First, let me be clear, I’m only even continuing to talk about this because I’m smarting over being so wrong over 2020. It seemed a political absolute in the fall of 2019 that Trump was going to win re-election through hook or through crook. When he didn’t I was in shock and struggled to figure out how I could have possibly gotten things so wrong.
But I’m being too hard on myself — no one could have predicted that a combination of Trump being a lazy idiot, the COVID19 pandemic and Biden being a lucky, good candidate would happen all in quick succession.
As such, I scramble for what could make me look like a fool again. What could possibly stop Trump and MAGA from wining in 2022 and 2024 outright because autocracy is popular? Well, it seems as though at the moment, Trump’s love of Russia might be it.
It could be that both Putin miscalculates and Trump miscalculates and not only does any war between Russia and Ukraine escalate, but the war lingers and captures the imagination of American public such that two factions would be established.
Trump’s pro-Russia MAGA faction and everyone else.
But a LOT would have to go wrong for both Trump and Putin for things to get that bad. More likely, everything will be very muddled and, lulz, the United States will become an autocracy as predicted on schedule.
The big miscalculation everyone made about Trump in 2016 was he was an autocrat. Everyone — on both sides — thought Trump was going to be a real, honest-to-God autocrat. In fact, I came to tell who would listen to me that Trump was going to “not lose” the 2020 election because “autocrats never lose.”
Well, surprise, both sides were wrong.
All Trump turned out to be was an empty suit. And dumb and lazy one at that. So, he was all talk. This led both the people who voted for him and the people who opposed him to make huge misjudgments about what to expect from Trump going forward.
This tendency for Trump to be a lazy idiot that came out in full force around January 6th. He knew what he wanted — to stay in power via a coup — but he was just too lazy and stupid to pull it off. So, virtually anyone else in his position could have stolen the 2020 election in broad day light and gotten away with it.
But he was too much of an addled lazy fool to put even the most barest of work necessary to do it.
Anyway, now I think we’re doing it again with Trump. Now, everyone is freaking out about how Trump is going to steal the 2024 election via Bannon’s “administrative coup.” Meanwhile, everyone on the Right is gearing up to steal the 2022 and 2024 elections in a pretty brazen manner.
Everything I see, however, indicates that this is all going to be a lulz. Autocracy is so popular in the United States at the moment that we’re an autocracy without an autocracy.
For all the hard work on both sides, in the end, Trump is likely to win fair and square. Then, of course, the huge battle will be on who will play Putin to his Yelstin. And about a dozen would be American Putins within the Republican Party know that right now and there’s a huge amount of political bloodlust within the different Republicans who want the chance to grow both amazingly powerful and wealthy like Putin.
And all I’m saying is, in the end, our transition to autocracy will likely to be peaceful and something of a dud. But as I keep writing, it ain’t happened yet. There is, I guess, a greater than zero chance of a civil war
We’re too far out, however, for me to know for sure one way or another. I definitely am leaning in favor of the United States simply slipping peacefully into autocracy.
If we actually did have a civil war, then you have WW3 on your hands and a “Great Reset” not seen since the end of WW2.
I’ve grown fascinated with the dynamic at work now between Putin, Ukraine and Trump. The reason is — ostensibly, it would make no sense for Putin to wait until AFTER Trump was out of office to invade Ukraine in a big way. In fact, one might say that leans into the Republican narrative Trump’s love of Russia is just a big “hoax” given this fact.
Then Trump opened his big mouth about where he stands on Ukraine and it all made a lot more sense to me.
Trump being in office in the United States — unless it was after a Constitutional Convention that made him a true autocrat — babbling about how great Putin was in the middle of a war between Ukraine and Russia would prove that the TrumpRussia scandal was real. That it wasn’t a hoax.
What’s more, Putin also has to deal with the possibility that there would be a Republican Civil War between a pro-Trump, pro-Russia faction and a anti-Russia faction. This, in turn, would potentially be a political bodyblow to the Russia-loving MAGA movement for at least an election cycle.
As such, it would make a lot of sense for Putin — if he’s going to do it — to make his move on Ukraine sooner rather than later. The reason — if Putin is going to attack Ukraine, it may be doing so under the assumption that he’s going to do something of a smash and grab operation.
The whole war would be so brief that by the time the 2022 and 2024 American elections rolled around, it would be like the Russo-Ukrainian Winter War was a long, long time ago.
But, as of the moment, it appears as though Putin may not even attack Ukraine in the first place. We’ll see.
Now, before I begin, let me be clear that Republicans are on track to win in 2022 and 2024 and accomplish their final consolidation of white minority rule. So, even with the scenario I’m about to lay out, it’s doubtful American democracy survives.
But, if noting else, the context of its death might be different. As such, keep in the back of your mind the cold hard facts that through voter suppression, gerrymandering and Bannon’s administrative coup on the local level we’re an autocracy without an autocrat.
Another thing – Putin has yet to do any sort of invasion of Ukraine. It’s possible this is all a bluff. It’s possible that we’re all overthinking this and the United States will slip peacefully into autocracy, without a hitch.
Having said all that, let’s begin.
It appears as though either Putin is going into any war with Ukraine with modest, limited war aims or he believes that no matter what, any war he starts will be wrapped up early enough that by the time 2024 rolls around the Republican Party will go back to its monolithic personality death cult swirling around Donald Trump.
The Republican Party may face unprecedented division between itself and Donald Trump if there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, because Trump is such a fucking Putin toady that he buck 60 years of Republican political tradition and support the Russians against the Ukrainians.
A lot would depend, of course, on how bad any war between Russia and Ukraine became as well as if the war captured the popular domestic imagination. If the war got really bad and graphic images of the death and destruction of the war between Russia and Ukraine got so bad that Americans picked the Ukrainian side and Trump STILL sided with the Russians…well, Republicans might, finally, have a window opportunity to excise Trump, if not MAGA, from their body politic.
But it’s one of those things that is impossible to predict. There are just too many different variables. And, you know, of course, that Trump is so craven that he specifically for near-term political expediency, he might switch gears, only to go back to slobbing Putin’s knob the moment he was safely in the White House again.
Anyway, the point is — the moment any major war starts in Ukraine, we may all have to take a deep breath and reevaluate what might happen politically in the United States on a domestic basis because of it.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that Putin’s relationship to Trump is not nearly as easy to figure out as any objective observer might want. We know that Putin wanted Trump to win in 2016. And we know that Putin probably early on made a political calculation that it would be dumb to invade, say, Ukraine in Trump’s first term given what a suck up Trump would be to Russia if it happened.
And, yet, when we turn to the present day, we encounter a conundrum.
It’s very possible that by definition, if Putin invades Ukraine in some sort of “general war” that he would severely damage the Republican Party by splitting it into the Pro-Russia MAGA faction and the more traditional anti-Russian faction. Depending on how bloody the war became, you could even see Trump finally getting a worthy primary opponent, one who would run specifically on being tough on the Russians who were destroying eastern Ukraine.
Which makes one wonder — why?
Why risk destroying the political career of one of the biggest geopolitical patsies in modern history when you could just sit back, wait for Trump to win re-election in 2024, get his Constitutional Convention and THEN strike Ukraine. Putin is a very patient man, he could very well do that and get everything he ever wanted with Ukraine and more.
So, there are a lot of contradictions in Putin and Trump’s relationship that don’t make any sense because we don’t know all that’s going on. But the case could be made, I guess, that something like this is going on — Trump was a combination Manchurian Candidate, Manhattan Project and very, very lucky asymmetrical political attack against the United States.
Even though Trump was a Russian toady and the most powerful man in the world in the palm of Putin’s hand for four years, now that he’s out of office, Putin sees a big chunk of Eastern Ukraine being something he craves so much that he’s willing to destroy the Operation Trump to obtain it.
Putin has made the geopolitical decision to strike now, even though doing so would be a make or break event for the Republican Party for at least one political cycle. And, yet, maybe I’m not giving Putin enough credit.
Maybe Putin is going into his winter war against Ukraine knowing that he intends to wrap it up by spring. If that’s the case, then by fall 2022, everything will be back to where it was. Trump will be the most powerful man in the Republican Party and Putin’s toady.
Meanwhile, Putin will control a huge swath of Ukraine.
But, at the same time, Putin is potentially making a pretty huge miscalculation. If Russia’s involvement in Ukraine lingers long enough to really catch the attention of the domestic American imagination then….things could get interesting for all involved.
There was a point when Jon Stewart was, by proxy, one of the most influential political figures in American politics. But he always seemed very uncomfortable with taken so seriously. It got to the point where whenever he could not help himself and flexed his political clout, he would crack a fart joke to soften the blow.
Joe Rogan / The Internet
And, so, now, we are in a new era, the Joe Rogan Era, where he is in a similar situation to Stewart, only for the Right. The analogy isn’t one to one, but there’s enough similar to take note of it.
Rogan isn’t nearly as smart or engaging as Stewart, but he has garnered a lot of attention in the “alt Right lite” by having clear opinions that he’s will to defend. Up to a point, of course. Wrapping yourself up in an earnest masculinity will only get you so far. Rogan can be a big fucking idiot.
And that tendency to be an idiot has gotten worse as his political influence has increased. In fact, the case could be made that he is yet another cog in the massive, extensive permission structure that allows Traditionalists to make common cause with the MAGA New Right.
He’s part of the amorphous media blob of non-FOX News, non-OANN, non-NewsMax media outlets that water down and make palatable the putrid bullshit of Alex Jones, et. They do this so Traditionalists, who feel pushed up against a political wall because of negative polarization, are looking for any possible excuse not to make common cause with the center-Left in an effort to defeat the rise of fascism in the United States.
Joe Rogan is a pretty big player in all of this. And, you could plot out a counter-factual in which it was Rogan, not Trump, who ran for president in, say, 2020 if Trump had not run in 2016 (or lost.)
Meanwhile, just like Jon Stewart, if Rogan ever does something that causes a lot of pushback, he simply shrugs and says he’s a “comedian not a doctor” and why is everyone getting so upset.
Anyway, Rogan has a lot — a lot — of very passionate defenders who love his gruff, earnest masculine platitudes. No matter what we end up doing — having a civil war or turning into an autocracy, Rogan is likely to only grow in power until things reach some sort of stability again.
What that New Normal will look like is anyone’s guess.
The conservatives in my family love, love, love WGN’s “NewsNation” because they are ecstatic that it is “objective” unlike the “fake news” of MSNBC and CNN. They see the idea of it as a quick and easy way to square the circle of how divided the United States is right now.
(This is where I point out that NewsNation correspondent Kellie Meyer follows me on Twitter and I think she’s cute. So, there’s nothing personal in this post that she should be offended by — I hope.)
Anyway, this is how I address the issue whenever my conservative relatives get all excited about the existence of NewsNation — when one side of the political debate (MAGA) tells us the sky is green and the other side (everyone else) tells us it’s blue it’s not “objective” to hold the opinions of both political sides up as being “equal.”
NewsNation appears to tell us “objective” news.
They’re not.
MAGA is a fascist movement based on violence, racism and misogyny based on the lie of the “Great Replacement.” The other side isn’t perfect, but at least it tries to stay within the bounds of the truth.
But I understand why NewsNation is growing in popularity. It gives a lot of traditional conservatives who are fed up with the perceived biases of CNN and MSNBC an option for their news that isn’t as loaded in conversation as FOX News, NewsMax or OANN.
They can say they got their right wing talking points not from FOX News, NewsMax or OANN, but from the seemingly “objective” news source of NewsNation.
So, in the long run, this is just another sign that the thing we need to have happen to save our democratic republic — for traditionalists to momentarily make common cause with anti-MAGA forces — isn’t ever going to happen and we’re totally, completely fucked.
Get a passport. Figure out what you’re willing to risk your life and scared honor for in the real world.
I find myself using way too much brain power these days when it comes to the issue of the day, “Are we living in a modern antebellum era?” It is self evident to me that Something Bad is going to happen between now and January 2025. The reason I think this is, on a political basis, the United States is running on fumes.
We’re just too divided and what it means to be an American is too different in the minds of Blue and Red. Having said that, there is still a very, very good chance that whatever Bad Thing happens to the United States will be peaceful in nature.
In fact, at the moment, I’m on the opinion that the United States is going to slip peacefully into autocracy because, lulz, autocracy is popular with a huge swath of the electorate. The argument has been successfully made to White Traditionalists that because of The Great Replacement, that democracy is no longer a viable form of government and we need an autocrat to make sure scary POC and economically liberated women don’t threaten the traditional power structure that has white men on top.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
There really is no reason to think we’ll have a civil war. We’ll just wake up one day and realize the United States and Russia are, on a political basis, identical. Thousands (millions?) of center-Left people will have voted with their feet until the autocrat gets wise to this and makes it impossible for anyone to leave the country.
For the moment, I really think that’s what’s going to happen. There may be the occasional hick-up on the journey to autocracy, but that’s definitely where long-term American political trends are headed.
And, yet, it’s also possible that the combination of Trump being extremely stupid and lazy as well as the innate bloodthirstiness of the MAGA New Right might cause us to have a tragic, needless civil war where a hyperpower bombs itself into the Stone Age with its eyes wide open.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
Given how popular autocracy is the United States at the moment and how radicalized the Republican Party has become, it’s very possible that Trump can be as stupid and lazy as he likes and we’ll STILL slip peacefully into autocracy.
But I continue to struggle with which existential choice we’re going to pick in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. Civil war or autocracy?
I just don’t know. But SOMETHING is going to happen a “Fourth Turning” if you will, that is going to dramatically change everyday life in the Untied States. I just can’t figure out which of the two most obvious options is going to be.
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.
As I keep saying, America is an autocracy without an autocrat. And, barring a massive self-own by the MAGA New Right, we’re probably going to drift peacefully into autocracy at some people between now and January 2025. We managed to escape autocracy in 2020 for a number of reasons, among them Trump was so lazy and stupid that he could not pull of the most basic of autocratic power moves in regards to stealing the election.
So, he panicked at the election and put all his chips on the Mike Pence not certifying the vote.
But we’re not going to be so lucky next time. And, honestly, in the end, autocracy is so popular that I just don’t see Trump and Bannon having to even cheat. The rot at the core of the American political system is so advanced, that when the time comes, traditionalists will make common cause with MAGA and it will just be convention wisdom that Republicans now are our minority rule overlords from here on out.
The key thing to keep an eye on is who will be Trump’s successor. About a dozen would-be autocrats know that all they have to do is be Trump’s hand picked successor and they will become America’s Putin. They will have more real power than any president in American history and they will become fabulously wealthy.
From the moment we have President Pompeo, or Hawley or whomever, we’re going to slowly at first, then with greater speed see the basic elements of autocracy begin to show up in the United States. When everyone knows there is no longer any political connection between the government and the governed in the United States, it’s only a matter of time before fascist form follows fascist function.
It may take 20 years, but soon enough, the media will be purged. The existing ICE infrastructure will be weaponized. And a whole slew of very unpopular far Right policies will be implemented. There will be mass protests, but they will fade soon enough and center-Left people will begin to vote with their feet. Until, that is, the autocrat gets wise to this and makes it impossible for anyone to leave the country.
Now, of course, this is Trump we’re talking about. So it is at least POSSIBLE that he could massively self-own and push us into a tragic and needless civil war. The MAGA New Right has grow so bloodthirsty and so glamorized political violence that there’s a greater than zero sum chance that instead of slipping peacefully into autocracy, we have a civil war and bomb ourselves into the Stone Age from seized WMD.
So, as I keep saying — get a passport. Be prepared to take a stand in the real world for what you believe in. Good luck. You’re going to need it.
The thing that a lot of political observers miss in America these days is how ascendant the MAGA New Right is. They have all the momentum. As I saw someone say recently, one reason this is happening is the far Right radicals of the MAGA New Right rub the political clit of far more moderate conservatives by weaponizing the peril of “wokeness” as is needed.
So, in the culture wars, MAGA and traditionalists have made common cause. The interplay is this — MAGA / FOX News riles up the average traditional conservative by getting all bent out of shape about this or that latest “woke” outrage. This usually happens right before an election.
Republicans win, and MAGA moves on to the next bullshit thing they’ve thought up to be angry about.
Now, for me, the issue, is, there is an element of the center-Left that really is illiberal. That problem really does exist. I find this a lot in my thinking about the four thrillers I’m working on. On one hand, I’m supposed to have representation in the fiction I write, and yet, a the same time I have no right to write from the POV of anyone other than a CIS white male. How you square that particular circle, I don’t know.
And, yet, MAGA, which is entirely based on the desire to establish a white minority autocrat state, is not exactly coming at all of this in good faith.
The average person doesn’t even understand what it means to be “woke,” just as much as they don’t know what Critical Race Theory is or Cancel Culture. All they know is they’re afraid of being “canceled” by corporations that have taken the position of the other side of the culture wars from them. Throw in a general unease about the rise of women and minorities in the United States and you have a lot of people who don’t even realize how little they want to live in a democracy anymore.
So, as I keep saying, autocracy is very popular in the United States right now. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat. MAGA has gone septic. There is no turning back. We’re fucked. Get a passport and be prepared to either leave the country or be attacked for what you believe in the real world.
If we’re lucky, when the “Fourth Turning” happens, all the silly bullshit of “wokeness” will simply burn off of our culture because people will have had something far more existential to think about than what they’re pronouns are.
But how we get to that point could be pretty scary. We could very well have a civil war and that will be that. Not only will we bomb ourselves into oblivion, but as we do so, the whole world will, too, because our military absence on the world stage will cause WW3.
There isn’t much we can do. These are macro trends we’re dealing with. We’ve passed the even horizon of either tyranny or civil war.
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