Tag: Autocrats Never Lose

American Politics Is A Catastrophic Shit Show Right Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is a political monster who is not only personally warping American politics and law, but heightening a sense among many that we’re living in an era of lawlessness. And, yet, because the MAGA base is completely indifferent to anything Trump does or says, there’s not a lot we can do about it.

But one thing is clear — the era of “hoping things work out” is over and the era of preparation has begun. If you’re a wealthy liberal, I suppose you’ve already gotten your second passport by this point. Meanwhile, we Poors have to console ourselves with a bugout bag or something.

The looming question, of course, is what the endgame to dumpster fire shit show will ultimately be. How’s it going to end? I honestly don’t know. Logically, of course, what will happen is someone like Ron DeSantis wins the 2024 election and the United States gradually lurches towards being a political clone of somewhere like Hungary (if we’re lucky) or Russia (if we’re not lucky.)

Then, of course, there is wildcard of Donald Trump. He’s such a unique historical and political figure. It’s totally bizarre that of all the people who could single-handedly destroy the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, the hand of fate would pick such a malignant dingus like Trump.

Trump, unto himself, could cause a Second American Civil War. All he has to do is go transactional, say, by telling Red States to secede from the Union and the rest would take care of itself. The thing about this possibility is it sounds hysterical and bonkers, and, yet, this is Trump we’re dealing with. If he personally felt the risk of going to prison, it might focus his mind enough to the point that he could think up and implement something as diabolical and causing a secessionist crisis.

I say this because I just don’t see Trump causing rolling political violence. Yes, plenty of MAGA Republicans want to murder people like me in cold blood, but that’s more about how they want to be able to do so with the rules of war not law being applicable.

Their desire for a civil war says more about they wanting to murder people like me without going to prison than any desire to actually start a civil war. At least, that’s what I think is going on at the moment.

The point is — something’s gotta give. I find it difficult to believe that we’re going to simply stay on edge until some point in late 2024, early 2025 when Blues either leave the Union on the state level or shrug and bend a knee to fascism.

‘Dark Brandon’ Rises

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Nowhere is it more obvious that we face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war at some point between now and January 2025 than when it comes to Biden, during the 2020 campaign, promising to be a “uniter.” I have traditionalist relatives and they often get really mad that he said this, given that he hasn’t done what they feel would “unite” the country.

Dark Brandon

This is a very murky issue because there is a lot to unpack.

First, if you say that Biden lied when he said that, then you have to address the fact that Trump said 30,000 lies while in office. Then, of course, your MAGA interlocutor will throw up their hands and say this is “bogus” because the “fake news” Washington Post is who collected that figure. Or, they’ll say most of those lies weren’t all that big and, besides, Biden lied when he said he would be a “uniter” and, as such, he needs to be impeached. Or some similar bullshit.

Another element to all of this is probably what was going on when Biden said he would be a “uniter” is he was trying to convey to those 100,000 independent swing voters in 5 purple states that are crucial to winning a presidential election that he would be a more traditional president, one who would governor everyone equally, not demand a quid pro quo for any and every action.

But that’s difficult for MAGA people to process because they’re so consumed with grievance and a fear that of losing status in the context of the browning of America that they’re too blinded with rage to be willing to process any sort of nuance like that.

The key thing to remember, though, is — but for Trump, I would say we’re going to lose our American democratic birthright in plain sight and there won’t be much struggle. If Trump would just get out of the way, after having served his political and historical purpose, then Ron DeSantis could become president and turn us into A Very American Autocracy.

Trump is a political monster, however, and he won’t retire. And because he’s such a fucking chaos agent there is a good chance that he, unto himself, could start a civil war in the United States. It’s not a big chance, but it does exist.

  1. An Effort to Stop Criminal Accountability
    This is the one scenario whereby the MAGA New Right people who keep coming to this Website looking for a sooner-rather-than-later timetable for being able to murder people like me without criminal recourse might happen. If Trump really felt he might, at last, face some criminal accountability, he could very well begin to rant that Red States need to leave the Union because of how unjust it all is. I suppose he might, in general, demand in his usual dog whistle kind of way general political violence, but I doubt it. When you have an entire party — the Republican Party –with a cult-like devotion to you, why go for general violence when you can get entire states to leave the Union at your behest?
  2. A Ploy to Convict Biden / Harris in the Senate
    In this scenario, it’s 2023 and Republicans have gone nuts. They have impeached both Biden and Harris out of spite. Now, for Trump to actively be trying to destroy the country, he would, of course, need to have some personal investment in it. So, this one only really works if he is the Speaker of the House and he thinks he can become POTUS again early. So, in a bid to scare the living shit out of the Senate, he, as Speaker, begins to demand Red States leave the Union in order to get what he wants. He says this just as a rhetorical flourish, but MAGA legislatures take him seriously and states, probably beginning with Texas, begin to convene Secessionist Conventions. An away we go.
  3. A 2024 Clusterfuck — MAGA Counter Revolution
    This endgame was two parts to it. It could be that at some point in late 2024, after Election Day, it will be obvious to Blue States that the election was stolen and they have no recourse but to begin the process of leaving the Union. By the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, we are in a full fledged Secession Crisis. The other possibility is that Trump wins outright — even though he’ll cheat no matter what — and by late January it becomes clear that Trump’s second term agenda is so fascist and radical that Blue States begin to leave the Union.

Have I Accidently Red Pilled Myself?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I decided to buy JK Rowling’s self-indulgent mystery tome out of spite towards the “woke cancel culture mob.” I have a feeling, given my dissipated youth that if I manage to miraculously sell my first novel, I’m probably going to get canceled pretty quick.

But, who knows, maybe I’ve overthinking things.

Something about why Rowling has been so vehemently “canceled” doesn’t set well with me. Her “cancelation” because of viewpoint that a lot of average people have is very troubling for a number of reasons. It’s because of shit like that that we got Trump.

When the average person begins to believe they risk their entire life being ruined for holding a view that seems pretty obvious and simple — then you have a serious problem. That’s when they start to doubt the very legitimacy of democracy and fascism becomes more and more appealing to them.

And I say all of this as someone who fucking hates the MAGA New Right. I suppose you might call it a little bit of political tough love. In the end, I think the “woke” era is going to end either when we have a civil war or when we turn into an autocracy.

My Hot Take On The NARALago Photo

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Team Trump is caterwauling about a photo taken of Top Secret documents at Mar-a-Lago by the FBI. The reason is, of course, is it really hits home what was going on. And given that how much MAGA is freaking out about the picture, it’s obvious that MAGA “thought leaders” feel the photo is hurting them politically.

The big issue that they have with the photo is that is makes like they discovered the documents that way. But, if you look carefully at the photo, the box that the documents (not in this photo, but in another photo) were being stored is right there. So, the real reason why MAGA is freaking out is the photo tells the story of what was going on.

It’s a simple to understand of element of an abstract scandal. Which is exactly why MAGA hates it so much. And given the how potent the picture has been, I think maybe Trump shouldn’t release the CCTV footage of the FBI raid. That would, too, give the average person some sense, in concrete terms, the scope of what was going on at Mar-a-Lago.

Anyway, I think we need to accept that Trump continues to be above the law and he is bending both our political and criminal systems. And there comes a point when we have to put up or shut up about the existential crisis we face of autocracy or civil war.

We’re in the danger zone. We’re past the event horizon for some pretty fucked up things happening in the United States one way or another.

Citizen Trump As Chaos Agent

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been reading a political biography of Hitler in an effort to better understand Trump and I continue to be startled by how different the two men are. While Hitler was definitely a right place, right time kind of guy, he had the wherewithal to bend history to his will. He actually had something that Trump obviously doesn’t have — the ability to think in the abstract.

Trump’s political instincts are that of a grunt. He knows what plays to be base — he IS the base — and that’s about it. There are some very dark forces at work in the collective psych of the American population and they are so dark and powerful that all Trump does is coast off of the energy generated by whatever the fuck that is going on.

In a sense, Trump has served his political and historical purpose. He’s weakened America’s political norms to the point that ANY Republican — be it Ron DeSantis or Glenn Youngkin — will be America’s first autocrat. All the conditions are there for us to slip peacefully into autocracy and 20 years from now someone going back and forth between the United States and Russia won’t be able to tell any difference on a political basis.

But there’s a problem — Trump is such a fighter that as long as he has air in his lungs, he’s going to do whatever he can to save his own hide. He really wants to be POTUS again, setting up a situation where Trump is the Republican primary and it’s not POTUS, but veep, that is the position that everyone wants so bad. Trump is such an old, fat tub of lard that whomever he picks to be his veep will have a good chance of being America’s Putin.

Of course, there is another issue — Trump could cause a civil war in a variety of ways.

  1. An Effort to Stop Criminal Accountability
    This is the one scenario whereby the MAGA New Right people who keep coming to this Website looking for a sooner-rather-than-later timetable for being able to murder people like me without criminal recourse might happen. If Trump really felt he might, at last, face some criminal accountability, he could very well begin to rant that Red States need to leave the Union because of how unjust it all is. I suppose he might, in general, demand in his usual dog whistle kind of way general political violence, but I doubt it. When you have an entire party — the Republican Party –with a cult-like devotion to you, why go for general violence when you can get entire states to leave the Union at your behest?
  2. A Ploy to Convict Biden / Harris in the Senate
    In this scenario, it’s 2023 and Republicans have gone nuts. They have impeached both Biden and Harris out of spite. Now, for Trump to actively be trying to destroy the country, he would, of course, need to have some personal investment in it. So, this one only really works if he is the Speaker of the House and he thinks he can become POTUS again early. So, in a bid to scare the living shit out of the Senate, he, as Speaker, begins to demand Red States leave the Union in order to get what he wants. He says this just as a rhetorical flourish, but MAGA legislatures take him seriously and states, probably beginning with Texas, begin to convene Secessionist Conventions. An away we go.
  3. A 2024 Clusterfuck — MAGA Counter Revolution
    This endgame was two parts to it. It could be that at some point in late 2024, after Election Day, it will be obvious to Blue States that the election was stolen and they have no recourse but to begin the process of leaving the Union. By the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, we are in a full fledged Secession Crisis. The other possibility is that Trump wins outright — even though he’ll cheat no matter what — and by late January it becomes clear that Trump’s second term agenda is so fascist and radical that Blue States begin to leave the Union.

    But there is a problem with such thinking — Trump, unlike Hitler, really isn’t smart enough to do anything as diabolical as do the simple act of telling Red states to leave the Union in an effort to protect him. If he did it, it would be out of extreme desperation caused by his mind being focused by the prospect of going to prison.

    The point is — America’s political culture is going to be very bumpy between now and January 205. Something’s gotta give. We can’t keep this up forever. We’re going to fish or cut bait on the fate of our democracy at some point.

Trump Is Going To Get Away With It (Again)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think, in the end, the Justice Department will simply be so glad to get the documents that Trump stole back that they will punt on actually holding Trump criminally accountable. The nation is too divided and the Right has already begun the process of baking into the cake yet another Trump scandal. Trump will continue to warp our political and criminal system because of the absolute fidelity of the MAGA base and that will be that.

The key issue is, of course, that Trump’s usual political bullshit is working. And because the wheels of justice are so slow that ultimately, the whole thing will be see through the lends of politics and, by definition, Trump wins.

And, as such, the it seems as though we’re going to zoom towards Election Day 2022. Then we find out if the fascists take Congress again. The Trump announces for 2024 and then we zoom towards the complete clusterfuck of 2024.

At the moment, it seems, that 2024 is going to be it. We will face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. I think it’s obvious — at least at the moment — that we’re just going to slip into some form of autocracy. That’s our fate. Get out while you still can.

Be Thankful Trump Hasn’t Gone Transactional Again — Yet

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

To date, Trump has only gone transactional once — on January 6th. And he ony did so because it was personal and he was desperate. Below are three ways that Trump could start a civil war by going transactional.

  1. An Effort to Stop Criminal Accountability
    This is the one scenario whereby the MAGA New Right people who keep coming to this Website looking for a sooner-rather-than-later timetable for being able to murder people like me without criminal recourse might happen. If Trump really felt he might, at last, face some criminal accountability, he could very well begin to rant that Red States need to leave the Union because of how unjust it all is. I suppose he might, in general, demand in his usual dog whistle kind of way general political violence, but I doubt it. When you have an entire party — the Republican Party –with a cult-like devotion to you, why go for general violence when you can get entire states to leave the Union at your behest?
  2. A Ploy to Convict Biden / Harris in the Senate
    In this scenario, it’s 2023 and Republicans have gone nuts. They have impeached both Biden and Harris out of spite. Now, for Trump to actively be trying to destroy the country, he would, of course, need to have some personal investment in it. So, this one only really works if he is the Speaker of the House and he thinks he can become POTUS again early. So, in a bid to scare the living shit out of the Senate, he, as Speaker, begins to demand Red States leave the Union in order to get what he wants. He says this just as a rhetorical flourish, but MAGA legislatures take him seriously and states, probably beginning with Texas, begin to convene Secessionist Conventions. An away we go.
  3. A 2024 Clusterfuck — MAGA Counter Revolution
    This endgame was two parts to it. It could be that at some point in late 2024, after Election Day, it will be obvious to Blue States that the election was stolen and they have no recourse but to begin the process of leaving the Union. By the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, we are in a full fledged Secession Crisis. The other possibility is that Trump wins outright — even though he’ll cheat no matter what — and by late January it becomes clear that Trump’s second term agenda is so fascist and radical that Blue States begin to leave the Union.

    The question, of course, is how likely is it that malignant dingus Trump would summon the wherewithal to go transactional sooner rather than later, say, to save his sorry ass from facing any criminal accountability. That is a real mystery. What happened on January 6th was such a specific, simple situation on a cognitive level that to think Trump could summon up the mental acuity necessary to bring the country down via some sort of secessionist crisis is kind of pushing it.

    I just don’t think he has it in him. He talks a good talk, but unlike, say, Hitler, Trump is just playing himself. He can’t bend history to his will like Hitler did. As such, for the time being, at least, I think we’re fairly safe. There will be a lot of talk about a civil war, but, in the end, we’ll just slip into autocracy. Millions of wealthy liberals will flee the country and the country will circle the autocratic drain.

Why, Yes, Charlie Kirk, MAGA Is Fascist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, last night, Right Wing talking head Charlie Kirk popped a gasket over the fact that Dark Brandon called MAGA, “semi-fascist.” Now, this is hilarious for a number of reasons ,chief among them being it’s very self-evident that there’s no “semi” about it — MAGA is fascist.

It’s a testament to how fucked up our political system is that just because Biden said was is patently obvious –MAGA is fascist — people like Kirk are even more determined to be…fascist. It’s all yet another sign of how the country is lurching towards some sort of Great Reset or Fourth Turning no later than late 2024 – early 2025.

We just can’t keep this level of political uncertainty up forever. Something’s gotta give. There has to be a point when we either slip into autocracy or we collapse into civil war. The more the center-Left wakes up to the fascist dangers of MAGA and the more we gird our loins for how to address American fascism, the more this only serves to enrage MAGA.

So, either Blues throw down the gauntlet when MAGA steals the 2024 election and begin to leave the Union, or we just give up and all the wealthy liberals who might otherwise help the Blue cause abscond to the south of France.

One day, we all may be Antifa.

MAGA thinks the American center-Left is communist and the center-Left thinks MAGA is fascist, then, well, then there’s your sign that American democracy is finally dead and we’re either going to start murdering each other for political reasons or slide into a Russian-style autocracy. There is no middle ground. Pick a side. Or a side will be chosen for you.

What If I’m Right?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I’ve been ranting about the existential choice of autocracy or civil war in the United States starting at some point in late 2024, early 2025 for some time now. And the general drift of the country on a macro level definitely seems to indicate I might — gulp — turn out to be right.

The question for me is — will anyone notice or care?

I don’t think so. I think the best I can expect is some writer for The New Yorker or The Atlantic will read some of what I’ve written as part of their overall research into the issue and THEY will get all the credit. I’m a nobody loser crank in the middle of nowhere. There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to care enough about me to give me any credit for it

So, ultimately, if what I fear happens, I’m probably going to be just another nameless either victim of weaponized ICE or a political refugee who flees north to try to get to at state that better fits my Blue political point of view. Nothing of note will happen because I was right.

When We Start Having Domestic Political Refugees, We’re About To Have A Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I often mention, they say you go bankrupt gradually then all at once. As such, the “all at once” part of any Second American Civil War will be when there’s a sudden surge of domestic political refugees as Blues in Red states and Reds in Blue states flee for their personal safety.

If that happens, we’re going to the show — we’re going to have, at a minimum a National Divorce and probably a 2ACW. Of course, this would happen in the context of most of your wealthy liberals simply fleeing the country altogether. It’s already happening, to some extent — wealthy liberals are getting second passports if they can.

So, if the final collapse into civil war happens, you’re going to see a huge amount of wealthy liberals simply leave the rest of the country to its own devices. Meanwhile, those who have the means will simply flee to a state that better suits their political beliefs. This would probably be happening in the context not only of a shit ton of political violence, but either Red or Blue states actively beginning the process of secession. I would also keep an eye on the major conservative media outlets in New York City — and Trump Tower. IF things were really getting really bad, there’s a good chance that there would be a popular revolt in NYC to the point that Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post might be physically attacked — as would Trump Tower. That would be a clear sign that the shit was hitting the fan.

The big issue is when all of this will happen. Will it happen sooner — when Trump goes transactional to avoid criminal accountability — or will it happen later when Blue states realize they are faced with either bending a knee to MAGA fascism, or bouncing.

But, as of right now, I still don’t think we’re going to have a civil war. Something rather dramatic will have to happen, some sort of catalyst for either side to seriously being the process of a National Divorce. What that might be, I have no idea. But I do know its possible.

In general, however, I think we’re just going to slouch into autocracy with the only wildcard being malignant dingus Trump.