Category: The Resistance

Why I’m Really Worried About The United States In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A number of things are coming together at the same time to destabilize the United States. Everything from negative polarization to income inequality is eating away at the very fabric of the greatest nation in world history.

I just don’t know if we’re going to make it through the 2024 presidential silly season.

There is every reason to believe we will, but even if we do, we could very well peacefully slide into autocracy under a second Trump Administration. They key thing for me is the Republican Party wants an autocratic white Christian ethnostate sooooo fucking bad that, in a sense, Trump is all that stands in the way of the getting their goal.

Not because he’ll lose, but because if he wins, he could very well rile everyone up so much in the ham-handed manner in which he tries to establish that autocratic white Christian ethnostate that there’s a “Glorious Revolution” by Blues and he’s deposed — not that I’m advocating anything!

Anyway. A lot is going wrong in the US right now. But for my worst fears to come true — that the US would collapse into revolution and / or civil war — a lot more shit would have to go wrong.

Hopefully, at a minimum, we’ll just peacefully turn into an autocracy and I’ll figure out some way to leave the country.

If Trump’s Presidency Proved Anything, It’s That A Kamala Harris Presidency Would Be Fine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump staggered through four years of a horrible, chaotic presidency. I’ve heard at least one person say that they will vote for Trump because they’re afraid of a Kamala Harris presidency.

The more I think about that fear, the more racist it sounds.

Harris is not great for various reasons, including her youth an inexperience. But if she did become POTUS, she would rise to the occasion — something that Trump did not and could not do.

So, I will vote for Joe Biden in 2024 confident that if — God forbid — something happens to him that President Harris will grow into the role. She’s got far more experience — and is far more stable — than Trump was when he came into office in 2017.

It Definitely Seems As Though The United States Is Careening Towards Autocracy or Civil War / Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we’re just not going to make it safely through the 2024 presidential cycle. It definitely seems as though either the United States turns all Red (autocracy) or we collapse into revolution and civil war and (hopefully) the Blue “good guys” win and we turn all Blue because of a Second Reconstruction.

And, yet, it could be this is just more of my “hysterical doom shit.” It could be that lulz, we’ll just muddle through like we always do.

But it seems like it could go either way.

Yet negative polarization is so absolute, so white hot at the moment that I’m very alarmed about our future in late 2024, early 2025. But I can’t predict the future.

Who knows what will happen.

The United States Has a Severe Problem With Corrosive ‘Vibes’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America is growing more and more unstable. The sad thing about it is, that instability boils down to something a nebulous and vacuous as “vibes.” Both Red and Blue have reason to resent the union that we find ourselves in. I will note, of course, that Reds are far bigger crybabies than Blues when they don’t get their way or if they feel slighted.

What’s the most surreal element to all of this is Reds are ascendant politically on a macro basis. But they are totally oblivious to this fact. They are so shortsighted and angry at any perceived slight — even though all the political momentum is on their side — that they’re chomping at the bit to start a civil war.

That’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made when trying to game out potential civil war scenarios — Reds are acting irrationally. They have no political patience and they could very well shoot themselves in the foot and start a civil war even though they are well on their way to getting everything they want if they’re just take a long-term approach to their goals.

It’s interesting when talking to my center-Right relatives how they perceive the center-Left. They seem to think that center-Left people hate Apple Pie and motherhood. They believe that all center-Left people are gay or trans people who hate want to commit infanticide then crow about it on social media.

It’s deeply weird and based almost exclusively on vibes generated within the Right-wing echo chamber of podcasts and Fox News. (Even though a lot of Right wing people like to poo-poo Fox News, the network still sets, a general way, the agenda of the Right wing echo chamber.)

Anyway, I really, really hope that we just muddle through things like we always do (at least have in the past.) But I’m starting to have my doubts.

What Can’t Be Said

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A sign that the United States is growing more and more unstable is it’s growing more and more difficult for people who disagree on policy to talk to each other. It’s difficult to say what is obviously true when talking to some conservatives, which is, “Hey, you’re a bigot.”

You just can’t do it. If you mention racism or bigotry being the core reason why this or that thing is generating so much fear and hate within someone who should know better, it would instantly end the conversation.

But, here we are — sexism, bigotry and racism are now generating a huge amount of political power within conservative ranks. That’s one of the reasons why the two sides are receding from each other at such an alarming rate — conservatives are very touchy — maybe even a bit delusional — whenever the issue of why, exactly they’re so upset about the “crisis at the border” or abortion.

I don’t know what to tell you — either we collectively dodge a bullet and just muddle through another four years….or we don’t.

NOW Biden Can Federalize The Texas National Guard

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that the Senate immigration deal is dead in the House, Biden can go ahead and Federalize the Texas National Guard.

The question, of course, is will he?

Talking to my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — it definitely seems as though if Biden does something so obvious and justified, that on a political basis we may be going to the show.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

Birthright Citizenship Is In Serious Danger If Trump Is Re-Elected

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the absolutely bonkers element of any second Trump Administration is the fact that he will be gunning for something we all taken for granted — birthright citizenship. This make me both very angry and very alarmed because the first thing fascists — like the Nazis — do is start to fuck with who is a “citizen.”


I have conversations with my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — and their reaction to the potential demise of something as fundimental as birthright citizenship is a real life shrug emoji. They just don’t care. All they care about is “securing the border” to the point that when you press them about how they plan to deport 20 million undocumented people — they just laugh.

They don’t care, they just want it to happen, damn the consequences.

So, it definitely seems as though if Trump is re-elected that many of my dystopian fears for his first term will come to fruition. I just don’t know what to tell you folks. It definitely FEELS like I may very well lose my citizenship and find myself in a Trump-branded concentration camp at some point after 2025 if I can’t manage to sell the novel I’m working on and get the hell out of the country.

Trump Is Going To Have Entirely Too Much Political Slack To Consume Before Anyone On The Right Notices That’s He’s Gone Full Tyrant If He’s Re-Elected

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is growing more and more apparent to me that should, God forbid, Trump get re-elected that there is only one Red Line for most Traditionalists — the personal. Otherwise, they will be so happy that brown kids are again being torn from their mothers and put in cages that it will all be a lulz.

But when things get personal, then, yeah, Traditionalists might stop being Good Germans.

The only reason why I even bring such a thing up is Trump is so dumb and lazy that he is the only person who might thrash around in such a tyrannical manner as soon as he has power again that the people who should be the core of his support — center-Right Traditionalists — might actually become “Radical Moderates” just long enough for him to be successfully deposed.

Even this is very iffy.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we really are going to go straight into a dystopian MAGA Nazi future where people like me are snatched off the street an no one — no even Traditionalists who are related to me — will care or notice.

And, yet, at least now, in early 2024, I’m not prepared to assume that that is the case. I’d like to think that if Trump really does go full tyrant on us that because of the Red Line of the personal that Traditionalists might, just might, look the other way if Trump has to be deposed. (Not that I’m advocating anything.)

It definitely will be interesting to see how, exactly, things play out going forward. Just from my conversations with my far more conservative Traditionalists relatives — whom I love dearly — we are in a lot — A LOT — of trouble if Trump is re-elected.

They just don’t believe that Trump is going to do all the shit that he has made very clear that he is going to do if he’s re-elected. I keep talking about Agenda 47 and Project 2025 and they look at me like they have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.

All I can say is, yet again, that late 2024, early 2025 is going to be VERY INTERESTING.

Too Many Center-Left People These Days Miss The Cultural Point Of SNL

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In yet ANOTHER sign that the country is tearing itself apart, the fact that Saturday Night Live is trying its usual thing of trying to threat the political needle is causing people on the center-Left to pitch a fit.

The thing about SNL — which is the Bob Hope of TV entertainment shows — is while it definitely leans Left, it has a long, long history of pretty much just picking on whomever happens to be in power. It’s just that Trump stirred the pot to such an extent that the two sides have really, really hardened their views.

As such, people who are too young to remember how things used to be, think it’s the end of the world if SNL features Nikki Haley or brings back the very, very popular Right wing comic they fired even before the season began a few years ago.

It definitely seems as though all of this is yet more sign that the greatest nation in the world is tearing itself apart over “vibes.”

I Fucking Hate Guns

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My personal view on any sort of violence can be evoked by what Napoleon did when he landed in the south of France after escaping from exile on Elba. When confronted by the army sent to stop him, he was able to use persuasion to get them to join him and the 100 days had begun.

I would much rather use my wits to get what I want than do something a declassee as us a fucking gun.

One of my earliest memories is how I totally agreed with Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H hating guns. Even then I was like — Yep, that’s me.

Rather than collect guns, I collect books. A lot of books. I have a small library of books I’ve collected over the years. And rather plot the overthrow of the government, I put all my energies into writing what I hope will be a six novel project that, using subtext, rants about how much I hate extremism.

All my writing about a Blue “Revolution” in 2025 is just me refusing to have some sort of abstract fear about what might happen if ding-dong Trump becomes POTUS again. That’s it. I just need to, for my own sanity, prove to myself that we, as freedom loving people, at least have options and that America 2025 is NOT Germany 1933.

Anyway. Only time will tell, I guess.