Just in the last few days, Twitter has been pushing me vast sums of Right wing propaganda from people I don’t follow. This is how it happens: people I follow are monitoring the Right Wing Bullshit Echo Chamber and the Twitter turns around and pushes me the tweets from those accounts that I don’t follow.
It’s gotten really aggravating to the point that it seems like the exact opposite of the “shadow banning” that MAGA Republicans invoke whenever some spicy racist, autocratic tweet they write doesn’t get the adoring engagement they somehow expect.
This is happening with such frequency, that it makes me wonder if this is the shape of the future once Elon Musk owns Twitter. Is that what we are going to have to put up with from now on — a constant barrage of Right wing talking points, even if you don’t follow the person who is articulating them?
If that is the case, then this yet another indication that we’re totally, completely fucked going into the 2024 presidential election cycle. MAGA Republicans are focused, passionate and ascendant. And, as I keep saying, the real question is going to be not if MAGA Republicans start a civil war, but if Blue States refuse to bend a knee to autocratic fascist MAGA in late 2024, early 2025. When it is clear that either MAGA Republicans are going to steal the 2024 election or they win it outright and their incoming agenda is so reactionary, so radical that Blue States will face the question of leaving the Union.
All I can say is if Twitter is going to be turned into a Gab, Parler or Truth Social clone….that might have real implications for Twitter going forward. Eventually, Blues might get so fed up with having fucking read Right Wing bullshit against their will that they may “secede” from Twitter and gravitate towards some new more netural Twitter clone that does what Twitter did before it was eaten by fascists.
Let me be clear –I’m just a broke ass writer in the middle of nowhere and David Sacks rubs elbows with wealthiest people in the world. But I do have a hot take on his recent ranting about how the United States should essentially demand Ukraine give up because of the risk of WW3 or, as he puts it “Woke War III.”
There is a lot to unpack here.
As I keep saying, it’s very alarming that Silicon Valley Tech Bros seem determined to be Russian Fifth Columnists and Fellow Travelers. They give as their excuse the risk of WW3, but really they obviously have run the numbers and think it would be better if we just washed our hands of Ukraine and moved on to turning the United States into a MAGA-themed fascist autocracy.
I’ve said before that I understand the sentiment. But I have to say again that just because you’re the Smartest Guy In The Room, doesn’t mean you know jack shit about the best interests of the United States on a geopolitical basis. And, remember, we still don’t know if Putin is a rational actor or not. If we give into appeasing Putin, there’s every reason to believe he will see it as weakness and attack NATO directly.
Remember, the same argument that Sacks makes about not defending Ukraine could be made for not defending the smaller NATO states in the Baltic. If his primary concern is the risk of nuclear war, then, really, why is the United States a part of NATO to begin with? Why not bring the boys home, turn us into Fortress America and elect fucking Trump God King For Life.
The point of American foreign policy for the last 75 odd years has been to keep the global order together through might and preemptive engagement. And, what’s more, there comes a point when you have to think about the moral implications of what you’re doing — even if it means increasing the risk of nuclear war.
The current war in Ukraine is one of Russian aggression and the United States has a moral imperative to support a fellow democracy. The last thing we should be doing is just giving up and let a tyrant walk all over Ukraine because the Baltics or Poland or whomever could be next if we do.
The lesson of 1930s appeasement is it doesn’t work. The more you give a tyrant, the more they expect later down the road. So, it’s best to take a stand as soon as possible and try to manage the risks involved.
And let’s address Sparks’ complaint that he’s being “smeared.” What horseshit. He’s the one who interjected himself into a very divisive debate and he has to have known that what he proposes is extremely unpopular — especially on Twitter where he whines about being “smeared” all the time.
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, as they say.
I know we’re beyond the event horizon of either autocracy, civil war or military junta happening because of the rage I experience from my traditionalist relatives whenever we talk about politics.
Everything is so muddled and conflated in their minds that they simply can not, will not do the one thing that America needs for them to do at the moment — make common cause with center-Left people like me to defend democracy from the rise of fascist MAGA autocracy.
The white Christian men I know don’t even believe in American democracy anymore. They’re so busy being enraged by how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” little kids and turn everyone gay that they are completely and wilfully oblivious to how MAGA Republicans are well on their way to stealing their democracy birthright.
So, in short, we’re fucked.
Starting as soon as January 2023, the United States is going to lurch into a very, very dark future. It’s well within the realm of possibility that a MAGA Republican House will not only impeach both Biden and Harris repeatedly over the course of two years, but also hold the world economy blackmail in order to gut the social safety net.
And that, of course, will be just the precursor to the massive clusterfuck that will be the 2024 presidential cycle.
I love a good scenario, so if you want my hot take on how the Secessionist Crisis of 2024 – 2025 would go down, it would be something like this. The first indication that things were going to be different would be that local MAGA controlled election boards in swing states would simply not do their job. They would balk at certifying the election of the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate.
The reason why this is so important to what happens next is would introduce a level of uncertainty into the process that could easily be exploited by because so much of the Federal bench is now made up of young MAGA hacks who will do the bidding of MAGA when the time comes. I’m well aware that this did NOT happen in 2020….but we were very lucky. It’s very possible that the process of the corruption of the administration of elections will be much farther along by 2024 and, I don’t know, the election might be closer.
Each election has a personality of its own, if you will.
Once MAGA controlled election boards simply refuse to do their jobs because they don’t like the result, then one of the great ironies of the modern age will happen — suddenly, it will be Blues who will be screaming at the top of their lungs about “Stop The Steal.”
Let me pause here to note that America is tearing itself apart in ways big and small to the point that I just don’t see us making through the passions of another presidential cycle without Something Bad happening. That Somethng Bad could be, as I mentioned, autocracy, civil war or military junta.
But back to the scenario.
Once election boards in swing states balk at doing their jobs, the clock will begin to tick as to what the fuck is going to happen. And if SCOTUS validates the “independent legislature” concept this would be the point where everything would go off the rails. MAGA controlled legislatures in swing states could simply take control of the administration of elections that that point and pretty much just do whatever the fuck they wanted.
This is the point when we would reach a crisis. Just a few days after Election Day 2024, there would begin to be talk amongst a lot of Twitter liberals about either simply voting with their feet and leaving the country for good or even giving up on trying to “Stop The Steal” and having states call up Secessionist Conventions to give at least a thin cover of legality to trying to leave the Union.
Now, remember, all of this would be happening in the context of an old as hell POTUS who could very well just drop dead in the middle of this crisis, making an already very bad situation even worse.
The key element as to any Secessionist Crisis would be, of course, California and maybe New York City. If there was such popular outrage in Blue states that the 2024 election was going to be stolen in broad daylight that election officials in the deep blue states simply could not ignore the demand to leave the Union, then well, we’re going to show.
Meanwhile, NYC would be important because that’s where Trump Tower, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are physically located. If hordes of enraged New Yorkers sacked those places in the middle of any Certification Crisis, then, well, that would be very bad as to the continued unity of the country.
If we turned on CNN in late 2024 and saw Trump Tower in New York City in flames, then, well, that would probably prompt retaliation on the part of Reds across the country. Which would would cause a cascading series of events that would definitely turn a Certification Crisis in to a Secessionist Crisis.
And all of this would be happening in the context of Trump freaking the fuck out and demanding blood. He might go so totally nuts that he, unto himself, could push the country into not just “chaos” but an actual civil war with two governments fighting it out.
There is just so much about this scenario that I can’t game out. I’m not an expert and I can’t predict the future. So, take that into consideration.
At this point, all eyes would be on California. Either they maybe call up a Secessionist Convention just to placate enraged liberals in the state or they maybe call some sort of emergency summit of Blue governors to discuss what happens next.
Then we bump up against two crucial questions. What about “purple” states and what happens with the U.S Military?
There are a number of states, like Virginia, which are purple. Virginia, specifically, is actually two states who fucking hate each other fused together because of history and geography. So this is when something that would make a lot of people sit up and take notice would happen — not only would there potentially be coups and counter coups in state houses across the country, many, many Reds would leave Blue states and Blues would leave Red states.
All this happening virtually overnight would put ever-more pressure on the Federal government. It would begin to dawn on people that the United States, the richest most stable country in the world was about to collapse into not just “rolling political violence” like The Troubles in Northern Ireland but an honest to God civil war like the one that happened in 1861 – 1865.
This brings us to the other issue — what the fuck would the U.S. Military do?
Well, I simply can’t game this out. There is a spectrum of things the U.S. Military might end up doing. Everything from simply collapsing as the Red enlisted go one way while the Blue officer corp goes another way to some sort of martial law / military junta happening. (If you really wanted to be paranoid, the fact that bonkers Gen. Mike Flynn’s brother is in control of the U.S. Pacific Command might suddenly become VERY IMPORTANT at this point.)
I really can’t game out what happens now. Either Blue States leave the Union en mass, establish their own Federal government and military or the U.S. Military steps in and we have a military junta for a little while until passions die down.
Or Blue States could choke and we slide into autocracy, with millions of wealth Blues leaving the country for good.
So, here goes. Here’s how the individual states would handle A Second American Civil War, probably starting in late 2024 when it becomes clear that Reds are going to brazenly steal the election. I don’t think this is going to happen — I think we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy — but it is at least possible. I’m NOT going to do every state because, lulz, I don’t know the internal politics of each state well enough to do it right.
California If Blues really decide to have a National Divorce, it will be California that probably is at the forefront serving the papers. And the key issue is — war aims. I think at first the war aims of the Blues will be to simply start, say, the United States of Canada. It will only be much later in any conflict that Blues get sucked into fighting the longer-term goal of maybe establishing the United States of North America. And that would happen because Trumplandia could possible begin a Final Solution for POC within its territory and, as such, the second phase of the civil war would be one of liberation. But that’s extremely speculative on my part.
Everything will hinge on what California wants to do. If it simply wants independence for itself, that’s a lot different war than if it joins with other Blue States to establish a new, larger state. But whatever happens once the 2ACW starts, California will be the “Arsenal of Democracy.” If they want to establish a Blue Union, then California would put itself on a war footing. It would call up a few million young men and women into a new Blue Army and away we go. A lot would depend on the state of the US Military, but the case could be made that it might implode, leaving the individual states with the ability to fend for themselves.
California would quickly secure Oregon and Washington then swoop through the plains states to link up with major Blue States in the old Upper Midwest. They would crash into Texas in the south and that would be a Battle Royale, though it’s possible because Texas is shifting blue that Texas might simply implode into an intra-state civil war and Blues could secure the state a lot easier than one might otherwise expect.
But the point is — as goes California, so goes the Blue Union cause.
Texas Texas is a state that is really difficult to game out because while MAGA has turned into a Red stronghold, on the ground, the state is shifting Blue long term. As such, when our national politics finally collapses and we’re dealing with the existential it’s possible that Texas will simply implode. There could be a massive intra-state civil war that leaves it open to Blue Union forces from the West to swoop in and take it over. Or, at least, a lot of it over. But between when the civil war starts and when Blue Union troops come to the rescue, we could all be talking about the Siege of Austin as MAGA surrounds that particular blue dot in a purple state and want to wipe it off the face of the earth.
In a sense, Texas probably has the most to loose from a 2ACW. Texas would probably be the site of a huge amount of fighting as the difference between the Blue shift in the state’s practical politics slams up against the autocratic state government. Or, put another way, Texas is a lot less stable than you might think. It will likely be the source of a huge amount of domestic political refugees who will either endup in camps, or simply flee the state altogether, only to return when (hopefully) Blues win the civil war and there’s a Second Reconstruction.
Oregon The thing about this state is it’s ripe for a huge clusterfuck. Of all the places in the Union in the lead up to any potential 2ACW, Oregon is the state I could most likely see some sort of “Troubles” taking place. There could be a pretty bloody Battle of Portland as all the crazed Far Right Militia’s swoop down on the city and decide to end the “Antifa Problem” once and for all. Then, of course, there’s pretty good chance that all of that will be for naught when California troops come from the south and consolidate Blue control over the state. Not that it won’t come at a very, very blood cost. But California is just too powerful not to be able to seize both Oregon and Washington in the early stages of any 2ACW. Even if California simply wants to go it alone, the mass chaos of Oregon might pull them into the state for some sort of peacekeeping mission.
The Plains States Outside of Texas, the Plaines states may see their fates during a 2ACW largly out of their hands. They could shift from Blue to Red and back again as the two sides fight it out. They have small populations and economies and if California wants to link up with Blue States in the old Upper Midwest, then, they may see their extremely Red politics change in a rather abrupt, violent manner. These states are an example of why it would be so dumb for Red States to want a civil war — the values of small plains states are being forced upon Blue States and Blues aren’t really doing anything about it. But if there was a civil war, the Red Plains States would be forced to change their ways rather quickly.
The Old CSA (At least some of it.) At first, a number of states of the old CSA would explode into joy if there was a 2ACW. States like Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina would have you believe they are already half way out of the Union as it is because of the evil libtard “groomers” and, as such, if Blue States left the Union the populations of the old CSA states would be very, very happy. But. And this is a big but, as the war progressed and everything went to shit there would be a natural inclination on the part of white Christians in these states to make POC scape goats. There would be a rapid radicalization of the politics of these states to the point that something akin to a race war might break out. Or, if not that, then at least Nazi-style concentration camps would be established with the aim of enacting a Final Solution once and for all. This would, in turn freak the Blue States out to the point that even if they were free of the United States, they might rejoin the battle simply to stop the Final Solution from happening. This is all extremely speculative, of course, but I’m simply gaming out what already exists and then assume the worse.
Florida I used to think that Florida would break up into about three states, given how diverse it is, but no more. I think it would be a fully autocratic state under DeSantis — even if he was POTUS at this point — and a lot of young men from Florida would face up against young men (and women) from California as the war progressed and got worse and worse for everyone concerned. The already fucked up politics of Florida would grow significantly more radical to the point that it was a one party fascist state.
Georgia The thing about Georgia is Atlanta. If there was a 2ACW, then it’s possible that within the state it would be Atlanta versus everyone else. Atlanta would be a very Blue stronghold and the rest of the state would be so Red that it could all get very bloody. Of course, Blue forces from outside the state could swoop in at some point and help take stabilize the situation.
Virginia As I’ve said the last time I wrote this scenario up, Virginia is two states that hate each other. Of all the states of the Union that might find destruction as part of a 2ACW, Virginia is at the top of the list — even more so than Texas. The state would collapse into coups and counter coups. The rural Red parts of the state would go all Pol Pot on the Blue parts of the state and there would be a lot of political scores settled by extremely radicalized rural Reds who wanted to make sure drag queens of the woke cancel culture mob could never teach their kids critical race theory again. I wish I was joking or exaggerating, but I’m not.
Heartland The so-called “American Heartland” is where the worst fighting of any 2ACW would take place. States like Ohio and Indiana would be diehard supporters of Trumplandia and they just would not go down without a fight. It would be the type of fighting not seen since the end of WW2. And it would be happening in what was once the most stable country in the world. As I’ve mentioned, a lot would depend on what Blue war aims were. If they just wanted to start the USoC, then my dark fears probably won’t happen. But if, for some reason, those war aims change and the issue becomes bringing the US back together again (probably with Canada by this point) then, well, all bets are off. It would be a very bloody pitched battle.
New York City
A 2ACW might be a tale of two cities for NYC. On one hand, there’s a chance NYC could become something akin to a Free City and on the other it could get nuked by Trumplandia. Any 2ACW would probably see the city flooded with refugees, maybe even including yours truly. But one thing is for sure — the long term tension between Upstate New York and NYC will grow in the event of a 2ACW to the point that NYC may break away politically in some way. Update New York has a lot of room for political refugees and, as such, you could see the population of some of the Update New York cities might balloon as a result.
New England I think in the even of a 2ACW that New England would be flooded with political refugees to an unprecedented extent. People fleeing all parts of Trumplandia would go to New England, potentially in hopes of getting across the border to Canada. Should the Blue Union unite with Canada, then, of course, that dynamic would change.
In closing, I would note three things. There’s not going to be a 2ACW if Blues don’t have any leadership. They currently have no effective leadership, so a lot of abrupt heroes would have to bubble up to the surface once it became clear that Blues had to leave the Union. Also, all of what I’ve described above has to be taken into the context of very real possibility that WMD would be used by both sides as the war progressed. And, remember, if the United States is too busy bombing itself into oblivion, then the prospect of a “Great Reset” in the guise of WW3 is a very, very real possibility.
What the fuck is going on with this sudden surge of Russian propaganda coming from Silicon Valley Tech Bros? It’s like they all agreed, all at once, to en masse become Fifth Columnists and Fellow Travelers of the Russians.
I get much of the sentiment that these Tech Bros espouse. They look at the cold hard metrics and say that Ukraine isn’t worth risking WW3 for. I find this dubious, however, because what do they expect to happen if we don’t support Ukraine? That Russia won’t see this as weakness and turn around and go after the Baltics? Estonia has a huge Russian population and it definitely would be the prime target for Russia if it was able to crush Ukraine because the West listened to the Russian Fellow Travelers of Silicon Valley.
In fact, they have begun to deride the war in Ukraine as “Woke War III.” Which doesn’t put them in a very good light because what are they trying to say — that WW1 and WW2 were “woke?”
All this has me thinking about how, even though it’s obviously astrology for dudes that the book The Fourth Turning definitely continues to have an eerie relevancy as we careen towards 2025. The very ideas that that book talks about — how in the Third Turning, people forget what war was like and why it was fought to begin with — definitely seems to have some meaning in today’s political world.
The alarming thing is, of course, that all of this is happening in the context of a very possible Counter-Revolution in the United States as Republicans take control of at least the House, if not the Senate too in November. With Republicans in control of Congress in 2023, there’s every reason to believe every moment they’re not impeaching Biden or trying to hold the social safety net hostage they’re going to be doing everything in their power to prevent the US from helping Ukraine.
So, it definitely seems as though we’re on the cusp of a very, very turbulent moment in our nation’s history. It’s going to happen no matter what, obviously, but if the fucking fascist Republicans take the House in November, that is only going to accelerate a very, very dark trend.
I was listening to a podcast recently that had the well-respected op-ed columnist George Will on it talking about his ambivalence about the course of the Biden Administration. Will, a very traditional conservative, bemoaned what he felt was Biden’s banking Left once he was in office.
What if Dark Brandon didn’t exist?
I struggle with any scenario where Biden didn’t do just that because he felt he needed to “dance with the one who brung him” as the old saying goes. I can only assume that Biden made a strategic political decision that MAGA was a lost cause and, as such, he wrote the entire Right off.
As such, it’s not like Will had gotten his way and Biden was a real centrist that anyone on the Right would have noticed outside of a sliver of the Right that isn’t MAGA. If Biden had tried to be a Statesman and governed straight down the middle, all that would happened is MAGA would have ignored it and the progressive base of the Democratic Party would have freaked the fuck out.
So, yes, on paper it would have been great if Biden had governed, essentially as a #NeverTrumper….that just wasn’t practical for him. The vast majority of the conservative movement is a lost cause and no amount of governing from the middle would have changed that.
While from first hand experience, I can tell you that fascism is very, very popular in the United States, the question remains, why? Why are millions of American chomping at the bit to give away their democratic birthright?
A lot is going on at the same time. Too much to really get into in a blog post, but in general, there are a few things to focus on.
One is, I think we’re probably going through something akin to a “Soft Singularity.” Technology is changing society so fast, that we can’t keep up. We don’t really think about it being a Singularity because we aren’t, like, uploading our minds into a big database, but the issue of technology shifting society fast remains.
This Soft Singularity has caused the usual generational changes in expectations to happen far more abruptly than we’re used to. What is the “woke cancel culture mob” but really the difference between what Zoomers expect and what the Olds like me expect. Throw in the changing nature of gender roles, growing income inequality and how expensive a good education is these days and you have a lot of angry white Christian men who are ready to be Red Pilled.
And, I think if we were honest with ourselves –which, of course, Americans never are these days — I think we would understand that the vast majority of people who support fascism in America these days don’t even realize what they want. All they know is they are alarmed by the “woke cancel culture mob” and the only through watching Fox News and listening to Right wing podcasts can they get some understanding as to what to think about it all.
These very same people conflate the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob” with the hard power of the state where MAGA continues to grow in strength. And if we had a functioning democracy, then probably many, if not all, of the problems we have at the moment could probably be sorted out without a civil war, military junta or a MAGA-themed autocracy.
But we’re not even a democracy anymore, we’re an “anocracy.”
So, in short, we’re fucked. Fascism is acendant and sooner or later — probably in late 2024, early 2025, we’re going to have to figure out if we’re going to slide peacefully into a fascist MAGA-themed autocracy, or not. Are we going to lose our American democratic birthright, or are we going to have a National Divorce?
The Traditionalists in my family are enraged about a whole host of issues that have been fed them by either Fox News or Right wing podcasts. As a someone who is by nature a center-Left person to varying degrees, I am alarmed at this development.
The situation is so dire, with my Traditionalist relatives assuming that all center-Left people are “groomers” and members of the “woke cancel culture mob” that wants to turn everyone gay that it’s beginning to sink in that maybe this marriage, this Union, can no longer be saved.
As such, I continue to have the idea of the practical nature of a National Divorce rolling around in my mind. It seems, on paper, at least, that if all the Reds in Blue States left for Red States and vis versa, that Blues would definitely be in a better position to thrive than Red States.
The key issue is, if all the highly educated, well trained Blues simply no longer live in Red States, those very Red States are going to have to figure out to pick up the slack. And there are plenty of very smart Reds who could be trained to help that very thing happen.
But. And this is a very big but — the whole reason why Reds hate Blues is they hate taxes that are…often used to train people. So, Reds would find themselves in a position where they could finally gut the tax system so only the Poors paid taxes….but they would also have to find some way for a massive re-training effort of all the good ol boys who are no longer driving trucks cross country, but are ready to “learn to code.” (I’m not picking on good ol boys, a lot of them really are very smart, but I use the term as a shorthand for your average Red State person, even though that may not be entirely fair.)
Add to this that the natural inclination of Red States with the power to do whatever they want on race relations is to go to extreme and you have a very unstable situation. Say what you will about corporate sensitivity training, it’s a lot better than having a race war in Deep South states.
Meanwhile, the case can be made that Blue States shorn from Red States would thrive. You would have California as your economic hub. And, the absence of all those center-Right truckers will eliminate the friction when it comes to Elon Musk flipping the switch on automation of the trucking industry. I’m not suggesting the a Blue Republic would be some sort of utopia, but I do believe it that once things were stabilized that it would thrive.
Of course the “once things stabilize” phrase is doing a lot of work.
It’s very possible that after their initial joy that Blue States are leaving the Union, Red States would freak the fuck out and start to bomb Blue States into submission, which would cause them, in turn, to return fire. Then you have the two sides bombing the most stable, most powerful, wealthiest democracy to ever exist….into the Stone Age.
Just figuring out what constitutes a Red or Blue State would likely be the source of severe political violence. Throw in WW3 happening at the same time because the United States is out of commission and…oh boy.
Anyway, hopefully we won’t have to worry about that. Hopefully, something other than civil war, autocracy or military junta will happen and all my hysterical predictions on the issues before us will be just that. But, who knows at this point?
The thing about JK Rowling’s extremist TERF views is on one hand you have to give her credit for being willing to suffer for her opinions on a controversial subject but on the other hand there is the issue of what she believes in the first place.
One thing that helps is I’m neither particularly invested in the trans rights issue nor am I a fan of Rowling. I honestly just don’t care one way or another one either issue. For me, the issue of Trans Rights, while admirable, is so controversial and gives fucking MAGA fascists something to bludgeon the center-Left with that it’s extremely problematic — so much so that I honestly can’t even come up with an opinion.
It’s because of trans rights — and especially the whole “protect trans children” issue that the Traditionalists in my family think that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” children and turn everyone gay.
Now, obviously, there is a lot going on for them to think this way. From what I can tell, my Traditionalists relatives simply parrot a combination of Fox News and Right Wing podcast talking points. They don’t really care about how real these talking points are — they’re so enraged by how fast American culture is changing that they are willing to use hard power of a MAGA controlled government to crush the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob.”
I continue to struggle with the implications of this. America has a fascism problem and I honestly don’t have any answer as to how to fix it. We definitely seem to be beyond the historical Even Horizon for Something Bad happening, really, really bad.
I say this because by ANY Republican who becomes POTUS is going to be an autocrat sooner or later. To be a Republican in good standing is to be someone itching to be an autocrat. Add to this the fact that Trump has shown no indication that he’s going to retire — in fact, he seems just about to start officially running at any moment — and it seems to me that Trump, unto himself, continues to be a potential reason why we have a civil war starting at some point between late 2024 – early 2025.
Anyway, back to the point of this post — Rowling does herself no favors by being such a rhetorical pugilist with the very people who would otherwise be her biggest fans. But what’s the point of having opinions — however unpopular — if you’re not willing to suffer for them?
The usual caveats apply. It’s not like she’s a Nazi. There are a lot of good people who essentially agree with her view. And that’s what makes the whole issue so difficult to untangle in the first place.
As I keep saying, the old adage about how someone goes bankrupt gradually then all at once can definitely apply to the prospect of the United States imploading into something akin to civil war between now and spring 2025. Now, there is so much I simply can’t game out.
I’m wrong all the time, so I suppose it’s at least possible that somehow, someway we’ll escape the existential choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta and drift through another presidential election cycle without addressing the serious structural problems within the American political system.
And, yet, I can’t help going to the grocery store and looking around and seeing all the different types of people walking around and imagining a time in the not-too-distant future when what you believe politically will become existential — over and above the other problems that will explode into the foreground like potential Qanon-inspired genocide and race wars.
I know that sounds hysterical, like I’m thinking up some sort of liberal-progressive version of The Turner Diaries, but I have a great unease about what’s going on to happen to the United States over the course of the next few years. There is every reason to believe that it’s possible that the otherwise wealthiest, most powerful democracy the world has ever seen could very well implode into civil war and general chaos.
And the very diversity that makes us so strong could be the thing that destroys us as Qanon flavored MAGA fascists attempt to found a white Christian ethno state in the rubble of the country I love. The cities might be emptied and there could be American Killing Fields. The political map of North America could be completely redrawn as Canada is consumed by the blackhole that the United States has turned into.
Again, I’m probably being hysterical. But the United States keeps lurching towards a darker and darker future. What that dark future ultimately is, remains to be seen.
So, tonight we learned that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was prepared to punch the fuck out of Donald Trump had he gone to Capitol Hill on January 6th. I don’t know about you, but just the idea of her doing that is quite cathartic.
Everyone needs to hear Nancy Pelosis response to hearing the news that hearing Trump might march to the Capitol on Janury 6th. pic.twitter.com/PhiM045IDp
Now, obviously, it’s better for all concerned that Speaker Pelosi didn’t get her chance to live up to that treat. And, in a way, had such an event happened and it be recorded — it would have been one of the darker, yet zany events in modern American history.
It would have been a real life parody of something you might seen in a zany Coen Brothers movie like Burn After Reading. But it definitely gives you some sense of how dire the Trump Era was and how much worse it will become whenever dingus Trump becomes president again.
You must be logged in to post a comment.