Tag: American Ancien Regime

When The Only Red Line Is You


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about what’s going on in the United States right now is huge, tectonic forces of history are rushing over us as individuals and it’s difficult for us to process what’s going on. Because what’s going on is so huge, the average person can’t see the big picture.

America’s next top autocrat.

I’m not saying I have any revealed truth, but I am pretty good at abstract thought — and I think about stuff like this all the time — so I like to think I have a better bead on what’s going on than some.

It’s kind of surreal that the most powerful, wealthiest nation on the globe is on the cusp of either turning into an autocracy or having a civil war that will destroy it. But let’s talk about the first option, autocracy.

The conservative Traditionalists in my family have varying degrees of interest in the MAGA New Right. On a personal level, they want MAGA without Trump. They generally agree with the MAGA New Right vision, but they struggle to in good faith to defend the “mean tweets” element of it all. And, truth be told, I would even go so far as to suggest that the only reason why they are all willing to buy into the MAGA New Right’s autocratic fascism is they just don’t see any other viable options.

They’re just traditional conservatives who are deathly afraid of “woke cancel culture” in the sense that they’re on edge that some slip of the tongue in public will be recorded, go viral and ruin their lives.

And the leadership of the Republican party knows this very well, so that’s all they talk about. So much so that most of their public statements sound like gibberish to anyone who doesn’t watch Fox News primetime. Any ambitious Republican worth their salt wants to squeeze in “woke,” “critical race theory” and “cancel culture” into any public statement so it might catch the attention of a Fox News producer.

They know what they’re doing, but the net effect is to make them sound like idiots to anyone who isn’t a MAGA New Right person.

But back to the issue at hand. Autocracy.

The United States is an anocracy at the moment. This means we’re not really a democracy and we’re not really an autocracy. And being in this in between politically is a very, very unstable situation. A nation being an anocracy is one of the necessary conditions for civil war, according to experts like Barbara Walter. At the moment, it seems the United States is going to slip peacefully into autocracy.

Trump will run and win in 2024 and we will find ourselves all sitting around waiting for whomever is his veep to become president and, as such, our first true autocrat.

And my Traditionalist relatives will, at first at least, be extremely blase about this new state of affairs. All they will know is their seething rage over the possibility of being “canceled” by “woke culture” is being validated by the new Republican administration.

They will be quite content with the new autocratic policies that President Pompeo or Hawley or Cotton or DeSantis implements. It’s not affecting them in any personal, direct way and their concerns about “woke” culture are being taken seriously, so what’s the problem?

And then there’s me.

I freely admit that, as the late Annie Shapiro said, I’m a “delugional jerk with a good heart.” In short, I can come across as something of a crank. I don’t know what the rules are and I’ve had the luxury of being a round peg in a square hole within the context of a wealthy Western democracy. (Or wealthy constitutional democratic republic if you want to get all MAGA New Right technical about things.)

And should the United States slide into a new political era were we grow more and more autocratic over the years, I’m in trouble. Deep trouble. I’m a loudmouth and refuse to bend a knee to injustice. As such, maybe not immediately, but eventually there will come a point, say, sometime in the 2030s when I may very well simply vanish.

And THEN that will be when the Traditionalist in my family will take notice. That’s it. That’s their red line — ME. That’s why I’ve given up talking about politics with my relatives. They’re great and I love them, but if they wait until I’m in ICE custody because I got drunk and called President Pompeo a fat fuck, well, lulz, maybe they could have done something different as autocracy was taking over the country?

This is the point where I wonder if this just more of my usual “hysterical doom shit.” I just don’t think so. I don’t think it’s “hysterical doom shit” to take the thought leaders of the MAGA New Right at face value. They crave autocracy. They love Russia and long to turn the United States into an autocratic white Christian ethno state of blood and soil.

I know myself well enough to know that while I hate conflict and violence, I take the abstract very seriously. And fuck if I’m going to shut up in deference to our new autocrat. Fuck that and fuck him.

Daydreaming Of A ‘Traditionalist’ Party


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have seen a lot of Twitter liberals have some hope that we might see sort of “constitutional conservative” party that would, in effect, give Traditionalists somewhere for enough presidential election cycles until we get the whole autocracy – anocracy – democracy thing sorted out within the context of the browning of America.

Sad to say, I just don’t see that happening.

It’s delusional and gives the non-Blue Check rubes false hope.

You can’t have a successful party when the only people who support it are the people who are in it. I mean, I can count on one hand the people who would make up the leadership of a Constitutional Conservative Party on one hand. (As an aside, I would call it what it is — the Traditionalist Party. It rolls off the tongue a lot better than Constitutional Conservative.)

But, let’s say the Traditionalist Party ran a Pence / Cheney ticket. How successful might it be? That is a very good question. I honestly don’t know. But it probably would be doomed to failure. The reason is Trump (and supporters of the January 6 Insurrection) have such an absolute death-grip over the Republican Party that I just can’t see much happening.

It all goes back to the fear of the browning of America. That trumps — no pun intended — every other argument. That’s why Traditionalists decided to support Trump — insane tweets and all — in the first place. We’re past the even horizon when it comes to tyranny.

And, in the end, all the Blue Check Twitter liberals who got all excited about this dumb political idea will be the first to leave the country for other, more stable nations — should we have a civil war or finally slip peacefully into autocracy.

My Hot Take On Crooked Media’s Ben Rhodes’ Hot Take On Trump’s Electoral ‘Trap’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a fan of Ben Rhodes and the whole Crooked Media team, but I’m in the middle of listening to the latest Pod Save America and I have to take issue with something he just said.

He apparently wrote in The Atlantic that Trump has set something of a “trap” for center-Left people by making them aware of white identity politics, etc. This, in turn, makes us angry to the point that we alienate the people who would otherwise help us win elections.

I have two things to point out about this.

One is, we’re now an anocracy, to the point that we can no longer work with the assumption that elections will be free and fair in the first place. The 2020 elections could be, in fact, the last free-and-fair national elections that the United States ever has (unless, of course, we have a civil war and sort things out that way.) So, it’s difficult to win elections — no matter what your policies are — when the whole system is run by people on the local and state level who have heeded Steve K. Bannon’s call for an “administrative coup.”

Even if we get past that particular situation, the people that Rhodes is talking about that could be appealed to — people I call “Traditionalists” — no longer believe in democracy anymore. They’re all-in with the fascist MAGA New Right because they’re deathly afraid of white people being in the minority.

So, I just don’t see traditional politics being a viable option anymore for the center-Left. Either be prepared for a civil war or get out of the country. I don’t want a civil war and I think, in the end, many, many, MANY wealthy center-Left people — like Ben Rhodes — will ultimately leave the country.

That’s our future. Listening to Crooked Media through a VPN because fucking fat fuck President Mike Pompeo destroyed America. Good luck.

Red Pills & Red Lines


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My life would be so much better if I took the Red Pill and became a MAGA New Right conservative. I would be significantly closer to my relatives. I would have an extensive, built-in friend group. I’m articulate enough and generally passionate enough in whatever it is I believe in that if I would just take the Red Pill, I could be having dinner with Trump within six months.

But you know what — fuck that.

My biggest annoyance with my Traditionalist relatives — who aren’t MAGA New Right, but simply Good Germans — is they think they can get all the goodies of an autocratic white Christian ethno-state without the downsides that inevitably come with it. Form follows function, as they say.

So, because I’m a loudmouth crank who absolutely refuses to shut the fuck up about how I think President Mike Pompeo is a fat fuck, or President Josh Hawley looks like a cartoon character, eventually the very abstract “I only care when it becomes personal” red line that my relatives have at the moment about autocracy will grow very concrete: ME.

Because my Traditionalist relatives would not make common cause with people like me when it mattered — before the autocracy was established — I’m going to be fucked. I’m just too much of a loudmouth. I generally don’t follow the rules and because it’s inevitable — unless we have a civil war — that the United States will slide first into illiberal democracy like Hungary then outright autocracy like Russia, I’m going to run afoul of our autocrat.

I’ve made it very clear to my Traditionalist relatives that I refuse to shut the fuck up. They can tell me in hushed tones in private all they want to in 2029 how important it is “for the sake of the family” that I “behave” and not talk ill of the autocracy — fuck Mike Pompeo — but I’m not going to shut up. They had their chance to prevent such a clusterfuck and they sat on their hands.

Anyway, fuck autocracy. Fuck taking any fucking Red Pill. Live free or die, as they say.

My Hot Take On The #Russian – #Ukraine Crisis For January 22, 2022


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m definitely not an expert, but here’s my novice hot take on what’s going on at the moment between Russia and Ukraine. If all of this is just a big flex on the part of Putin in hopes of getting “respect” from the West, then he sure is expending a huge amount of money to do so. Or, put another way, there comes a point when you just can’t have a massive portion of your military forward deployed, then pull back, without looking like a fool. The world community thinks you’re going to do something, so you might feel obliged to live up to their expectations.

It doesn’t make any sense to me that Putin would go through all this trouble just to turn around and say, “psych!” He’s up to something, something big. And the questions now are when and how big? Given what I understand about the issue of mud around Ukraine impleading any Russian advance, it seems as though sometime in February would be ideal.

At the moment, the sweet spot for any invasion is probably after the Winter Olympics, which end on February 20th. And, yet, I dunno. It seems as thought that might not be a consideration for Putin at this point. My current personal guess is any war between Russia and Ukraine might starts around February 15 or so.

I say that because a huge number of Russian forces are flooding into Belarus at the moment for “joint training exercises” that are supposed to take place between now and around the middle of February.

And, yet, there’s a big thing to consider — to date, I’ve been wrong all the time about what’s going on with Russia and Ukraine, so why would this be any different. So, it’s very possible that this really is just a big, foolish flex on Putin’s part and the spring mud will come and…nothing will have happened.

But I am keeping an eye on all of this. At the moment, the momentum is towards a major war between Russia and Ukraine. If that happens, it could collapse the entirety of the post-WW2 global liberal order to the point that we’ll see instability the likes of which we’ve not seen since the inter-war period of 1918 – 1939.

And to this how the United States is careening towards a “Fourth Turning” around 2025 and we could very well have something akin to a “Great Reset” with a Second American Civil War happening in conjunction with WW3.

American Diaspora


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All indications are that if the United States doesn’t buckle and have a civil war and instead becomes an autocracy that many, many center-Left people are going to vote with their feet and leave the country. I mention this to the Traditionalists I know and instead of growing alarmed at how much this would hurt the nation we both love, they get rather defensive. They get wrapped up in the idea that I’m somehow suggesting that Reds aren’t as economically productive as Blues.

I find this very, very bonkers.

But it’s a sign of how bad things are right now in the United States. Red and Blue hate each other so much that they no longer have any shared sense of national identity. Everything, EVERYTHING, is seen through the prism of partisan politics, right down to the effects of an American Diaspora.

And, yet, here we are. I think it’s clear that many, many wealthy and economically productive center-Left people in the United States already have one foot out of the door. I keep seeing on Twitter center-Left people talking about how they’re getting non-American passports as backup for the possibility that they may simply decamp.

It’s things like this that make me think the center-Left, when the time comes in 2024 – 2025, is simply going to give up and let us slip peacefully into autocracy. There will be a lot of angry Twitter rants by Twitter liberals, but they will be written in Paris, not New York City.

Another scenario is both things happen. We have a civil war and a lot of center-Left people leave the country because of the instability. I struggle to figure out where all these center-Left Twitter liberals will ultimately settle, however. As I’ve written before, I think it’s at least possible that somewhere like the Philippines might benefit a great deal from America sliding into autocracy. The weather is hot, it has a historical connection to the United States and it’s big enough to handle many, many Americans settling there.

I also think somewhere like Perth might enjoy a cultural rebirth. Everyone I’ve ever met from Perth was really interesting and creative and it seems like that would be a perfect place for Hollywood to settle in the event of some sort of massive clusterfuck in the United States, in 2024 – 2025.

But one thing is clear — the United States can no longer simply sleepwalk through history. History has one eye open now and will be wide awake by the time the Republicans flip the House and Senate later this year. Everything is going to change once Republicans have power again. They’re going to impeach both Biden and Harris and generally things are going to suck.

The years 2023 – 2024 are likely to be just one long impeachment trial of the entire Biden / Harris Administration. Add to this how Republicans are already screaming at the top of their lungs how they plan to brazenly steal the 2024 election and…oh boy.

Anyway. As I keep saying — get ready. Things are going to get pretty bumpy in the United States very, very soon.

The MAGA New Right As ‘Superfaction’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t feel like walking across the house to look up the exact definition in Barbara F. Walter’s book about how civil wars start, but it is clear to me that the United States meets yet another metric of a country heading towards a civil war: a superfaction exists.

And it’s the MAGA New Right.

What makes the MAGA New Right as superfaction so dangerous it’s also a fascist party. But remember, the MAGA New Right superfaction is ascendant. The path is clear for it to take power first later this year as part of the 2022 midterms and then even more so in 2024. It has such momentum that it could win both elections fair and square.

But the MAGA New Right hates democracy so much that they could very well lie and cheat to win, which would, unto itself, cause a revolt on the part of the center-Left at the state level. And that would start a massive civil war.

And, yet, everything remains up in the air. It really could go either way. We could have a civil war or we could simply transition peacefully into an autocracy. But what won’t happen is we continue to muddle along like we have been. The moment of decision is fast upon us.

The decision will be existential and devastating, no matter which option we pick. Everyone will have to make a decision on a personal level and pick a side. There will be no one to tell you if you’ve picked the right side and no narrative or value around to help you.

All you’re going to have is what you believe in and what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world.

The Rise Of American ‘Racial Entrepreneurs’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m being extremely lazy with this post, but in reading Barbara F. Walter’s book about how civil wars start, I’m taken aback by how relevant the political science concept of the “racial entrepreneur” is relative to what’s going on in the United States right now.

These are people who latch on the simmering racial tension and stoke those tensions for their personal profit and glory.

While FOX News is full of such racial entrepreneurs, one sticks out as being the worst — Tucker Carlson. Trump, obviously, is one too, but he’s so stupid and lazy that he is, and always has been, nothing than an avatar, a vessel for white rage.

Meanwhile, Carlson is smart enough that he can articulate what a lot of white Christian Traditionalists are feeling about race in a far more cogent manner than Trump. Carlson is very, very popular with my Traditionalists relatives and I could easily, easily, EASILY see Carlson winning the GQP nomination should he throw his hat into the political ring.

But the popularity of Tucker Carlson definitely indicates that, as Ms. Walter suggests, we’re not only an anocracy, but we’re careening towards a civil war of some sort. I still think that we’re going to transition peacefully into autocracy for no other reason than the center-Left is so weak-willed and fractious that they’re not going to put up much of a fight when the time comes.

Not that I want a civil war. A Second American Civil War would be horrific and a tragedy of astonishing proportions. But at the moment, we’re 50 / 50 when it comes to becoming a Russia-style autocracy or having a civil war. I just can’t predict which direction we’re going to go. Which option we’re going to pick.

But the presence of racial entrepreneurs like Carlson and Trump definitely make one sit up and take notice. Their continued popularity indicates that the one thing that Traditionalists believe will happen — that they will get a President DeSantis and all the goodies of autocracy without the inevitable personal implications, just ain’t gunna happen.

You can’t have an autocracy without you, or someone you love inevitably crossing the autocrat. Once the government no longer gives a shit what the populace believes, well, we’re all fucked, regardless of our political views.

American Autocracy: Form Follows Function



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, I believe the United States will have one last democratic death rattle in 2024 – 2025 and then slip peacefully into autocracy. The MAGA New Right is ascendant and democracy itself is now seen through the prism of partisan politics.

Add to this the dearth of any form of principled leadership within Blue ranks and it seems that while there will be a lot of angry Twitter threads as our democracy finally dies, in the end, nothing much in the real world — where it matters — will be done about it.

For the first few months, nothing much will change in real terms. Republicans will gloat about being in power again and the autocrat (whomever that may be) will begin, slowly, but surely to use the levers of power to consolidate power. Gradually, in fits and starts, the United States will gradually come to resemble Hungary if we’re lucky and Russia if we’re not.

The big issue of 2025 – 2029 may be the autocrats demand that we have a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” It may be that this happens a lot later than I believe, for no other reason than there will be no need — Peter Thiel and other MAGA-friendly plutocrats will be given free reign to buy up whatever media companies they need to. This will be an end-run around freedom of speech guarantees.

The media will be purged soon enough and politics simply won’t be discussed in late night or anywhere else for that matter. CNN and MSNBC will become “NewsNation” clones, dedicated to bothsidesing things to the point that they no longer can tell the difference between the truth and a lie.

I believe all this because, like I said, there just isn’t any Blue leadership at the moment. And what Blue leadership there is, is actually anti-Trump Republicans like Liz Cheney. So, lulz. AOC is too young and too unserious at the moment to rise to the occasion like we need her to.

All of this is not abstract to me because I fucking refuse to shut up. I have had the luxury of being a drunk loudmouth in a Western democracy all my life. When that freedom of speech no longer exists, then, fuck the autocrat and fuck you if you support them.

I’m willing to ride that particular pony to the bottom, whatever the consequences in the real world may be.

Anocratic America: Dr. Fauci, Lightening Rod


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Whenever Dr. Fauci testifies in front of Congress, my heart sinks. It feels like the montage in the movie because the inciting when the Bad Thing happens that begins the story happens. It’s when American Senators who should know better babble about this or that anti-Fauci conspiracy simply to get a clip on FOX “News” that it really hits home how bleak America’s future is.

I don’t know what the “bad thing” is going to be — autocracy or civil war — but something’s gotta give. The United States can’t keep being such an unstable anocracy. We have to make up our collective minds one way or another. But whatever that decision is, it’s going to be a catastrophe.

I say this because the Republican Party is now fascist on a systemic level. Their entire point is to obtain power again and then never let it go. Trump’s Big Lie is now what the Republican Party is on an existential level. I just don’t see them peacefully ever giving up power again. As such, either we shrug a succumb to autocracy or we have a civil war and bomb ourselves into oblivion.

The thing that people who believe I’m peddling “hysterical doom shit” ignore is traditional American politics no longer exists. It’s become impossible to talk to someone about policy with someone you disagree with. It all descends into a screaming match.

It makes you wonder. I mean, Dr. Fauci is 80 years old. Who is going to replace him? Seems to me, either no one does until Republicans came name some MAGA toady, or we have to wait until Blue States win a civil war to get around to doing it. America is about as taunt as it can possibly be. All that has to happen for severe political violence up and including civil war to happen is there be just a little bit of added pressure on the system.

At the moment, it seems to me that The Bad Thing that is going to happen is we slip peacefully into autocracy. Nothing will change at first, but gradually because form follows function the United States will become politically identical to Russia with the twist of white minority rule. Wealthy, well-educated center-Left people will flee the country and the United States will grow inward looking, poor and unstable.

I mention this to my Traditionalists relatives and it doesn’t register that center-Left people leaving the country en mass would be bad for the country — they’re too wrapped up thinking that somehow I’m looking down on center-Right people. It’s kind of surreal. When your first reaction to millions of your fellow Americans voting with their feet is to think the person who suggests this as a possibility is being snooty…is unique.

It’s not a matter of center-Left people being more economically productive than center-Right people, it’s about the destruction of the United States because tyranny has descended upon the land. But, I guess, if you’re a center-Right Traditionalists, you don’t like the idea that YOU could be the bad guys.

I don’t know what to tell you. Things are dark and going to get darker.