, we’ll be no different politically than modern day Russia.
A lot can happen between now and January 2025. But I’m going to be flabbergasted if we just don’t slouch towards autocracy.
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