It is technically possible for Congress to enforce a subpoena using its “inherent contempt” powers. It hasn’t been used in about a hundred years, but they can do it.
And, given how rabid House Republicans are at the moment, it definitely seems as though they’re prepared to arrest the NYC prosecutor in Trump’s case using inherent contempt just to prove a point. House Republicans don’t care about jackshit but protecting the Dear Leader, precedent be damned.
This nightmare scenario’s probability is pretty low, but given how tight Jim Jordan is with ding-dong Trump, anything is possible.
I definitely feels like Republicans continue to radicalize to the point that once the eventually, inevitably gain presidential power again we will face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war.
Either Blues bend a knee to autocratic MAGA Nazism, or we don’t. I don’t want a civil war — I hate violence of any sort — but on a practical basis we have to stop deluding ourselves into thinking civil war is entirely off the table.
Of course, if somehow Trump loses the Republican nomination, it could be Reds who bolt the Union because Trump will go to the Patriot Party and rant about how his election was “stolen” until Red States begin to leave the Union.
Or not. I can’t predict the future. But be aware of what might happen.
America is in something of a downlow crisis at the moment. At some point between now and as late as Thursday it’s possible that for the first time in American history a former POTUS will be criminally charged. (There was that one time President Grant got a ticket for speeding on his horse, but, lulz, let’s not count that.)
Anyway, allegedly, the NYPD has been to brace for impact starting tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Is that a tell? It could mean anything. And, really, one concern I have is that A LOT could happen between now and Thursday. In my experience, once you’re in a crisis, all sorts of crazy shit seems to happen at the same moment.
It is going to be interesting to see how dramatic all of this will be. At the moment, I believe it’s going to be historic, but rather mundane. But anything having to do with Trump has a higher-than-normal level of uncertainty to it. Anything could happen because of that malignant ding-dong.
Everything from Trump inciting some sort of violence to him just giving a dumb, rambling speech is possible. Though, there are two datapoints to take note of. One is, he’s going to get DNA taken, which would help with the various sexual assault claims he’s fighting AND there will be mugshots.
Those mugshots will be burned into the mind of every American the instant they are available. They will be on everything from t-shirts to toilet paper by the end of the week, if not sooner.
Anyway. The next few days are going to be memorable, one way or another.
Apparently, the presence of two rebuttal witnesses in Trump’s case in New York City indicates that it’s not a slam dunk that he is going to be indicted. It’s very annoying, but lulz, that’s the America we live in today.
America is destroying itself not so much because of economic differences or whatever the fuck else you might think is dividing us but, rather something else: vibes.
Reds just don’t like the vibes in the United States as the majority of the country grows browner, more feminist and more secular. At least from my discussions with my Traditionalist relatives, they honestly can’t tell you why they’re so upset — they just don’t like the vibes.
So, should Trump escape justice AGAIN, we will continue to slide towards what now seems like the inevitable “Fourth Turning” of late 2024, early 2025. There are macro, tectonic forces work that something pretty dramatic would have to happen to stop Something Bad happening no later than spring 2025.
In short, we’re very, very fucked. Either we turn into a MAGA-themed autocratic state or we have a National Divorce and, as such, a civil war. Get ready.
If you have any “hope” that somehow, magically these problems are going to fix themselves, you’re a fucking fool.
So, apparently, according to news reports, if Trump is, in fact, indicted — which I still find potentially dubious — he’s going to surrender himself in New York City and have a perp walk.
The future?
Now, if Trump wasn’t such a fucking lazy idiot, he would give this whole situation some thought and demand that he handcuffed and frog walked so the whole thing would be both iconic and allow him to play up the martyr element to all of this.
But Trump is very, very stupid and lacks the cognitive abilities necessary to think in such abstract terms. He is a natural showman, yes, but in real terms he usually takes the path of least resistance. He has no sense of history and, as such, he’s just an avatar, rather than a Great Man.
So, I honestly don’t know how it will all go down. It may be rather mundane, if historic.
But there is the known unknown of what happens if there are protests and counter protests outside of the event. That is a volatile situation unto itself.
So. What if the other options happens? What if malignant ding-dong Trump decides to actually get booked in New York City? Then what? At the moment, it seems it’s at least possible that the whole thing will be historic, but mundane. Trump gets booked, his mugshots become iconic pictures for the ages….and that’s it.
Maybe he gives a deranged speech on his way out, but, over all, nothing of note happens. No violence. Just a tense situation that comes and goes.
But, because I love, love, love worst case scenarios, let’s imagine the absolute worst possible endgame.
The thing that comes to mind is there’s a massive crowd as Trump goes in and out of getting booked and because of the political make up of New York City, the MAGA people there to protect their MAGA Godking bump up against the native Blues of the city and, before you know, a riot breaks out that is a massive clusterfuck.
And if THAT happens and people get hurt, then, of course, the National Press will drag out what conscription riots of 1863 in NYC that turned into something akin to a race war.
I have no idea what will happen. But there is at least a greater-than-zero chance that if we don’t have a massive clusterfuck at Mar-a-Lago, we have a massive clusterfuck in NYC.
As always in the Trumplandia Era, everything now hinges on what ding-dong Trump does next. Which is, of course, what that malignant idiot craves. He always want to be the center of attention.
The issue is — even though I’m beginning to think this week may be historic but ultimately rather uneventful, all Trump has to do is bumrush Twitter with a series of tranasctional tweets and everything will change. If that happened, then an already tense situation would grow into a full blown crisis.
We are already in something of a down low crisis, but it’s still manageable because it doesn’t seem as though my worst case scenario is going to happen. At the worst, Trump just doesn’t show up and he avoids New York State for a while until there’s some sort of agreement.
Of course, there is a greater-than-zero chance that, by definition, Trump getting booked could cause a riot around the courthouse where all of this is taking place. But the fact that it would be happening in New York City makes me feel better because any violence would be very narrow in area. (I hope.)
And we still don’t know for a fact that Trump is actually going to get indicted. Trump does tend to have a way of wiggling out of whatever problem he might be up against.
But let me be clear — history is yet again in Trump’s tiny-tiny hands. If he just lays low for the next few days, then that’s a lot different situation than if he freaks the fuck out and comes back to Twitter to expound upon his fascist and self-preserving fears.
I have long said that the one thing Trump really hasn’t done is gone transactional. He rants a lot, but he doesn’t really tell his followers, specifically what he wants them to do. But that has changed, as witnessed below:
The “it’s time” and the call to protest is rather ominous, with shades of the lead up to January 6th. And, yet, lulz, it could be that January 6th was a very specific set of circumstances and, as such, it’s just not any sort of indication of what will happen whenever Trump might get indicted.
It could be that I’m being hysterical and worse-case-scenario for no reason and while the lead up to him being booked might be tense, the whole thing will be rather mundane, if historic. I mean, this is the same idiot who had everything thinking he was going to do Something Big, only to turn around and come out with a set of MAGA NFTs.
So, I don’t know what to tell you. It could go either way. It could be that having such short notice won’t be enough for Trump to organize anything too crazy. January 6th was gradually organized over the course of a few months, afterall. In this case, Trump would have just a few days to do anything.
And, I still don’t know where he is. If he’s in Bedminster the dynamic of his indictment would be a lot different than if he at Mar-a-Lago. We’re all going to have to wait and see.
It could be that I’m really overthinking things and this event will be rather mundane, if historic, but I am concerned about the logistics of booking Trump. If he is at Mar-a-Lago, Trump could just tell the the state of New York to fuck off and hunker down while there’s a huge fight about actually booking him. That, in turn, would give MAGA time to surround the place and we have a stand off on our hands.
But he has said he’ll come in without any fuss. And, yet, Trump isn’t known for being very truthful AND my real concern is him saying he would peacefully come in to get booked was simply his first reaction. It could be that, upon further reflection, Trump decides to go all OJ meets Hitler on us and uses Mar-a-Lago as his Downfall bunker and we all spend the next few weeks trying to figure out how to get to him.
I hope I’m wrong. I really do. (I’m always wrong.)
I was very pleased with David French’s 2020 book “Divided We Fall” about the prospect of secession in the United States. While he came at the idea from a #NeverTrump point of view, he echoed many of the same things that have been rolling around in my mind for some time now.
Here were the things that stood out from the book:
Fascist Tech Bros It’s a testament to how fast things are moving that things about Silicon Valley that French takes as gospel seem rather dated in 2023. While, in general I suppose “Googlers” still lean progressive, just in the last few years it definitely seems as though there Tech Bros of banked Right recently. See, also, David Sacks. As such, all of his hysterical fears about “woke” Silicon Valley companies going after conservatives in the even of a “National Divorce” are quaint. I’ll admit that there remains a center-Left bias on a system basis within major American corporations, but I suspect that says more about the state of highly trained, well educated people than it does how “woke” they are. In general, knowledge workers are more progressive than their blue collar counterparts. (That is a very broad generalization, of course.) Catastrophe Another think that really stood out to me reading his book was how he really, really did not want to admit what a massive fucking clusterfuck any sort of attempt at a “National Divorce” might be. He bent over backwards to paint the most sanguine scenarios possible, when, in fact, there’s no way a National Divorce would not spark a Second American Civil War that would probably kill millions. America is just too big, too soaked in WMD on military bases across the country for the two sides to not bomb the other into oblivion if it came to that. It’s telling how copacetic his scenarios depicting Calxit and Texit were in real terms. There was little or not violence and, in real terms, we somehow magically had enough leadership that when the country gave up being united we somehow, equally magically, didn’t blow North America up. WWIII Even French’s depiction of WWIII caused by a National Divorce seemed based on unicorns and moonbeams. If the United States was too preoccupied with collapsing to do anything about keeping the post WWII liberal order intact, WWIII will happen and it would be a massive fucking culsterfuck. Potentially nearly a billion people might die as the result of a series of limited nuclear exchanges. As such, the whole thing would definitely be a “Not great, Bob” situation. Soft vs. Hard Power One thing I found interesting about French’s book is how close he comes to talking himself into being MAGA. All the grievance politics of MAGA were there, but somehow he has decided to remain “#NeverTrump.” It will be interesting to see if this stance will change if Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer Ron DeSantis becomes the GQP nominee in 2024. “Federalism” I found French’s arguments for a renewal of American federalism pretty much identical to why there should be a National Divorce. Any attempt at neo-federalism would only add to the centrifugal forces that are tearing the country apart. Rather than prevent a National Divorce, giving the states more wiggle room would only lead states with similar political views to want to join forces to make a more…perfect Union. End of the Woke Era French’s conservative bias definitely comes out when he bitches and complains about “wokeness,” especially on college campuses. He does this to the point that I don’t quite understand why he is a #NeverTrumper. It really seems to bother him. In fact, given his Christianity and pro-Life beliefs, I am at a loss as to why he would destroy his conservative talking head career to be #NeverTrump. It’s very curious. But the issue for me is — the excesses of the woke era are a luxury of a peaceful nation. I suspect should things grow…existential…that people will be too busy dodging fucking bullets to worry about their fucking pronouns.
Overall, “Divided We Fall” is a really thought provoking book. I say this especially as someone who more progressive than French. My biggest complaint is how pollyannaish he is about any form of National Divorce. If states start leaving the Union — be they Red or Blue — it would be the biggest fucking catastrophe since the worst times of the French Revolution. It would not be orderly and it would not be peaceful — millions will die around globe for various reasons as a direct result of it happening.
Trump’s power is he is so mercurial that you just never know which way that malignant ding-dong is going to go. Is he going to freak out if he gets indicted, or is he just going to give up? I just don’t know. It could go either way. So, let’s look at both scenarios.
Trump goes peacefully In this scenario, Trump is indicted, gets process and leaves, maybe giving a speech along the way. No big deal. It’s historic, but something of a dud all things considered. Trump’s mugshot becomes the source of much, much political discussion for decades to come…but, overall, the whole thing is kind of meh.
Trump doesn’t go peacefully The OTHER scenario is Trump freaks the fuck out and gets back on Twitter to incite political violence. This would happen in the context of a lot of Blues literally celebrating in the street. The absolute worst case scenario is Trump rants about being indicted and a lot of Reds have the same idea — use their AR-15s to murder celebrating Blues who are having big public parties.
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