Tag: Autocrats Never Lose

What If We Held A Second American Civil War & Nobody Came: The Case For A 2025 Military Junta


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve talked a lot about the existential choice of autocracy or civil war that America faces around 2025 as part of the so-called “Fourth Turning.” But there is a third option — military junta.

In a sense, this option makes a lot more sense than either autocracy or civil war because it could be just the temporary fix to our problems. The scenario I’m thinking of is rather than what the Reds want, which is autocracy or what the Blues might want out of desperation, which is civil war, we would simply turn the reigns of power over to the military.

Once we did that, it’s easy to imagine the whole point of the exercise would be a convening of a Constitutional Convention that would address the concerns of both sides. This would be a way to take the existential issues of 2025 out of the hands of our undead politics and turn it over to a hopefully objective existential body that would help us become a more perfect Union.

There, unfortunately, so many problems with this on-paper ideal solution that it’s highly unlikely it would happen. What’s more likely to happen is either we slip peacefully into a MAGA New Right autocracy or Blue States grow so enraged that they leave the Union and all hell breaks loose.

The biggest problem is, of course, the U.S. Military on a systemic basis will do everything in its power to avoid this very solution, even to the point that the whole country collapses into anarchy. This would happen when the military simply refuses to pick a side when Trump fucks everything up like he always does and we just don’t know who the “real” POTUS is and Blue and Red States go for each others throats.

Another problem might be, that the not even the military will be able to withstand the forces tearing the country apart and the largely MAGA enlisted men pick the opposite side as the brass. So, instead of a unified military being able to step in for a few crucial months, everything collapses in on itself and we bomb ourselves into oblivion using illicitly seized caches of WMD.

If MAGA gets its way and we turn into an autocracy then, well, lulz.

The point of all of this is we need to start preparing ourselves for some pretty astonishing choices in the 2024 -2025 timeframe. And it’s going to suck so, so bad. It’s going to be horrible.

But the current autocracy without an autocrat status quo can not stand. We have a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

The 2022 Mid-Term Campaign Season Has Begun


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In just the last few days, I’ve sensed that things have changed America. I don’t quite know what’s going on, but it’s there. It seems as though we are now, after much delay, officially in the Biden Era and, as such, it seems the MAGA New Right has become re-invigorated.

Now, let me put that in context.

The Republican Establishment is ready to move on from Trump himself. They got everything they could possibly ever imagine because of his chaos and, in a sense, they’re sated. They’re ready to find a Trump Without Trump who will do the same thing but without all the headaches.

Now what.

As such, there is tension between the MAGA New Right base that remains all-in with Trump and the Establishment that really, really would rather DeSantis be the nominee in 2024. That’s why DeSantis is beginning to rise so rapidly within Republican circles — he is a viable candidate that a lot of traditional conservatives can support without the embarrassing extensive permission structure required with Trump.

The only problem is, Trump wants to be the next Trump and screwing up the best laid plans of the Republican Establishment is his thing. So Trump in the next year or so will have to make a decision — co-op DeSantis by making him is veep or destroy him. Trump is so difficult to predict at times that at the moment I can’t tell you which one he’s going to do.

But I do know that the shift I’m feeling probably has something to do with the beginning of the extended 2022 mid-term cycle. That cycle will officially be kicked off the moment we know who Virginia’s next governor is. I would go so far as to say it’s possible that if Republican Glenn Youngkin wins (which I think he has a fair chance of doing) that is will we will lurch into a real New Era because we’re all going to be thinking about what that means for the 2022 mid-terms themselves.

All I can say is, batten down the hatches because things are dark in the United States an only going to get worse as the months and years progress. We’re going to be facing more and more existential situations as we careen towards a massive, historic clusterfuck in 2024 – 2025.

There’s Only One Way We’re Going To Ever See Any Accountability, And It’s Not Pretty


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really hate violence. I’m a man of peace. I’m a man of ideas. So, I would rather we slip peacefully into autocracy than have a the clusterfuck that would be a Second Civil War. Having said that, given how the MAGA New Right is chomping at the bit to murder people like me under the guise of civil war, the consequences of such a high risk, high reward situation are something we need to think about if only in the abstract.

The thing about the United States right now is there’s no accountability for Trump. He’s above the law, even not being president. He’s a king without a kingdom. And, but for fuck old and deranged he is, he would be the guy who turned the United States into something akin to Nazi Germany. He really is that bad, if so amazingly incompetent that he could never pull it off without a lot of help.

The only way there will ever be any accountability for Trumplandia is a civil war where Blue States are victorious. That’s it. Otherwise, either Trump and his toadies are a linger existential crisis that just won’t go away, or we slip into some form of autocracy.

I really — and I mean — REALLY don’t want a civil war of any sort.

But the macro tends at the moment in the United States definitely seem to indicate that a civil war is one of two existential choices we’re going to have no later than late 2024 – early 2025.

If we had a Second Civil War and Blue States won — and that’s the critical aspect of it all — then there might be some sort of Truth & Reconciliation Commission that would, at last, give us some accountability for Trumplandia.

But talk about high risk, high reward.

My Hot Take On A Majority Of Trump Voters Wanting To Secede From The United States


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My hot take on a majority of MAGA New Right voters wanting to secede from the the Union is that it’s solely the result of the quirk in history we’re now living through. If either Trump had been the autocrat people voted for in 2016 or had COVID not hit and Biden not been the nominee, those very same people would be the bedrock of a United America Party.

They would be the people who were thrilled that we’d just had a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention and liberals were, at last, owned.

But neither one of those things happened. Trump could not live up to his reputation as the “You’re Fired” Guy and the stars of politics and history aligned in just the right way so deny Trump the ability to rant his way into a stolen second term.

So here we are.

What should be happening – Trump, or someone like Trump, working swiftly to consolidate autocratic power — isn’t happening. This leaves people who want Trumplandia, the MAGA New Right cocksuckers, upset that they can’t turn the United States into a Russian clone immediately.

Also, I think some of what’s going on is that usual MAGA New Right bullshit where they take some ridiculous political position just to own the libs in the mainstream media. They like seeing talking heads on TV freaking out, so they say things they don’t really mean to get that result.

But I will say that the poll in question leans credence to my view that one, the United States is an autocracy without an autocrat and two, the country is far more politically unstable than you might believe.

All that would have to happen is something unexpected to put undue pressure on our political system and some pretty dramatic, unexpected things. Another thing — I still think it’s going to be Blue States that are pushed into a corner to such an extent that they decide to leave the Union in the late 2024 – early 2025 timeframe.

So, it will be Blue States who ultimately leave the Union, not Red States. I say this because all the macro trends favor Red States and when the time comes for some sort of civil war, I will be shocked if it’s not the Red States who get the USA “brand name.”

And even then, that’s really the absolute worst case scenario.

More likely than not, we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy, without people like me an Norm Ornstein getting all that upset about the change in our basic political system.

Or, put another way, for the time being, everything is still up in the air. It could go either way — autocracy or civil war.

‘Red October’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh my God, I learned the reason the White House was bathed in red light was it’s Breast Cancer awareness month. Jesus Christ is the MAGA New Right a bunch of paranoid idiots.

Well, that certainly is one way to wake on up October 1st.

I have to give the fucking cocksucker MAGA New Right credit, they make the foolish online “Resistance” of the Trump Era look like good. Just because the White House lights looked red in the middle of the night, they literally think it’s the End of The World.

But apparently human potato head Dan Scavino got into the action as well when he tweeted this picture out:

Given that the mid-terms are a year away and it would be Red NOVEMBER we would be talking about, I’m at a loss as to what this all means. But, apparently, it means something because the MAGA New Right is freaking the fuck out. They’re going nuts over the idea of a “Red October.”

Hopefully, this is just more nutty MAGA New Right froth and we can all just roll over and go back to bed. Idiots.

Steve K. Bannon’s Podcast Whackpack Needs Me


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, the only way I can tolerate listening to fucking human tumor Steve K. Bannon’s podcast is if I drink a huge amount of rye. And, yet, I find something about it interesting. And there’s something missing: me.

He and I are in some ways so similar that I think it would be amusing to have us play off each other. Having someone who, like, uh, disagrees with him, is the element that’s missing to his hate-filled, rage-filled podcast. He and Peter Navarro get way too overheated with their self-generated bullshit that it would be quite entertaining to have me in the mix.

People would download the podcast specifically to hear me get “owned.”

I think what I see with his podcast is has a lot of potential from a surreal, over-the-top entertainment level, more than any kind of serious podcast. It pretty much like listening to Howard Beale rant on a podcast.

Adding me to the mix would be very interesting and entertaining. I know I like to rant a lot on this blog, but I can also be quite measured in my conversations when need be.

If Glenn Youngkin Is Governor Of Virginia in 2025, He Might Get Overthrown In A Coup


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. I’m wrong so often that it’s comical. But, lulz, I have psychological need to make my abstract fears concrete so let’s talk about Glenn Youngkin.

I’m of the opinion that despite sage admonishments by Larry Sabato to the contrary, given that Virginia is a functioning democracy — unlike North Carolina — that it’s inevitable that some MAGA New Right cocksucker is going to become governor.

That’s the kind of bullshit you have to worry about when one of your two major political parties is fascist.

So, it’s reasonable to believe that what would otherwise be pretty mundane — a Republican governor in Virginia in 2025 — could have some pretty huge fucking consequences.

Namely, a Governor Youngkin would be a prime candidate for an actual fucking coup if the country collapsed. I say this Virginia is actually two different states. You have the autocratic Trumplandia rural parts and everything else. It’s easy to imagine Youngkin throwing his lot with a MAGA presidential candidate and doing everything in his power to throw the state to the Red side, even to the point of outright nullification.

This would not sit well with the otherwise placid, moderates of Virginia.

If the shit really hit the fan, Virginia is probably doomed. It’s going to implode and either Youngkin flees to somewhere like, I dunno, Danville, or he’s overthrown altogether.

It might not be very pretty.

But, I can’t predict the future. All my dystopian nightmare scenarios may be, in the end, just that.

Wargaming Our 2025 Fourth Turning Clusterfuck


by Ender

Who knows?

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. I still can’t get a handle on what’s going to happen in the 2024- 2025 timeframe. Are we going to slip peacefully into autocracy or we going to go tits up? At the moment, I lean heavily towards our democracy having one last death rattle and we become an autocracy.

I say that because, at the moment, the people who should be preparing for autocracy are still stuck in an extreme online naivety about what’s going on. I’ve started to listen to Steve K. Bannon’s hysterical podcast — featuring Peter Navarro! — and it’s pretty clear he wants to sucker punch us all in the real world where it counts.

He’s not even on fucking Twitter (thank God) and yet growing numbers of people are taking his marching orders. And, I think, that is the reason why we won’t have a civil war. It really would take a come-to-Jesus moment for a lot of very otherwise level headed people for the Blue States to strike back when Bannon’s plot works and it has become impossible for us to administer free and fair elections.

But I will note that we all need to start thinking on an existential basis. This is very much the quiet before the storm, in a sense. I will also note that I’m wrong all the fucking time. I’ve been so wrong — especially about how effective as an autocrat Trump would be — that I think the issue is more one of perception more than anything else.

The thing I compare America to is the Roman Empire. The Romans never had an actual “king” and when the Lombards named a king, that was the end of the Western Empire. So, too, Americans feel that some form of free democracy is their birth right and the idea of the United States being nothing more than an autocratic Russia clone is not something that would sit well with the average American.

So, it’s very possible that — at first, at least — we will fit the technical definition of an autocracy, on a practical level the average person will just shrug and not even notice that anything has changed. It won’t be until President DeSantis (or whomever) has had a few years to consolidate power that we all wake up and the issue of the day is if we should have a Constitutional Convention or not. Or, even more ominous, it won’t even be if we should, but what the one we’ve called has decided to do.

There are so many known unknowns right now about the Fourth Turning that I just can’t wargame things out with any degree of certainty. All I know is the conditions are there for either civil war or autocracy (and maybe a military junta).

Or, to say it another way — the United States is going through an lingering existential crisis with no ready endgame. It could go either way at the moment. I’m leaning towards a peaceful transition to autocracy. That seems a pretty safe bet right now.

But there is plenty of time for the specifics of the political equation to change in some pretty shocking ways. As such, we could very well have an actual hot Second American Civil War that would, in turn, lead to the Third World War and billions dead as the result of several limited nuclear exchanges across the globe.

It’s going to fucking suck.

I hate violence, so I’d much rather we slip into autocracy. I’m survivor, I’ll think of something. But I’m also not going to be cowed by threats of a civil war by the fucking cocksucker MAGA New Right.

Bring it.

Jesus Christ Durham Report Star


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When it comes to The Durham Report, the Far Right nutjobs of Twitter have made it something of a totem as to everything they want to change about America. The amount of hope that MAGA New Right cocksuckers pin on The Durham Report is identical to what the comically naïve “Resistance” of the Trump Era thought The Mueller Report would be.

As I understand it, Twitter MAGA New Right people believe The Durham Report is going to be bring down the entire “Deep State” so completely, so totally that Trump will be reinstated by Jesus H. Christ when he comes down from heaven and anoints Trump his replacement as The Son Of Man.

I wish I was joking. I’m not. From what I can tell of the MAGA New Right Twitter cesspool, that’s pretty much what they think. It’s reached Waiting For Gadot levels of asperation. All of their problems will be washed away like sin by the Blood of the Lamb if only The Durham Report would come out and “prove” that evil liberals really were, well, evil.

It makes you wonder what they’re going to do when, well, it doesn’t do just that but instead is, at best, a somewhat smug legal attack on some of the people who hurt Trump’s feelings.

Why The United States Will Slip Peacefully Into Autocracy In January 2025


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. It’s not in our nature to have a civil war.
    For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
  2. Republicans have gamed the system.
    It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
  3. Not Trump 2024
    Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
  4. Autocracy is very popular in the United States
    A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. So, it’s possible that we transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
  5. Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed.
    Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.