Tag: Autocrats Never Lose

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Gather ye rosebuds while you may — things are going to get bumpy pretty quick, maybe even as early as Wednesday. As you may know, Wednesday is the next day when SCOTUS hands out decisions. And it could be that Wednesday will be the day when we finally see Roe overturned.

Now, I’m growing more and more confident that we’re not going to have a civil war. Trump seems — seems? — to be receding in power and, as such, fucking fascist Ron DeSantis (who my conservative relatives love, love, love, love) could very well be America’s Putin very peacefully.

He becomes POTUS in 2025 and that, as they say, will be that.

But either way — civil war or autocracy — this is it. These are the before times. American life is going to change in a pretty dramatic fashion one way or another a lot sooner than you might think.

There could very well be real political violence this summer when it begins to sink in to people that Roe has been overturned. And, yet, I have my doubts. It’s not until wealthy white liberal women in Blue States can’t have abortions that shit will hit the fan. Lulz.

But stranger things have happened, I suppose. It will be interesting to see if the overturn of Roe really is a modern day Dred Scott decision or if we just continue to slouch towards autocracy.

America is on edge, has been for some time and it’s like we all feel that Something Big is going to happen pretty soon. None of us know what that Something Big is going to be.

This is the twilight of one age and the beginning of a new one. We may be about to enter a Second American Civil War with all the destruction that comes with it or we might be simply going to turn into a Russian-style autocracy. But one thing is for sure: a lot of macro trends are coming to a head right about now. It will be interesting to see how things break.

It makes you think if The Fourth Turning was on to something. (I think the writers were full of shit, but it definitely is spooky how well they predicted what’s going on right now.)

Like I keep saying — get ready. Prepare. Pick a side. Figure out what you believe in. That’s all I got.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I may be just a lowly drunk Internet crank that can’t even get literary types to give me the time of day even if I pay them, but I have a pretty good bead on politics in America.

At least, sometimes.

I know a lot of the time, ok, most of the time, I’m totally wrong. But this one time I was right — I have long suggested that Twitter liberals / progressives are so desperate for some sort of leadership that they would embrace people like Liz Cheney for POTUS.

And, lo and behold, since the beginning of the January 6th Committee hearings, this very thing has happened. A number of pieces have been done suggesting Cheney should run as either a Democrat or as part of some sort of “Unity Ticket” of Biden / Cheney.

I probably should give you links, but I’m too lazy.

But this raises an interesting question, if liberals are so ready to embrace Liz Cheney for high office just because she hates, hates, hates Donald Trump and MAGA, wouldn’t the same principle apply to the big kahuna of Mike Pence? Just imagine if Mike Pence went to the January 6th Committee, totally turned on Trump and MAGA to the fullest extent possible.

He would instantly become a liberal darling — despite everything else — and he could very well bankshot himself into being the Democratic nominee in 2024. That sounds totally fucking bonkers, but we’re in very, very dire times for our democracy. So dire that a Unity Ticket of Pence / AOC makes a huge amount of fucking sense to me.

Of course, there would have to be some sort of power sharing agreement for that to work, which would make the US government very schizophrenic, but at least we would be able to punt a severe political crisis down the road a few more presidential election cycles.

There are two obvious problems with this above and beyond the obvious . One is, the administration of elections could be so corrupt in 2024 that not even a Hail Mary Unity Ticket could work. The other is, I’m not so sure that we actually have the gumption to do something so drastic to save our democracy.

Americans talk about democracy in the abstract very well, but the country is too big and too divided for a Unity Ticket to work. If we were Canada, maybe. But we have 335 million people to get on the same page, not 35 million.

Anyway. We’re fucked. Nothing and on one is going to save us. Get ready. The next few years will be lit.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Blue States have a woeful lack of leadership at the moment. While Red States have a plethora, a panoply of very name brand leaders (most of whom want to be our first American autocrat) the center-Left is very, very weak willed and divided.

That is why I, in general, don’t believe we’re going to have any sort of Second American Civil War starting in late 2024 – early 2025. The leadership just isn’t there for Blue States. Blues just aren’t bloodthirsty enough. Nor passionate or organized enough to properly stand up to Reds.

But, as I have mentioned before, there is one group that could provide Blues with the wartime leadership necessary to pull off a successful “national divorce” — the #NeverTrumpers. It would be surreal, but if push came to shove and Blue States attempted to bounce from the looming Very American Autocracy under President Trump or DeSantis (or whomever) the one group of people who could rise to the occasion to give them the leadership they need would be people like Liz Cheney.

I think of #NeverTrumpers as “Radical Moderates.” Even though, relative to me, they aren’t very moderate, they do believe that the US is a democracy and that that democracy is worth defending. I’ve been so wrapped up in thinking about the possibility of a Second American Civil War that I totally forgot to think about what Blue war aims might be.

And, sad to say, those war aims wouldn’t be to keep the Union together, to found a Third Republic, but to destroy it. Blue States would want the very national divorce that Republicans keep beating their meet to all the time. And, the great irony will be — it will be Republicans who try to stop the very national divorce they keep talking about they believe is necessary.

It will be interesting to see if the #NeverTrump Radical Moderates will be willing to abide by the Blue State war aims of tearing the Union asunder. Given how dire things would have to be for such a national divorce to happen….I don’t know…maybe?

Anyway, the point is — keep an eye on #NeverTrumpers. They could very well play a far bigger historical role than one might think at the moment.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The big difference between Watergate and the January 6th investigation is how divided America is on a basic level. It used to be that “all politics is local.” But, now, the reverse is true — our politics has become so tribal that national concerns dominate every aspect of it.

And, sad to say, the center-Left simply isn’t as bloodthirsty as it needs to be to be successful in such an environment. While the MAGA right has gone full fascist, employing every tool at their disposal including violence and intimidation, the center-Left is lulzing it all.

Way too many Twitter liberals think the system still works and somehow if the can only bring down Trump that everything is going to snap into place. I keep complaining about this because I wish major Twitter liberal accounts like Mueller, She Wrote would spend less time on the earnest Twitter threads and more time on telling people like me how to prepare, on a practical level, for the existential choice of autocracy or civil war that we face in 2024 -2025.

But it is not to be.

We’re fucked.

Even if we bring down Trump, there are literally a dozen or more would-be autocrats waiting in the wings to finish the process that Trump started. Remember, Trump is not a “Great Man.” He doesn’t change history or shape it, he is simply a vessel for macro trends, an avatar.

It will be a President DeSantis or Hawley or Pompeo who finally seizes power and consolidates it to the point that America becomes little more than a Russia clone on a political level.

Or we have a civil war.

We can no longer punt our problems down the road. Something’s gotta give — and soon.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m well aware that I can come across as hysterical when it comes to America’s future. But I definitely feel as though autocracy (or civil war) is stalking America at the moment.

If my Webstats are any indication, a lot of people — especially people in Red States — have civil war on the brain. This is very dumb because MAGA is ascendant and if they were just patient they could get everything they wanted.

But they don’t look at things that way. A lot of MAGA continues to feel disenfranchise and they feel so put upon by evil liberals that civil war seems like the only option for them.

Again — this is very dumb.

I still, however, don’t know if we’re going to have a civil war or turn peacefully into autocracy. I just don’t know. It could go either way. It really could. But I will state for the record that if DeSantis is the 2024 nominee that the probability of us becoming an autocracy rather than having a civil war increases dramatically.

But, again, only time will tell.

I do think, however, that there will continue to be a lot of talk about a civil war right up until we finally become an autocracy. And a lot will depend on how bad things get when Republicans take the House. If something happens to Biden and we have a Speaker Trump demanding Red states leave the Union in an effort to put pressure on the Senate to convict, we, there you go.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s not so much that the United States is a democracy or constitutional republic, it’s that for about 250 years Americans have seen being a democracy as a good thing. It’s our birthright, to believe we live in a free democracy even though if you get all technical about it we live in a (democratic) constitutional republic.

And so, to me, if you are saying “democracy” is “mob rule” and cherry pick the more undemocratic elements of our constitution to make your point, all I can say is — fuck you, you fucking fascist.

I mean, come the fuck on.

If you shit on democracy you’re telling on yourself. It’s just like how it’s a tell if someone shits on Lincoln. If you don’t believe the US is a democracy and if you go out of your way to fucking shit on our greatest president then you’re a fucking fascist racist who wants white minority rule.

Growing numbers of Republicans are becoming more and more willing to admit that they’re white Christian nationalists. But, for political reasons, a lot of Republicans are uneasy coming out and saying that their white nationalists so they couch everything in white noise of how the US isn’t a democracy.

Fuck those people.

Like I said, the issue isn’t so much that the US is or isn’t a democracy, it’s that we’ve WANTED the US to be a democracy. Being a democracy in general terms has been part of how we perceive us, our collective self-perception as a nation. To suddenly shit on democracy means you want white autocratic minority rule.

That’s what you’re really saying — you’re saying that rather than change your policies to conform to what the population wants (which is what the Democrats gradually did from 1981 to 1993) you want to totally detach the government from the governed.

Anyway, as I’ve written before, there is no solution to this difference of opinion. Either we have a very violent and destructive “national divorce” or we don’t and become an autocracy.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the more frustrating things I see these days is people on the center-Left ranting about how the January 6th insurrection was an undemocratic coup. That’s exactly what it was, of course, but it’s frustrating because people on the center-Right no longer believe in democracy in the first place.

Or, more specifically, the MAGA New Right doesn’t believe the United States is a democracy and, as such, events like January 6th aren’t nearly as big a deal to them as it is to people like me. They get upset not about the overthrow of the election part, but the violence part.

So, they were quite happy with the actual plot that dingus Trump came up with but they’re embarrassed and upset that it got violent. To the point that they want to deny that it got violent at all. Hence one of the Big Lies popular among the GQP — that the violence wasn’t there fault, but rather the fault of some combination of the FBI and Antifa that did only the parts of January 6th they don’t like.

The point of all of this is — if we’re going to have a Second American Civil War, it’s going to be because a difference of opinion as to what the United States is. Are we a Western democracy or are we a Constitutional Republic? I have one relative — who I love dearly — who has it all thought out. His reasoning is the US has never been a democracy and suck it, lib. He throws in de Tocqueville rather casually and makes it clear that he wants what I fear — white minority rule.

Now, there are a lot of problems with the center-Right being giddy about the US NOT being a democracy but rather at Constitutional Republic. For them to establish permanent white minority rule, they’re going to have to have to use a three prong approach.

Voter suppression, severe gerrymandering and leaning into the more obscure portions of the Constitution to the point that people get fed up and stop voting, which leads to Republicans being able to seize power and never let it go. And, as such, the weakest moment in this plot will be the 2024 election.

If you have 38% of the electorate that wants autocratic white minority rule then there is at least a chance that as we transition into that that the other 60-odd percent of the electorate will grow enraged that this is happening and decide to leave the Union.

And make no mistake — at this point, if we have a civil war, it’s going to be because Blues leave the Union at the state level. Which is why I seriously doubt we’re going to have a civil war. There is, of course, the possibility that something happens to Biden, Republicans win the mid-terms and Speaker Trump actively begins to lobby for Red states to leave the Union on Truth Social as an effort to put pressure on the Senate to convict President Harris. (This is admittedly rather fantastical, if possible.)

But the chief take away is — all if our fears about how we have to protect our democracy at all costs and if we can only convince Republicans to join us in this goal we’ll be able to sing kumbaya are total bullshit. Republicans hate democracy and don’t believe the USA is one.

How do you fix that potentially epic difference of opinion? The answer is, you don’t. You either slip peacefully into white autocratic minority rule, or you have a civil war. Take your pick.

Choose a side. A side will be chosen for you if you don’t.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the core of my hatred of MAGA is how it demands that you deny your lying eyes for pretty much everything. I hate how MAGA fucks with your sense of what is real by constantly simply making shit up.

There are a lot of examples to choose from, but how MAGA has reacted to the events of January 6th are a perfect example of what I’m talking about. MAGA wants us to believe both that it was all a setup by the FBI and Antifa AND a peaceful protest by unarmed patriots AND that it was all Nancy Pelosi’s fault.

I mean, get your fucking story straight, people.

I just am not prepared to believe such bullshit. We al saw what happened and every day we’re getting closer to proving what we already know: Trump was personally behind a conspiracy to stage America’s first coup. (Well, there was the one that happened around the Lincoln assassination, but lulz.)

Anyway, the point is — fuck MAGA and fuck you if you are willing to live in the lala land that MAGA has come up with to explain the world. I mean, JESUS H. CHRIST.

And I know that in the end, once we become an autocracy, that I’m fucked because I refuse to buy into the MAGA bullshit. There is going to come a point when America’s autocrat — be it Ron DeSantis or someone else — is going to say the sky is green and if you don’t obey then you die in a camp or get pushed out a window.

I prepared to go out that way, if it comes to it. I have made my decision. It will be interesting, of course, to see if we have a civil war instead and I endup living as a political refugee in the new United States of Canada.

Do I really think that’s possible? Maybe. We still have a few years of breathing space. But once Roe is overturned in a few days, we’re really going to have a better sense of what to expect. Things could get pretty bumpy a lot sooner than any of us are willing to accept.