What does it mean? Anything? It’s one of those things that might go either way. Trump is such a loudmouth dingus that he could very well be admitting to a very, very serious crime…or not. And, lulz, what would it matter, anyway. He’s above the law to the point that he can admit to any crime and nothing would come of it.
For the time being, I think Trump is just making shit up to prove a point — vote for him, not the upstart DeSantis. But time will tell, I guess.
There are two possible outcomes to what’s going on between lazy dingus Trump and would-be American autocrat DeSantis.
Trump Politically Cockblocks DeSantis In this scenario, there is a huge battle royale between the two men for the soul of the Republican Party and, ultimately, Trump wins. In the end, DeSantis has to settle for being Trump’s 2024 veep and that’s that. We all wait until fat tub of lard Trump shuffles off this mortal coil and DeSantis becomes our first autocrat that way.
The Bull Moose Endgame In this scenario, Trump gets fed up with the struggle of trying to get the nomination and he takes his marbles to the Patriot Party. Then we have the very real possibility that the Republican vote is split and we manage to punt our existential problems down the road at least one more presidential cycle.
But remember, there is the Independent Legislature doctrine to be decided by SCOTUS, which might lead to the end of American democracy no matter how fucked up Republican politics might become otherwise. Or, to put it another way — macro trends as such that the United States is fucked, fucked, fucked. Something truly amazing would have to happen between now and Election Day 2024 for me not to feel pretty confident that all my hysterical, doom-and-gloom predictions for late 2024, early 2025 are spot on.
And, yet, I’m always wrong, so only time will tell.
If Trump will just get out of his way, Ron DeSantis will become president and, as such, become America’s first true autocrat. It will be, as they say, all over but the shouting for American democracy. But for Trump being a narcissistic ding-dong who doesn’t realize he’s served his political and historical purpose, DeSantis being our autocrat in waiting would now be an immutable fact of psychohistory.
Ron DeSantis
But.
There is the issue of Trump. The man has proven that not only is he lazy and stupid, but he always, always does the wrong thing. So, there’s every reason to believe that Trump either politically cockblock DeSantis or he will leave the Republican Party for the Patriot Party.
If the former happens, then the other two choices we face — civil war or military junta — continue to be very real possibilities. And if Trump bounces to the Patriot Party because he loses to DeSantis, he will split the Republican vote and we punt our existential problems down the road another presidential cycle.
Now, let me be clear — I want to be wrong. If somehow Republicans stop being fascists and we pull ourselves out this death spiral we’re in at the moment, great. But at the moment, the only way that happens is space aliens land on the White House front lawn.
Anyway, the point is — things are not quite sorted out yet. But should DeSantis end Trump politically, the United States is going to slip peacefully into autocracy.
It’s easy to look at how poorly MAGA Republicans did on Election Night and make some conclusions about Trump that are inaccurate. Two key things stick out — one, Trump remains unusually popular for being such a ding-dong and two, he’s not going anywhere.
This is not to say that Trump won’t begin to feel pressure to step aside so Ron DeSantis can finish the slide into autocracy that Trump began. He will. But say what you will about Trump, he’s a fighter and he would rather destroy the Republican Party than let DeSantis become POTUS.
At least without being Trump’s veep first.
But all of this does raise the question — was Trump a fluke? Was it inevitable that he would win in 2016, given how much losing he’s done since then? I think someone like Trump was inevitable between 2016 and, say, 2024 for a variety of reasons ranging from demographics to America’s fading empire.
The issue is, of course, that all things being equal, the person who would shepard America through the final transition into autocracy would be DeSantis. He would become POTUS in 2025 and, well, that would be that. He will be POTUS for the rest of my life. In 20 years, he will invade Canada for some reason, probably because Florida is finally sinking into the ocean.
There is a chance, of course, that Trump and DeSantis will go head to head in 2024 for the Republican nomination and if Trump should lose, he will bounce for the Patriot Party, splitting the Republican vote and potentially punting our massive political problems down the road for one more election cycle.
Or not. Everything is up in the air at the moment. Buckle up.
To be “Red Pilled” is the idea that one “wakes up” to the nefarious plot on the part of the “woke cancel culture mob” of POC, the LGBTQ+ community and wymxn to terrorize the hard working white CIS Christian community into “grooming” their children into being transgender.
Or some sort of similar bullshit.
And, really, if you really think about it, what DeSantis wants to is frame any political debate going forward in such a way that he can “Red Pill” the entire United States in 2024…and become America’s first Very American Autocrat. He knows that the abstract fear of being “canceled” plays very, very well with the that passionate, organized people who want a white Christian ethnostate.
Ranting about killing off “wokeness” is a dog whistle for autocratic fascism. It gives DeSantis — who wants to be America’s first autocrat — a way to talk about that without saying it outright.
I’m not saying there aren’t “woke” excesses. There are plenty. And I’ve really gotten upset when woke Twitter users come at me from the Left. They’re the worst. And, what’s more, I’m not perfect and there’s ever reason to believe that if I manage to sell this six novel project I’m working on that I’m going to be promptly canceled for this or that transgression I’ve committed over the years.
But I just don’t want to live in a white Christian ethnostate. And, yet, that definitely seems where we’re headed. Though, there is a curious quirk to the to what happened election night– DeSantis is now the Republican standard bearer…but Trump is such a fucking fighter that it’s highly unlikely that he won’t go after DeSantis rather than let him cruz to the nomination and by extension the presidency.
It would be one of the greatest shocks of my adult life if Trump did what was right for the Republican Party and stepped aside so DeSantis could be the historical figure to transition the United States into autocracy. If it’s DeSantis, not Trump, who is the 2024 Republican nominee then we become an autocracy, rather than have a civil war or a military junta.
DeSantis will be America’s Putin and that will be that. Some 20 years from now we’ll wake up to the news that President DeSantis has invaded a big chunk of Canada for some reason and we’ll all be expected to toe the party line on why this is a good idea.
Anyway. The next few days will be interesting. I think once the shock wears off, Trump is going to go back to exactly what he was going to do before last night’s results — run for president. The only question now is, of course — does Trump run as a Republican or as the leader of the Patriot Party?
Given that Ron DeSantis plans on riding his crusade against “wokeness” to the White House — if Trump doesn’t stop him, of course — let’s really dig into what it means to be “woke.”
There is a lot to unpack. On one hand “woke” is an amalgam of abstract fears on the part of people who want a white Christian ethno state. It’s also a catchall for MAGA people to use to hand wave any policy disagreement they have with someone that they can’t wiggle their way out of.
So, in a sense, to be “woke” is whatever a conservative needs it to be to own the libs. But also, I would propose it’s a word meant to be imbued with the general sense of dread that a lot of conservative feel about the dramatic social changes that have occured in America since about the middle of Obama’s second term. From their point of view, everyone not MAGA is aggressively gay now and the “woke cancel culture mob” will ruin your life if you don’t support them “grooming” children to be transgender.
This is all bullshit, of course. But this abstract fear is very, very powerful when it comes to electoral politics — so much so that Ron DeSantis may become our first autocrat because of it. (Again, only if Trump gets out of the way — which isn’t going to.)
“Wokeness” is curious because there is no set definition. Which, I suppose, is what MAGA “thought leaders” want because, lulz, the better to own the libs with. If no one knows what “wokeness” is, then it can be anything as necessary to win an argument.
I guess, relative to people like Ron DeSantis, attacking “wokeness” is a way of Red Pilling the electorate without getting into what that really means. The sense that CIS white people are under attack by transgender POC who rant about “trigger warnings” and “pronouns” is an extremely alarming concept to your typical Christian white people.
Throw in Fox News and Right wing podcasts berating their audience with the boogie man of the “woke cancel culture mob” and, well, lulz, there you go. The gnashing of teeth over “wokeness” is actually a proxy debate over America becoming a majority minority country in the coming years and all the other changes to America society that scare the shit out of Christian white people.
So, I guess you could say that “woke” is everything and nothing. It is what a MAGA person with a podcast needs it to be at any particular moment to scare the shit out of his or her audience that their lives will be ruined by the “woke cancel culture mob” for this or that stray comment.
In my experience, “woke” people — at least one Twitter — are people who frame any discussion relative to if you follow some nebulous orthodoxy that only they seem to know the finer points of. They have all these rules about human behavior that make no sense relative to how people actually act. They come across as easily offended — triggered, if you will — and they attack me for being a ‘CIS white male” who should neither be seen nor heard. It’s always when people come at me from the Left — the woke Left — that I am most at the lost and get the most angry. It’s difficult for me to articulate what exactly these woke Twitter users believe without sounding, well, racist and misogynistic for not agreeing with them. Which, I suppose, makes me unwoke?
The bottomline is, as it has always been –we’re fucked. Get a passport and get out of the country while you still can. Autocratic fascism is very popular in the United States and in the end the only question will be if we have a civil war, become an autocracy or get taken over by a military junta.
As I keep saying, the key thing that we don’t really realize about American politics is how the Democratic and Republican Parties are not equal in their structure. The Democratic Party is an amalgam of pro-democracy center-Left parties with sometimes conflicting goals for the country. The Republican Party, meanwhile is a real party — a fascist party.
So, the issue is, simple macro trends indicate that our democracy — or anocracy, if you will — is taking its last breaths. And, in real terms, the only way for it to comeback is some sort of civil war where the Blue states either get their independence or they win outright.
Otherwise, it’s autocracy or military junta.
We’re in uncharted territory because never before in the post-Civil War Era has one of the two major parties completely given up on the American birthright of democracy.
But here we are — Republicans are autocratic and fascist.
I will admit that I keep rolling around in my mind what I could possibly get getting wrong with all my hysterical, dire predictions. I can’t predict the future, so there are plenty of unexpected things that might punt the problems associated with our crisis of democracy down the road a little bit — only punt. There are no solutions because Republicans simply will not, on an existential basis, do the one thing that might save our democracy: change their policies.
So, to that extent, in general terms, I’m right that our future is autocracy, civil war or military junta.
But tonight, election night, I think I’m going to drink some soju and be so drunk that I will be feeling no pain should fucking fascist, autocratic Republicans take the House and or Senate. At least the next two years are going to be VERY interesting.
And the same forces of Trumplandia that caused me to throw myself into my six novel project in the first place will kick in and maybe I will feel a lot of renewed pressure to wrap things up before I croak.
I do not believe that the American press has done a very good job of preparing the public for how dark things may get if Republicans control the House and or the Senate. Republicans are now so radical that they’re fascist and autocratic. To be a Republican in good standing is to not believe in democracy unless you win the election.
And, really, the curious thing is what doesn’t seem to be on the cusp of happening — Speaker Trump.
Trump being Speaker of the House is something that would be a basic autocratic play for any other person in Trump’s position. But Trump is such a lazy idiot and has such poor abstract thought abilities that he just can’t process in his mind how politically advantageous it would be for him to be Speaker.
But the key issue we have to remember is the only way we end the MAGA Republican threat is probably a civil war. That’s it. I say this because MAGA is now American Nazism and, in the end, the only way to end MAGA is how we ended Nazism — in the field of battle.
Let me be clear, however — I hate violence. I don’t want any form of violence, so what I just wrote is just an abstract, back of the envelope statement. So, we have to accept that we’re probably going to turn into a political clone of Nazi Germany at some point after Republicans steal / win the 2024 election. Then everyone who can will flee the country, just like people did when the Nazis took over Germany.
The point is — if Republicans take the House and or Senate, they are going to do everything in their power to destroy what’s left of American democracy so they can prime conditions for the final coup de grace. Or, put another way, the years 2023 – 2024 will be extremely dark and turbulent if Republicans have any sort of meaningful power.
I don’t know what to tell you. Get a passport. Game out where you might be able to flee to when the final darkness of autocratic MAGA fascism drapes across the country.
I woke up this morning to Axios telling me in breathless terms how fucked Democrats obviously were in tomorrow’s 2022 midterms. For anyone who is a fan of the Twitter account New York Times Pitchbot, it was yet another example of how what should be a parody account pretty much is reality at this point.
I don’t know why, but the mainstream press, far from being in the bag for Democrats, seem to believe the only way they can be “objective” is to shit on Democrats every chance they can get.
This does not, however, stop your typical conservative from being hysterical in their belief that one of the reasons they want to burn the country to the ground is the “media elites” won’t give them a fair shake. The fact that Republicans lie so much about things that we can all see not to be true is yet another sign that Something’s Gotta Give.
We can’t keep punting this shit down the road forever.
But let’s go back to the issue at hand — what if Axios is wrong? What if somehow Democrats manage to keep both the House and Senate?
The reason why it’s difficult for me to believe this is possible is macro trends indicate that MAGA and the associated slide into autocrat fascism is very, very popular within the American electorate. To be a Republican in good standing is to not believe in democracy at all — or at least not believe in any election where they lose.
But, just for the sake of argument, what if Democrats manage an upset?
I think if that happened, the first thing that would happen is Republicans would scream bloody murder because they would point to all the polls going into the election that indicated THEY were going to win. Which, given that they funded these flood-the-zone polls, this whole argument will be bullshit.
One apparent flashpoint is going to be Pennsylvania, specifically the area around Philadelphia. Apparently, we’re at risk of another Brooks Brother Riot in that area if things don’t go Republican’s way tomorrow.
The one thing that is not going to happen is Republicans suddenly having a come to Jesus moment about democracy. Rather than doing the obvious — changing their views so they’re more popular — Republicans are going to double down, triple down on their love of autocratic fascism.
They will see any defeat at the polls as a sign that their efforts to steal elections haven’t been aggressive enough. They are determined to strangle American democracy once and for all at any cost.
Just from my personal interaction with my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — I’ve noticed an alarming development: debate nullification. This is when an issue becomes so loaded that it’s impossible to discuss it with a MAGA person.
There are two ways this happens.
One is, the received talking points from Fox News and Right wing podcasts are so potent that all that happens when you, a center-Left person, try to talk to a MAGA adjacent Traditionalist conservative is you talk past each other. They are so wrapped up in their media narrative that they just don’t listen to you. They wave off any facts you have as “bogus” because they’re enraged by how they perceive the “woke cancel culture mob” as being “groomers” who are so aggressively gay in their agenda that they will ruin the lives of anyone who won’t become transgender.
You think this is hyperbole but this is pretty much literally what they think.
The other way it happens is an otherwise very serious issue — everything from global climate change to the vicious attack on Paul Pelosi — is reduced to a “joke” that they can crack. So, you the moment you bring up this or that alarming thing that is really serious and in any functioning democracy would be something we would debate to come some consensus as to how to address — they just chuckle and crack some dumbass joke they heard on a Right wing podcast.
It’s all very aggravating.
I just don’t know what to tell you. There’s no solution. The two sides are receding away from each other at such an alarming rate that we’re all very, very fucked. We’re pass the event horizon for autocracy, civil war or military junta. Either you recognize this, or you don’t.
America is facing some severe macro problems that are all going to come to a head in late 2024, early 2025. We just won’t be able to punt these massive problems down the road anymore. The chickens, as they say, are coming home to roost.
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