You Can Feel The Historical Forces Aligning To Cause Either A Second American Civil War Or Decent Into Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s rare that you can actually see, first hand, significant macro historical forces at work. But that’s what we got right now in the United States. The crux of the issue, as is explicated in Ezra Klein’s “Why Were’ Polarized,” is white people are beginning to wake up to the looming inevitability of them being in the minority and a sizable portion of them don’t like it one bit.

All the fucked up shit going on in the United States spring from that fact. Everything from the fight over immigration (brown people scary!) to abortion (make more white babies!) to you name it comes from not “economic anxiety” but regular old racism.

There’s no such thing as reveled truth and I can’t predict the future, but I am enough of a student of history to know the America we have known for about 240 years simply isn’t going to make it through the passions of another presidential cycle. Or, if it does, it will only happen at the cost of a great amount of blood and treasure. Nothing short of a Third American Covenant [first: 1776 second: 1865)] will save our sorry asses at this point.

In other words — a civil war.

But that’s not the only option. We could just shrug when MAGA Republicans refuse to certify Joe Biden’s reelection and in January 2025 and that’s it. We’ll be run by hateful MAGA cocksuckers for decades to come. They will slowly at first, then faster and faster begin to crack down their pet peeves about modern America until they transform us in to Trumplandia.

But 2024 is it. That year will be make or break. But there won’t be any middle ground. The time for compromise will be over. You will have to pick a side, one way or another, no matter what the outcome is. And it will be existential. If there’s a civil war, then your personal safety will be decided by your politics. If its autocracy, then you either become a Good American or you get pushed out a window by a weaponized ICE agent.

As I keep saying, I have no idea what to tell you about how to prepare for this epic clusterfuck. I would suggest you get out of the country if that’s an option. But if it’s not, then make sure your personal politics align with the state you live in.

There are plenty of things that could happen that could punt this particular problem down the road. It happened in 2020, it could happen again. But Republicans are so far into fascism at this point that either they provoke significant political violence or they win and snuff out our liberties once and for all.

MAGA already glorifies political violence and it’s only going to get worse. But I have said over and over again, they are making a serious mistake on a strategic level by being so fucking bloodthirsty. If they were just patient and played by the rules, they could get everything they wanted in a peaceful manner. The entire system is already rigged in their favor in various ways. It’s when they overreach and steal the 2024 election in an extremely brazen fashion that the country will grow extremely unstable.

But, who knows. We might just shrug and let MAGA end our liberal democracy without any conflict at all.

Enjoy This Peace & Quiet While You Can, Civil War Or Autocracy Arrives In 2024-2025


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that the shock is beginning to wear off for MAGA cocksuckers, they are beginning to plot their return to power. It seems their first goal is to eschew policy goals altogether and to wrap themselves up in the Big Lie of “cancel culture.” Using that to gin up the base, they will win back Congress in 2022 and use THAT as a springboard to nullify any election result in 2024 that doesn’t help them.

As such, 2024-2025 is it. We either shrug and become a Russian-style managed democracy or we take up arms and start murdering each other for political reasons.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario whereby Republicans, once they regain control of Congress in 2022, keep in 2024 and if they can’t strangle Biden’s re-election using voter suppression or highjacking local election boards, simply refuse to certify his Electors in early January 2025. Every step along the way, MAGA will be so astonishingly brazen that the likelihood of political violence will grow and grow until they finally we either have a civil war or we give up and turn into an honest-to-God autocracy.

So, in a sense, we’re going to solve the pressing structural issues of the day that we keep punting down the road one way or another in the 2024-2025 timeframe. Either we solve them threw violence or we solve them politically via an autocracy that does whatever the fuck it wants relative to the existential, abstract fears of MAGA whites you are afraid of being in the minority and women with sexual agency.

As I keep saying, I’m not smart enough to tell you what to do about any of this. I hate guns and violence, so my advice is you either get out of the country while you still can or move to a state whose politics fits your own. But even then, you’re going to have to make a choice at some point.

If there’s a civil war, you’re going to have to make some huge sacrifices so your side can win the war. If there’s an autocracy, you’re going to have to either be a “Good American” who follows the rules or risk your entire life being ruined not from some abstract “cancel culture” but because ICE agent thugs will either push you out a window or throw you in an ICE camp for speaking out against the party line.

I honestly have no idea which direction America is going to pick in 2024-2025, but I do know it will pick a direction.

Notes On A Second American Civil War And Realpolitik For Bloodthirsty MAGA Types


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Anyone — especially a MAGA person — who wants a Second American Civil War is very, very dumb and misguided. MAGA is so fucking bloodthirsty because they’re fucking crybabies who think simply not getting want they want is a form of oppression. Add to this their belief that compromise is weakness and you have recipe for disaster in 2024-2025.

The thing that MAGA is completely oblivious about is the different dynamic between politics and war. With politics, you can screw over people by making it so difficult to vote that they don’t. Or you can control the media narrative such that a lying, racist, misogynistic piece of shit you support gets away scot free with any amount of criminal behavior.

But war is, by definition, existential. And you can be MAGA and have all the fucking guns you want to fuck and in the end you will lose because you just don’t have the things in aggregate to win. Blue States have bigger economies with better educated people — and women likely willing to fight! –than Red States. And, remember, that while the country is pretty much split 50/50 Blue States have more people in smaller spaces and a far more united polity than Red States.

What I mean by that is, the place where Red States would likely draw their most strength from — the old Confederacy — simply isn’t as united on an existential level. All the Jim Crow 2.0 that places like Georgia and Texas are up to now are power politics plays. But they won’t mean shit if things grow life or death.

If there’s a hot civil war and everyone has to take a stand and pick a side on a life-or-death basis this one, all the culture war talking points fate into oblivion and two things will grow very radical on both sides very quickly. All the systemic problems that we just don’t have the political will to fix — guns, racism, sexism, taxes, you name it — will be solved one way or another because the dead hand of history will force us to decide.

Or it could be a lot more messy than that with the United States splitting into countries that hate each other. Or the country could balkanize in a half-ass manner where bigger states like California, Texas and Florida are in various states of independence while the rest of the country is barely hanging on.

But I know there’s nothing I can do to stop MAGA from either running around murdering people like me in 2024 or finally getting their wish as the United States turning into a Russian-style “managed democracy.”

All I can do if there is a civil war is sit back and tell MAGA “I told you so” when suddenly all the globalist cuck soyboys they think they can simply murder turn out to have a lot more spunk than they predicted.

A Second American Civil War & The Congressional Certification Crisis Of 2024


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On paper, the United States is doomed in 2024. As of right now, there simply is no way that at that point we don’t either become a MAGA managed-democracy autocracy or descend into civil war.

Among the reasons why this is now-nearly a law of nature is it’s almost a certainty that both houses of Congress will flip in 2022 and remain Republican in 2024. As such, the actual vote outcome in 2024 won’t matter. The MAGA Republicans will refuse to certify Biden’s re-election no matter what. Or they’ll do whatever necessary at the state level so his re-election doesn’t even get that far. But the point is — 2024 will be the crossroads.

Will the average American lulz the idea that literally their vote doesn’t count if it isn’t for a Republican or will they take up arms at the injustice. I guess it’s possible Republicans might be the ones taking up arms if THEY don’t get their way, but given how Republicans are becoming bloodthirsty fascists I don’t see how it would come to that. In other words, they will control the process such in 2024 that if they take up arms it will be in the context to reacting to the center-Left doing so rather than taking up arms themselves. Their political goal is to take power before the center-Left knows what hit them.

We long ago established that no matter how many votes you win by, if you lose by one vote in a strategic state you lose the presidency. As such, the next logical step is for us to lulz Congress using its “legal” right to engage in certification nullification. It simply won’t do what it’s otherwise supposed to do because it doesn’t like the outcome.

But, again, that’s where the fork in the road happens.

A lot would depend on if Republicans lost control of the political narrative in some way and people got woke to what was going on. That inability to strike before the narrative was established was Trump’s biggest screw up. If he had gone full autocrat anytime during the summer of 2020 he would still be president right now.

Or even if he had struck in some major way between election night and when the election was called for Biden, he would still be president. He was simple too lazy, too much of a ding-dong to do the hard work of being an autocrat. He thought he could simply rant about it and get what he wanted. The next autocrat in waiting won’t be so dumb.

Anyway, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where Republicans make a major power grab at both the state level and, if that fails them, Congress. They simply refuse to accept the election of a Democrat. Period. Full stop. They might dress this up in a bunch of legal bullshit but the end result would be the same — we would have Republicans in power in Washington for decades to come.

And that’s where I just don’t know. I don’t know the reaction of average Americans. Maybe as long as the economy was going well and freedom of speech wasn’t really touched that much that there might be something of a stalemate at this point. Republicans have “hard” power of making policy and passing laws, while Democrats would have the “soft” power of the media. The only way anything would ever change is when Republicans did something so totally, absolutely indefensible that they were shamed into doing the right thing. Though, of course, Republicans have no shame so that would only work occasionally.

The other option is a civil war. And here’s the thing — under the conditions of war, Blue States are in a far better position to win than Red States. Red States have massive — and growing — political power for various reasons but the moment you shift your metrics from power politics to geopolitical realpolitik then everything changes.

Blue States have biggest populations and economies. They wouldn’t have to worry about a race war. Not only are their economies bigger, but they’re more smaller and more concentrated. But there are a lot of known unknowns. Would would be the leaders of Red and Blue? Who uses stolen WMD, where and why?

Remember, this clusterfuck would not happen in a vacuum. It’s very likely that WW3 would happen in conjunction. A number of limited nuclear exchanges would happen around the world as the United States fell into chaos. What’s more, it’s even possible that a state like the DPRK might lob a few nukes our way just for shits and giggles.

I have no idea if we will chose civil war or autocracy. That’s just too far out into the future for me to know. But I do know that MAGA is so fucking dumb to want a civil war. Very, very dumb. They can get everything they want by at least pretending to work within the confines of liberal democracy.

MAGA & The Crisis In Ukraine


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s a testament to how fucked up the American political system is right now that a powerful portion of electorate sees Putin’s autocratic managed-democracy as something to look up to.

Let me be clear from the beginning — I’m not expert on what’s going on in Ukraine with the Russians but I know enough to have an educated opinion. It definitely seems as though there’s a greater-than-zero-sum chance that the Russians might make some sort of power grab in the coming days. As such, it makes you wonder what the reaction of MAGA would be to such an event.

A lot depends on if any conflict between Ukraine and Russia is big enough to puncture the America’s inward looking media narrative bubble. If it’s simply a short, swift tactical attack then, lulz, it may be the focus of news junkies but in general Blue and Red will continue to be too busy plotting how we’re going to murder each other in cold blood for political reasons in four years to worry about it.

But, God forbid, it’s not just a tactical land grab but a significant war then there’s a possibility that much like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s the event will come to dominate the American news cycle. And we really haven’t had such a conflict in the era of social media so it’s possible that both sides would flood Americans Facebook and Twitter feeds with gore and violence in an effort to swing public opinion.

That’s where MAGA gets involved.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario where MAGA gives full-throated support to the Russians to the point that, much like the COVID19 pandemic what you think about what should be done will be seen through the prism of your political affiliation.

The traditional Cold War dynamic might be turned upside down with MAGA Republicans siding with the Russians and everyone else siding with Ukraine. Though, to be fair, the dynamic would be a bit more complicated than that — a lot would rest on what Trump’s hot take on the situation was. A lot Establishment Republicans — especially in the Senate — would freak the fuck out if Russia attacked Ukraine in a major way and difference between MAGA Republicans and traditional conservative Republicans might be quite glaring.

And, remember, the last time Ukraine was part of public debate in the United States is was as part of Trump’s first impeachment trial. So there may be some lingering hostility towards Ukraine on the part of some Republicans that might not otherwise be there.

And, yet, I have my doubts that anything will come up Russia’s current shenanigans on the Ukrainian border. They do shit like this all the time and it’s possible after a few days this will recede from our attention like all the other times Putin has done similar things.

Second American Civil War: A State By State Breakdown


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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.

MAGA’s Bloodthirsty Nature & The Prospect Of A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Holy shit has MAGA become bloodthirsty. If my webstats are any indication there is a huge interest in some sort of “second American civil war.” Of course, the ironic part is all my dystopian predictions about such a war are done in the context of ranting about how much I fucking hate MAGA.

But I guess if you’re a cocksucker MAGA person you gotta find your second civil war porn where you can.

Anyway, the question is how did we get to this state of affairs? MAGA’s obsession with a civil war, I think, started with Reagan panting liberals as evil incarnate. It just happened to take 40 years for that particular attempt at de-humanization to fully come to fruition.

The surreal thing about MAGA’s obsession with a civil war is how poorly thought out it is. I know why they, in the abstract, want a civil war so bad — they conflate their rising political power with what they might achieve via bloodshed. And they’re such fucking crybabies that just because they can’t get what they want, they want to run around murdering people.

The only thing I can compare this to is “slave power” in the late 1850s. They really were screwing over the North and when Lincoln was elected and there was even a whiff of them not getting everything they wanted, they freaked out and attempted to leave the Union.

So, here we are, about three years away from MAGA freaking the fuck out no matter what happens in 2024. Either they win in 2024 and begin the process of turning us into Russia, or they lose and attempt to leave the Union. The time for punting such problems down the road is over. We’re totally, completely fucked and the sooner the center-Left realizes the gravity of this situation, the better.

But I don’t see what can be done at this point other than just hunker down. The macro forces at play in the United State’s political system right now are simply too powerful to be stopped by anything. There’s just no punting this crisis down the road anymore.

In 2024-2025 everyone will have a pick a side. Everyone will have a choice to make. We have something of a spectrum from civil war to autocracy ahead of us in 2024 and in no scenario will the average person avoid having to do a serious gut check.

Either your personal safety will be at risk because of your politics if you live in the wrong place, or when the autocracy comes you’re going to have to make a personal decision as to how much of a “Good American” you’re going to be.

I’ve already told my conservative relatives to just turn me in should we become an autocracy. I’m never fucking shutting up. I’d rather die on my feet a free man then live on my knees a slave.

Well, At Least A Second Civil War Would Be One Way To Fix Modern America’s Problems


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about history is, there’s no narrative while you’re living through it. We give history value and a narrative after the fact to make sense of the world. When history is actually happening around you, it fucking sucks.

There are a number of systemic problems in modern America that are eating away at our rotting liberal democracy. As such, we’re at something of a crossroads. Who’s vision of America will we follow? MAGA’s racist, misogynistic white Christian ethno state, or the liberal-progressive vision of equality, inclusion and traditional liberal democratic values?

Now, I will be the first to admit that “woke” “cancel culture” — even though it doesn’t really exist — is something that conservatives have a legitimate reason to worry about (in some respects.) What I mean is, we’re two different countries that are quickly receding from each other to the point that conservatives don’t know the “new rules” of society that are being established in major metropolitan areas.

At the crux of this clusterfuck, I believe, is young people have lost all perspective on what’s important. It’s been close to 50 years since they had to worry about the draft and the hell of war is nothing more than an abstract. I think the way to solve a lot of our systemic problems in National Service for all 18 year olds. That would be one way to get good old boys from Alabama to be forced to talk to Brooklyn soyboys and vis versa.

Tragically, that’s just not an option.

Even though I would much, much rather just continue to patch up our rotting liberal democracy for as long as possible to punt the prospect of war down the road, if you take MAGA’s bloodlust seriously, you have to admit to yourself that if the “good guys” won any such civil war then at least — on a macro level — a lot of our intractable problems might find some suddenly very easy solutions.

But that’s a big “if.”

It’s very easy to imagine MAGA cocksuckers winning or the country splitting into two and each side implementing their own visions for America in their respective new nations.

I do find it very troubling, however, how fucking bloodthirsty MAGA is right now. Jesus Christ, people.

Life In Modern Antebellum America — Taking The Prospect Of Civil War In 2024 Seriously


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You would be amazed at how many people who come to this site apparently think they’re going to be some sort of MAGA revolution NOW. It blows my mind. There’s some fucked up shit brewing in the Far Right echo chamber and we’re just not prepared for it.

The only thing I can compare it to is pre-WW1 Europe where people had forgotten how much the Napoleonic Wars had sucked and were itching for a new opportunity to bathe in the glories of war. In other words, MAGA cocksuckers are so wrapped up in the abstract of killing liberals that they have completely deluded themselves as to what such a conflict might actually be like.

As I have repeatedly said before, MAGA looks at the center-Left and sees a bunch of globalist cuck soyboys who they can easily crush. I would suggest to them to first — fuck off — and second even a soyboy might get a bit more frisky if you stuck a gun in their face. MAGA people with bloodlust are taking the dynamic of our rotting liberal democracy and extrapolating it to the world of war and the two are not the same.

I don’t even know what the war aims of MAGA would be in a civil war. As of right now, it seems like their goals in a civil war are little more than a grunt. They just have been so brain washed by FOX News that they probably couldn’t even tell you WHY they hate liberals so much.

And, remember, if we really did have a civil war Red States have two major problems. One, the places where they could most successfully seize control are small, white states. Meanwhile, the states that would otherwise provide them with the economies and population they would need to seize “total control” have large African American communities that would rather engage in a race war than leave the Union so a bunch of Nazi Confederate fucktards can make them slaves again. UGH.

Here’s another thing — any “hot” civil war in the United States would unleash significant radicalization on both sides. It’s easy to imagine a situation where Blue States drafted women into some sort of New Model Army, which would greatly increase the potential pool of soldiers.

I guess the argument could be made that Red States could simply use stolen WMD to nuke and gas Blue States into submission but once that particular genii was let out of its bottle then both sides would use it. Such vicious behavior would only serve to radicalize both sides even more as the war progressed.

What I want to make clear is the center-Left needs to take the threat of some sort of sucker punch on the part of Red States in 2024 seriously. MAGA cocksuckers have zoomed past the mental preperation necessary to start murdering people like me in cold blood and the sooner center-Left people (or people who simply want to live in a traditional liberal democracy) begin to figure out how they’re going to address that in 2024, the better.

Taking Tucker Carlson Seriously As A 2024 Presidential Candidate


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just from my own personal experience with conservatives in my family, I can tell you that Tucker Carlson definitely would be a serious political figure the moment he announced for president.

Trump is obviously a problem for him, but if Trump decides to simply run via the proxies of either Ivanka Trump or Lara Trump then Carlson has a far more serious chance of winning both the nomination and the election.

The thing about Carlson is, he, like Trump before him would go into the presidency not having any experience being in government. So, at least at first, the same dynamic that too place in 2017 would be repeated. President Carlson would screw up and he would incite a huge amount of graft and corruption simply because he would have no idea what he was doing.

But here’s where things would be different — Carlson is actually a sane human being who after going through an extremely sharp learning curve would figure out the ropes of government and be able to implement his White Nationalist vision for America.

So, it’s easy to imagine Carlson being able to make his personal version of MAGA a reality in ways that Trump simply was not able to. I don’t think we appreciate how rotten to the core our liberal democracy is and how easy it would be for Carlson to become an autocrat.

And, really, the sad thing is there are half a dozen other would-be Republican autocrats waiting in the wings, wanting to do exactly the same thing.