I really admire AOC’s spunk. She’s not perfect — she is apt to be a bit too earnest and divisive at times — but she’s the center-Left’s future. But the news that she’s engaged just as a few years before her 35 birthday in October 2024 definitely makes one wonder what she’s up to.
AOC 2024
The case could be made that two years would be just enough time for her to get married and squeeze out one politically necessary baby before she turns around and runs for POTUS in 2024.
Her doing so would be, on one level, be rather audacious and jaw dropping. In our current geriatric anocracy, someone just barely old enough to be president in the first place running for the office is a sight to see.
One thing to consider — should Republicans win Congress in this year, which seems inevitable, then it’s very possible that the GOP will go nuts and impeach both Biden and Harris more than once. This, given Biden’s advanced age, might open a political opportunity for AOC to be a dark horse candidate.
And, what’s worse, the election of 2024 could very well be one big old clusterfuck. Steve K. Bannon’s spiritual shock troops do his administrative coup and we have a Certification Crisis…well, AOC is just the type of passionate leader America would need at that point.
Or put another way, all signs point towards late 2024 – early 2025 being a massive fucking clusterfuck. A train wreck. There could be coups, counter-coups and rumors of civil war. Whatever happens, I suspect AOC will be at the forefront of it all.
With the Dobbs decision, the United States is once again a nation half free and half slave. Women in free states have bodily autonomy, and those in slave states, do not. But it gets worse — both sides accuse the other of being the slave state. From the point of view of Red States, THEY’RE the free states because now “every life is precious” and an egg is free to be born in absolute terms, damn the consequences to the adults involved.
How do you fix that particular problem?
But the core issue remains — with the Dobbs decision, a pretty big bolt has popped off of America. The process of division that began decades ago has lurched forward yet again. The Dobbs decision is one of those rare times in America’s process of dis-Union where the lives of the average person is being demonstrably changed.
Usually, this process of division is far more abstract. We all know that Blues and Reds are beginning to have a fundamental difference in what it means to be an American, but it’s rare that its demonstrated in concrete form.
What makes the Dobbs decision so alarming is it gives an economic element to the differences between Reds and Blues. Previously, our differences were just a matter of self-perception, with Reds thinking Blues are all “groomers” who want to use their woke cancel culture mob powers to “cancel” anyone who doesn’t want third graders to be gay.
As such, the case could definitely be made that Dobbs is a ping from a very dark future. That it is a sort of modern day Dred Scott decision, the thing we’ll all look back upon and say, “Well, obviously there was going to be a National Divorce and, as such, a Second American Civil War.”
But everything is still very much up the air. I just can’t game out if we’re going to have a civil war or if we’re just going to follow Turkey, Hungary and Russia into autocracy. There are just too many known unknowns.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gestures toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory Jan. 6, 2021 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Some demonstrators later breached security and stormed the Capitol. (Francis Chung/E&E News and Politico via AP Images)
All of the macro trends definitely point to a Fourth Turning or Great Reset around January 2025. But how that Big Historical Event expresses itself is huge mystery. At the moment, I think Blues simply do not have the leadership — or balls — to leave the Union. They’re so wrapped up in how many genders can dance on the head of a pin or which pronoun to use — or too busy getting securing their new home in the south of France — that we’re probably just goig to slip peacefully into autocracy without a struggle.
Not that particularly want a “struggle.” I don’t want any violence, but if there was a National Divorce with Blue States leaving the Union, states like Virginia and Texas would implode into vicious, bloody violence.
Anyway. We have a few years to figure out what we’re going to do on a personal basis. I have a vested interest in there not being a civil war — I have six novels I’m working on that I’d like to have the opportunity to publish in a peaceful — if even autocratic — America.
Something happened to the Right when Obama won a second term. I don’t know if it was because of the rise of smart phones that made radicalization easier or if they just could not process that they had lost the culture wars and as such they freaked the fuck out.
But, whatever happened after starting in 2013, it was the origin of the counter revolution that we’re now living through. As I keep telling my Traditionalist relatives to no avail, for all the soft power of the woke cancel culture mob demanding everyone turn gay at the earliest age possible, in the end the Right has that sweet, sweet hard power.
And, I don’t know about you, but if push came to shove, I sure would rather have hard power, the ability to pass laws than I would the soft power of “canceling” people.
But things have gotten so fucking bad with my Traditionalist relatives — who I love dearly — that they simply can not, will not process that their side is politically ascendant and they’re getting everything they want. Or, put another way, they will get everything they want they just have to be patient. At some point after 2025, the GQP will use its hard power to, at last, vanquish the woke cancel culture mob and all its soft power.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gestures toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory Jan. 6, 2021 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Some demonstrators later breached security and stormed the Capitol. (Francis Chung/E&E News and Politico via AP Images)
My Traditionalist relatives get really worked up about the soft power of the woke cancel culture mob. So much so, that they conflate MAGA’s hard power with the soft power of the cancel culture mob. They just can’t process that MAGA is winning and, in the end, autocracy will be established and the culture war counter-revolution will be successful.
Now, for me, the issue is my Traditionalist relatives at the moment are nothing more than Good Germans without an autocrat to support. When that changes in 2025, we’re going to zoom towards the final “red line” –ME. And, just like I have no doubt my Traditionalist relatives would get their daughter or granddaughter an abortion if necessary at some point in the future, I also know that when ICE comes for me at some point in the next 20 odd years that they will first beg me to shut up “for the sake of the family.”
Then, when I won’t shut and I find myself in an ICE camp, they’re going to do what they can to get me out. It’s going to suck. A lot. If they had only made common cause with me on a practical basis when it mattered, maybe things would not have gotten that bad.
All of that obviously hasn’t happened yet. And it may never. But the rise of autocracy in the United States is not the abstract that it is to a lot of people. I’ve had the luxury of being a drunk crank in a Western democracy my entire life and once I no longer live in a Western democracy…well, all bets are off.
I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. There is no reveled truth, etc, etc. But here is one possible scenario. And it will be a lot like what happened to Turkey in 2016. In late 2024 – 2025, we have a Blue “Stop The Steal” event (this one legitimate). Because of Bannon’s administrative coup, the 2024 election really is being stolen.
There is some sort of coup attempt as it becomes clear that Trump or DeStantis or name a fascist Republican is going to become president through theft. There is some sort of coup attempt on the part of Blues…but it’s too half assed to succeed and the whole thing is used as an excuse by Trump (or whomever) to purge an array of people across the Establishment.
And, as such, the drift towards a Hungarian or Turkish style autocracy will happen not over the course of a few years, but a few days or week. And that will be that.
Again, I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. But the point of this exercise is to make it clear that we’re in unpreceded times. Nothing is off the table. Our ability to punt problems down the road and to just muddle through is over.
It’s not like we don’t see what’s coming. There is a definite momentum in our drift towards autocracy, or civil war or a military junta. And that process has officially begun with the Dobbs decision.
People need to get woke. And not in the “what are your pronouns” way. People need to think about what they believe in and what they’re willing to suffer for in the real world. There is a very good chance — as shown above — that we could rather abruptly lurch into autocracy not in a matter of years after the left of the 2024 election — but days.
We can’t keep whacking off mentally about this or that thing that we wish might happen. The only way I could possible see us punting this crisis down the road one more presidential cycle is if we could figure out a way to get Mike Pence to be MAGA’s John Dean then turn around and head a Unity Ticket with AOC as his veep.
I hate to break it to Blues, but the era of anger and hope is over. Now is the era of preparation. Either you’re willing to risk your life and scared honor in the real world, or shut the fuck up. I see this all over the place within my center-Left Twitter echo chamber. A lot of people have a lot of fantastical quick fixes to a problem that has been 50 years in the making.
If the United States was a functioning democracy — which it isn’t — this would all be part of a 50 year cycle that would ultimately see us begin to swing back towards a progressive era. But as the January 6th insurrection proves, we’re an anocracy now and, as such, rather than begin to drift back towards passing the Leftist agenda, we’re either going to become an autocracy or have a civil war.
Call it the 4th Turning or the Great Reset, that’s what’s going on.
And as part of that, no amount of mental masturbation on social media is going to change that particular existential choice. What’s more, MAGA New Right thought leaders are actively working to sabotage the ability of Blues to get what they want through voting. Steve K. Bannon wants to establish permanent white autocratic rule by corrupting the administration of elections to the point that it will become clear that voting doesn’t work and, the thinking goes, Blues will stop voting and that will be that.
I’m not advocating violence in any way. I’m a man of peace and ideas. But I would suggest that if you’re a Blue that you take the next to two or three years to take a long hard look at what you believe in and what you’re actually willing to risk in the real world.
SCOTUS isn’t going to be reformed. The administration of elections will become so corrupt that voting is meaningless. The MAGA New Right will lie, cheat and steal to acquire and maintain power….in the real world. They’re passionate, organized and willing to do the real world hard work necessary to get what they want.
Meanwhile, it seems like the Blue leadership is way too busy being Very Online, smelling their own farts and figuring out how to appease the MAGA New Right fascists to they can somehow, someway bridge a gap that the Right doesn’t want bridged.
There is no hope. American politics has collapsed. There is no middle ground. The MAGA New Right is totally reactionary and politically bloodthirsty to the point that they will stop at nothing to get what they want — power.
Blues are going to get suckerpunched in 2024 – 2025 and that will be that. We will slip peacefully into autocracy and gradually become no matter than Hungary, Turkey or Russia.
So, as I’ve written before, a person a lot smarter than me makes it clear that the United States will never have a Second American Civil War because The Powers That Be will never let it happen for economic reasons. He says that the First Civil War happened because Slave Power feared they were going to lose money with the movement towards abolition in the United States.
Now that Dobbs has been handed down, there is now an economic wedge between Blue states and Red states. What’s more, Republicans in all their National Socialist corporate state fervor have begun to make a central tenant the idea of punishing “woke” corporations.
But, wait, it gets worse.
As all of this is happening, Steve K. Bannon is actively telling his “spiritual shock troops” to fuck with the smooth administration of elections via an “administrative coup.”
With all that in mind, on a macro level, at least, the conditions and rationale now exists for Blue States to leave the Union and, as such cause a Second American Civil War. Remember, we have a few more years for Republicans to grow ever more radical and political bloodthirsty.
So, in 2024 – 2025 we have the follow scenario — Blue States not only face the economic fear that birth control will be completely outlawed but they will have no way to get any political redress. If that’s not a recipe for severe political violence at a the state level.
Having said all of that, I still believe we’re probably going to slip peacefully into autocracy for no other reason than there just isn’t any Blue leadership with the guts to lead Blue states out of the Union when the 2024 – 2025 Certification Crisis happens. The counter argument could be that by definition the pressure of the macro forces that are tearing the Union apart would force Blue leadership to bubble up to the surface.
But I’m not prepared to assume anything like that will happen. Ultimately, I think we’re going to just slip into white autocratic minority rule. There will be no civil war, no political violence, we will, like the Biblical Jacob, willfully and trivially give up our American birthright — democracy.
Our democratic republic finds itself at a crossroads. From now until around January 2025, the United States is probably going to go through an unpreceded era of instability as we lurch towards the existential choice of autocracy or civil war.
French Revolution: March of the Women on Versailles, from Paris, 5th October 1789. Engraving. Paris musee Carnavalet (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)
At the moment, we have the first ping from that dark future in the guise of the Dobbs decision. And, as such, something has to happen in the real world to address this particular clusterfuck. If both men and women want to protect what’s left of their American birthright — that of living in a Western democracy — something’s gotta give in the real world.
Instead of mentally whacking off and daydreaming about solutions that simply will not, can not be effectuated, someone, somewhere needs to risk their life and scared honor by doing something risky in the real world.
And, to me, the obvious risky move would be to organize a Women’s General Strike. Use the existing infrastructural associated with the Women’s March to get all intersectional on the patriarchy’s ass and get a female stock broker in Manhattan to decline to go to work on the same day as a African American cleaning lady in Mississippi.
History has proven that when women collectively get pissed shit changes. And, as such, if we want to save our American democratic birthright, women need to kick Republicans in the crotch — they need to attack them economically. Women could bring the country to its knees within a few days if they simply said — we’re not going to work until you codify Roe and give us an promise that SCOTUS won’t overturn it.
Or, if you REALLY wanted to get radical — you say, “Women aren’t going to work until abortion rights are codified in the Constitution.”
This is really fantastical because women are such a diverse voting group that it’s really hard to get them all on the same page, especially within the context of a nation of 335 million people. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
It’s just annoying in the extreme that you have so many angry, motivated women and there just isn’t the leadership to help organize them to ACTUALLY slay the patriarchy. Sigh.
As I’ve mentioned before, someone far smarter than I is adamant that there’s no chance the United States will have a Second Civil War. He says because, lulz, just because black women in a Red State can’t get a legal abortion doesn’t mean The Powers That Be in Blue States will let a anything as destructive as a civil war happen.
And, yet.
If you assume that the ultimate goal of Republicans is to catch the car AGAIN by outlawing abortion — and even contraception — nation wide, then you’re deal with economics. When wealthy white liberal women in Blue states can’t even use the fucking Pill legally, then, we got ourselves a severe economic problem. Below is the fucking smoking gun on this particular issue.
So, if the general drift of the modern American conservative movement is to force wealthy white liberal women to either leave country so they can lead a normal life or for them to use birth control at risk of being arrested…then…then idea of a national divorce and hence a civil war grows significantly.
Or, put another way, if I had any faith in Blue leadership, then it would obvious we would face a civil war because Blues would be primed to leave the Union for the economic reason of abortion — and birth control in general! — being made illegal.
But, sadly, Blue leadership is too old and too ineffectual for that to be a reality. There probably will be a lot of talk between gritted teeth about Blue States leaving the Union around 2024 – 2025….but ultimately Blues are going to peacefully submit to having a Red knee on their collective political necks.
Now, there is one possibility that might contradict this if you wanted to get all psychohistory about things. And that possibility is that, by definition, people will rise to the occasion in late 2024 – early 2025 as part of a Certification Crisis. It would be this that is simply not something I can predict.
But that is rather dubious. I’m not prepared to put all my chips on the general idea that macro forces would force individuals to do things that, to date, they have no shown any indication that they can do.
Blue leadership is completely ineffectual to the point of being meaningless. They’re the gang that can’t shoot straight. So, unless something pretty dramatic happens that I can’t predict — America is going to become an autocracy.
The Dobbs decision is just a ping from that inevitable autocratic future. Abortion rights were always a firebreak for other rights. And now that Roe has been overturned, the path is clear for Republicans to use their hard power to win the culture wars that they lost to the soft power of Democrats.
This is where I start to grow concerned about my own future. I’m a loudmouth crank and I often get drunk and shoot off at the mouth. Whenever I mention the very dark potential future where I might get arrested by ICE (or whomever) at some point in our autocratic future for being a loudmouth crank, my bed rock conservative relatives just roll their eyes and think I’m hysterical.
But let’s take a serious look at my concern on this issue. What I’m really worried about is the one thing that I’ve enjoyed the most for my entire life — the right to speak my mind — would be so abridged by, say, President DeSantis that at some point in the future I would be rounded up like I was in Putin’s Russia or something.
How possible is this, really?
For the time being, no very possible. Even with America’s now inevitable slide into autocracy, the last right to go will probably be the individual right of an American to get drunk in a bar and rant about how President DeSantis can suck their cock.
So, in a sense, my Traditionalist relatives are right — to a point. But, and here in the key thing to remember — form follows function. President DeSantis isn’t going to over night make it effectively illegal for cranks like me to rant about what a dick head he is.
He’ll go after people in the media first, probably threatening to revoke their broadcast license for being too “woke.” That will be the first step. This will be subtle and my Traditionalist relatives probably won’t even notice the purge of late night talk show hosts who will be replaced by people who will no longer talk about politics.
But, again, form follows function.
The latter stages of DeSantis’ consolidation of power will be the weaponization of ICE. Throw in a the calling of a Constitutional Convention and there will come a point when freedom of speech will be so curtailed that, yes, even some rando like me in the middle of nowhere might find myself being visited by ICE, who will ask what this is they hear about me talking bad about the president.
And THIS will be when, of course, my Traditionalist relatives — who I love dearly –will come to me and tell me to shut up for the sake of the family. And I will politely, or maybe not so politely, tell them nope. They had their chance to make common cause against autocracy and they decided they hated the woke cancel culture mob that wanted to make everyone gay too much and hence here we are.
So, yes, logically, I do have a concrete reason to fear that at some point in the future the very thing that my Traditionalist relatives think is ridiculous — being apprehended by ICE — could, in fact, happen. It may be 2035 when it happens, but macro trends would indicate that it will, in fact happen.
It’s interesting how the two sides are just now beginning to overcome their shock that Roe was actually overturned and are now beginning to figure out their 2022 strategies.
If what I can see on Twitter is any indication, Blues are slow on the uptake, as usual. They throw out a bunch of dumb hot takes the involve things that will never, ever happen. They propose expanding the court or codifying Roe or any number of other things that are nothing more than social media mental masturbation.
I’m not see anyone propose the one thing that might actually address the question at hand — something like a Women’s General Strike. No, everyone wants to be a keyboard warrior and think up things that will never work just because they make them feel better.
Meanwhile, Republicans have a plan: lie.
They tell us this really doesn’t change anything. Lie. They say women still have a right to choose. Lie.
And when they aren’t lying they’re being quite clear that they’re going to try to catch the car AGAIN, by ultimately passing a national abortion ban as soon as they are in control of the legislative and executive branches again.
So, for the time being, it’s advantage Republicans. As always. And given how totally ineffectual Blue leadership is, I have every reason to believe we’re going to slip peacefully into autocratic Trumplandia and Blues won’t even put any fight at all.
Republicans will steal our democratic birthright in a very brazen manner and we just don’t have the gumption to do anything about it.
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