Category: Tsar-A-Largo

How The United States Could Have A Second Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to get a steady stream of people to this site interested in my dystopian predictions about America’s future. A lot — and I mean A LOT — of people have a Second American Civil War on the brain, apparently.

While I still contend any such civil war will likely happen in about four years, there is one scenario where it happens NOW. It revolves around Trump being the Mad King.

Right now, a lot of MAGA suck ups continue to make political calculations while Trump — at least in my opinion — has totally gone off the reservation. He’s thinking strictly in terms of self-preservation in the context of him having a tenuous, at best, connection to reality.

Now, at this point, let me tell the MAGA people who are drinking a cold one and smoking a doobie in Alabama who think there’s going to be some sort of conservative “revolution” to slow their roll — that’s just not going to happen. You guys have plenty of guns, yes, but you want to fuck them, not use them. There’s a big difference between hating libtards in the abstract and actually, like, running around murdering them in cold blood because you’re afraid your going to be “canceled” for simply being conservative.

So, back to the civil war.

Here’s how it could happen. Trump, having lost his mind, does a number of transactional things that are simply, at last, inexcusable on a political level. He declares martial law. He actively begins to tell Red States to leave the Union — and they do.

If you want a civil war — which apparently some of you fucking Right wing cocksuckers do — that’s how you get one. Trump goes full Col. Kurtz on us and actively begins to either do things that cause Blue States to want to leave the Union or goads Red States into leaving the Union…while he’s still president of the Union.

If none of those type things happen between now and January 20th, then you’re just going to have to wait for your civil war. You just going to have to risk being canceled a few more years.

The Conditions Exist For A Severe Political Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

No one listens to me and they probably shouldn’t. But I would like to note that it’s self-evident that the most powerful country in the world is careening towards an unprecedented political crisis.

It’s going to be abrupt, it’s going to be severe and it’s going to scare the shit out of everyone.

Now, let’s break things down a little bit. A number of macro trends are all coming to a head at the same time and it’s only a matter of if they come crashing down on us now or in, say, the 2024 timeframe. Given that it’s self-evident that Trump has totally lost his fucking mind and, is, as such goading otherwise sane people to do bonkers things, it definitely seem as though our “political 9/11” is going to happen NOW, not later.

A huge amount of what’s going on doesn’t make any sense politically and that’s because the person who is forcing this issue isn’t sane — Trump is thinking now not about about his political future but cold, hard self-preservation. So, he’s willing to take risks and do things that could blow up in his face first because he’s not thinking clearly and two he doesn’t care — he just wants to stay in power so he doesn’t risk going to prison. You could also speculate he’s a fucking traitor and he’s doing all of this at the behest of Putin, but lulz, nothing matters.

It’s easy to imagine something like this happening in the next few days — there’s a major domestic terror attack on the part of Iranians for the assassination of Soleimani on January 3rd. This, in turn, gives Trump the opportunity to bomb the hell out of Iran and, as a “war president” take “total control.”

It’s easy to imagine a situation that in the context of the Proud Boys causing problems in D.C. on January 6th just a Congress is meeting to certify the vote, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act thinking it’s some sort of fascist panacea (it’s not) and all his problems will go away.

Now, this is when Trump’s tenuous connection to reality would smash up against some pretty cold, hard facts. The U. S. Military isn’t going to follow an illegal order. And even though I consider SCOTUS controlled by a bunch of MAGA hacks, it’s a dubious supposition to imagine them throwing their lot entirely with a tyrant when he needed them in such a massive Constitutional crisis.

But we have to be clear — the conditions are there, at least, for not only rolling political violence between January 3 and January 20th (and beyond) but Trump, having completely fucking lost his mind, pushing the Constitution to its limit and scaring the shit out of all of us when he starts to grow not only transactional on Twitter, but extremely passive aggressive.

Let me be clear — I can’t predict the future. I’m just talking about the conditions for a severe political crisis. I’m almost always wrong and it could be that this whole thing is going to — thankfully — be a dud. But when you have someone as crazy as Trump feeling like a caged rat for a few weeks with zero accountability, anything and I mean ANYTHING is possible.

The Narrative For A Trump Coup Attempt


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A Twitter thread by Bill Kristol finally gives me a handle on what Trump might do between now and, say, January 7th. It goes something like this.

The anniversary of the Soleimani assassination is Jan 3rd. It’s easy to imagine a situation where there’s some significant attack against Israeli and American interests in the Middle-East and Trump uses that to escalate things on the eve of the January 6th vote by Congress to certify the vote. That makes Trump a “war president.”

Next, the Proud Boys in D.C. for the Congressional certification freak the fuck out and start blowing shit up to the extent necessary to give Trump the excuse to use the Insurrection Act in D.C. In that context, he does something extra-political or extra-legal by pretty much just waving his hands about the details and doing something so he “wins” the election when Congress discusses the issue.

This would be a massive clusterfuck and I honestly don’t see how Trump would be successful. But such a sequence of events could, in itself, be the “political 9/11” I’ve been worried about and lead to a secession crisis and subsequent civil war.

It’s Almost Inevitable At This Point That Trump Pardons Himself


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a very specific reason why I believe Trump is going to pardon himself at some point before January 20th — the conversations on the codeword classified servers.

Trump is such a fucking idiot — an a paranoid one at that — that it’s easy to imagine a situation where he panics at the thought of anyone not beholden to him seeing whatever it is he told Putin — and others — on those transcripts. So just before he legally leaves office — on way or another — he pardons himself knowing Pence is unlikely to do it for him.

Now, Trump pardoning himself will be a curious situation. In hindsight, there is some merit to the MAGA people who saw my fears about Trump as entirely abstract. Outside of a few real dick moves, Trump hasn’t really a lot of the tyrannical things I — and people like me — have feared. He’s just a big old ding-dong, not an autocrat.

But for him to pardon himself would be next level. It would be something concrete that people like me could point to and say, “That’s the mark of an autocrat.”

I’m well aware that even that would be a lulz in real terms, given that Trump’s about to leave office. But, here’s the rub — it’s still very possible that Trump could go grow so fucking deranged post January 6th that he completely changes the context of his era in the closing days of it.

If Trump pulled something extra-legal or extra-political — like pardoning himself (to name just one thing) then the very people who have poo-pooed the anger of people like myself when it comes to Trump will have to at least confront that he’s done something difficult — but not impossible — to defend.

And, really, if you think about it — Trump pardoning himself is not even as bad as it could get if he really fucking flipped out. I still think Trump might start a war out of the blue against Iran (or the DPRK) or figure out a way to frogwalk Joe Biden (or Obama!) in his final days.

But, really, who knows when it comes to Trump at this point. Anything is possible.

Are We Going To Have A Civil War?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Short answer: No, probably not right now.
Long Answer: Yes, probably in a few years. Let me explain.

There’s one major issue whenever you try to game out a Second American Civil War and that’s Trump. On one hand, Trump has done everything in his power to destabilize the United States the last five years.

On the other hand — he’s just a ding-dong.

What I mean by that is, he was handed everything necessary to destroy the United States in a one-two punch…and he went golfing. So, for the time being, we’re an autocracy without an autocrat. If Trump really was some sort of American Putin, he would have thought six or seven steps in advance and goaded the Blue States into leaving the Union at some point, so he could destroy them and remake them in his own MAGA image.

But, to date, he’s not do anything like that.

Yet, this has not stopped a lot of people on both the Left and the Right to begin talking outloud about some sort of civil war. On the Right, it seems to be them grasping at abstract straws in desperation. They feel that because of cancel culture and various other faux controversies that they REALLY HATE liberals, so a civil war is the worst thing they can think up in that line of thought. But, to date, their rage against “libtards” has been exclusively been abstract. They just hate liberals, but don’t really have any concrete, specific things they are going to do to them in the real world.

So, for the time being, because we’re an autocracy without an autocrat, we’re going to be in a very surreal situation where all the conditions are there for a civil war of some sort…and nothing happens. We will drift for about two years then gradually things will reach a crescendo around 2023 – 2025 and some sort of secession crisis will happen and that will be that.

It seems as though because Trump is NOT the guy from The Apprentice in real life, that we’re going to punt this particular problem down the road a few years.

And, yet.

This is Trump we’re talking about.

So, it’s within the realm of possibility that starting around January 6th , Trump’s sense of self-preservation will grow so much stronger than any political considerations that he will attempt something extra-political or extra-legal and that, in itself, will be such a massive clusterfuck that Trump will destroy himself politically and redefine the entire Trump Era.

That, in itself, will punt America’s lurch into autocracy down the road not just one presidential cycle, but a generation. Just about then, of course, the youngest of the Baby Boomers will be dying off at last and so, who knows. But remember, this is not going to be some sort of liberal fever dream — for this to happen, it would need to be a “political 9/11” whereby Trump scares the shit out of all of us and takes a political pound of flesh.

Anyway. I can’t predict the future.

Trump Is Not Well


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long been ranting about the implications of Trump being a deranged ding-dong, but we’ve reached next-level crisis because after January 6th, Trump isn’t going to have any political or legal options left. So, it’s very possible he’ll explode, instead of implode mentally.

If he were to implode mentally, then we probably wouldn’t know. He just would be catatonic in the White House and we just wouldn’t see him for a few weeks until he mysteriously popped up a few months from now tan, ready and rested. So, it’s very possible Trump will explode — he may very well go completely insane after Congress meets on January 6th.

Did Stephen King predict our fate?

My fear is, of course, that Trump will finally snap but we won’t realize what’s going on at first because he’s been acting crazy for so long that his sudden decent into crazyland will at first be just a matter of degree. But I think one way we will really begin to know Trump has snapped is a combination of him going transactional on Twitter and him growing extremely passive-aggressive there as well.

He’ll not only start to tell MAGA to do things for him in the real world, he’ll also start whining about how liberals “hate him and want him to kill himself” or even out of the blue talk about how he controls our nuclear arsenal. It will be talk like this that might — might — finally scare the shit out of Republicans enough that they decide to do something about it.

But, alas, I think even then, they’re going to sit on their hands. Trump would really, REALLY do something completely insane for Republicans to do anything at this late date in his administration. The only thing I can think of is Trump somehow goes way out of his way and starts a war with the DPRK which involves a limited nuclear exchange.

Then, maybe, #MoscowMitch might do something about Trump.

Otherwise, lulz, nothing matters.

Or, put another way, Trump has his fate — and the fate of humanity — in his hands for the time being and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Why Trump Was Not ‘America’s Hitler’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, before we begin, let me note that Trump “not being Hitler” isn’t what you might think — Trump’s not Hitler not because he’s not a deranged lunatic, but he’s so lazy and incompetent he can’t exploit the conditions that would otherwise MAKE him Hitler.

Let’s put it this way — the people who voted for Trump in 2016 were on a spectrum. There were people who wanted Trump to be America’s Hitler. There were also a lot of conservatives-who-weren’t-MAGA were given a permission structure to “come home” to the Republican Party when it counted: election day. In this sense, all things being equal, Trump was set to be an American Hitler — then he blew it.

What people like me saw in Trump was a Hitler-like character. We spun all these dark, dystopian scenarios where Trump would go full-autocrat on us and start off at Putin and endup at Hitler before it was all over with. Then we spent 4 years expecting Trump to do all these autocratic things…that he never did. Trump never did some basic Hitler-like actions that could have destroyed American democracy and taken us on the path towards some semblance of a Trumplandian-Nazi America. So, the case could be made that while Trump slice the seal of autocracy and tyranny, we may have dodged a bullet for the time being because of it was Trump, specifically, who was elected in 2016. If it had been anyone else, then they would have had the wherewithal to actually be an American Hitler.

The surreal thing is Trump, in a frantic attempt to stay in power, may change the entire context of the Trump Era. If Trump destroys himself politically by attempting to seize power through extra-political or extra-legal means, then it’s possible that he will so enrage Americans that for one, brief moment, we’ll be united it how much we all hate Trump.

Then, of course, we’ll descend into finger-pointing and recriminations. And, remember, the conditions that put Trump in the position to become an American Hitler will still be there, so it could be someone younger and more focused who ultimately does the deed.

But it definitely seems as though we’re careening towards some sort of “political 9/11” between now and January 20th. How exactly that will happen is anyone’s guess. Even if Trump attempted some sort of American Reichstag Fire in an effort to stay in power, it’s just too late. He’s done none of the hard work that Hitler would have done in Trump’s position.

So, in the end, it’s possible Trump might, just might, punt America’s lurch towards Nazi-style tyranny down the road a decade or so. But we’re not out of the woods yet. Anything can happen now MAGA has enjoyed power for four years.

TNSTAAFL: Trump’s $2,000 Stimulus Check Gambit Is Ominous



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgar

Like previous beleaguered presidents in our history, Trump is beginning to get desperate. Coming out for a $2,000 stimulus check is not nearly the manna from heaven that the populist liberals of Twitter would have you to believe.

Trump sees such a gambit is as not only a way to stick it to #MoscowMitch, but a way to shore up his support with the public should he attempt extra-political or extra-legal methods to stay in office. There’s a reason why he wanted to make sure he signed the first stimulus checks — it worked. A lot of people, especially Hispanics in Florida, noticed who signed the checks and voted for him.

Think of it as political “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Trump isn’t asking for the money out of the kindness of his heart — he has sinister motives. He’s beginning to think in strictly self-preservation terms.

We can only hope that he doesn’t finally snap and start, I don’t know, blackmailing us all on Twitter by suggesting he might blow the world up if he can’t stay president.

Advice To The ‘Patriot Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, — eat shit you fucking fascist shithead cocksuckers.

Now that that’s out of the way, I would suggest to would-be Patriot Party founders to have some vision and think outside the box. Put your stick where the puck is going to be, not where it is now.

So, in that sense, don’t see the Patriot Party as the MAGA party, see it as the neo-Luddite party. Remember, Elon Musk could very well destroy the trucking industry virtually overnight with self-driving semis. That’s three million people out of work right there.

As such, if you’re going to be thinking up some sort of National Socialist American Workers Party ideology, I would suggest you attack technology. Or, specifically, worker-replacing technology. This is something that would give you broad appeal in both the far Right AND far Left. If you played your cards right, you could totally upend the entire American political system in fairly short order.

But I would also note that Trump seems primed to flame out politically in a rather dramatic fashion. You might want to look for a new leader who can articulate this anti-technology agenda in a smooth, toothy fashion. Trumpism without Trump.

I don’t wish you good luck. But it will be interest to see what the future of the fucking fascist Patriot Party will be.

Republicans Have Become The ‘Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is becoming clear that Trump is no longer thinking in terms of politics but rather strictly in terms of self-preservation. As such, we’re careening towards a moment in time when Trump goes extra-legal and extra-political in his attempts to stay in power. There are a number of things that are concerning me about this.

The Defense Department
Trump keeps cramming the Defense Department with cronies. I’ve read somewhere that this may be an effort on the part of Trump to find out how much he could, in fact, get away with if push comes to shove. That’s really nerve wracking because what if Trump somehow manages to move the autocratic dial a little bit. Just a little bit would freak us all the fuck out.

Mike Pence
I’m growing concerned that on Jan. 6th Trump will goad Mike Pence to simply nullify the certification of Electoral College votes by not doing his job — or not doing it in a manner that follows the spirit of the law. Remember, the point of this would be to throw things to SCOTUS in such a partisan manner that they’re absolutely boxed into a up-or-down corner. Trump wants a replay of 2000 because he’s a craven ding-dong who’s actual political skill is little more than that of Chauncy Gardner in Being There. So, it’s very possible that there will be extreme, rancorous debate in Congress over the certification of votes, but in the end, Trump will lose. Even if Pence tries to be a spanner in the works.

Trump Going Transactional
This is a real wildcard. As it becomes more and more clear that Trump is, in fact, going to actually have to leave office, it’s possible that he stops “joking” and insinuating about violence against his enemies and flat out tells MAGA to murder liberals in cold blood. Or he could begin to demand Red States hold snap conventions so they secede. Pretty much anything is on the table once Trump finally snaps mentally.

‘Downfall’
This is probably my worse fear. If we get to this stage of things, then Trump really has lost his mind. This is a very dark situation, indeed. Everything from Trump blackmailing America by suddenly bringing up his ability to use nuclear weapons to him going the literal Hitler-in-the-bunker route would be possible under this scenario.

But there are some things to take into consideration. One is Trump is not nearly as well-put-together as we keep thinking and he’s so unstable and lazy that any transactional things he does may be so half-hearted and poorly thought out that they aren’t very successful.

Yet, we’ve now officially entered the most dangerous phase of the Trump Era. Anything could happen. We could all get the shit scared out of us before it’s over with. There will be no narrative, no value as it all happens.