Tag: Autocrats Never Lose

Anocratic America: Dr. Fauci, Lightening Rod


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Whenever Dr. Fauci testifies in front of Congress, my heart sinks. It feels like the montage in the movie because the inciting when the Bad Thing happens that begins the story happens. It’s when American Senators who should know better babble about this or that anti-Fauci conspiracy simply to get a clip on FOX “News” that it really hits home how bleak America’s future is.

I don’t know what the “bad thing” is going to be — autocracy or civil war — but something’s gotta give. The United States can’t keep being such an unstable anocracy. We have to make up our collective minds one way or another. But whatever that decision is, it’s going to be a catastrophe.

I say this because the Republican Party is now fascist on a systemic level. Their entire point is to obtain power again and then never let it go. Trump’s Big Lie is now what the Republican Party is on an existential level. I just don’t see them peacefully ever giving up power again. As such, either we shrug a succumb to autocracy or we have a civil war and bomb ourselves into oblivion.

The thing that people who believe I’m peddling “hysterical doom shit” ignore is traditional American politics no longer exists. It’s become impossible to talk to someone about policy with someone you disagree with. It all descends into a screaming match.

It makes you wonder. I mean, Dr. Fauci is 80 years old. Who is going to replace him? Seems to me, either no one does until Republicans came name some MAGA toady, or we have to wait until Blue States win a civil war to get around to doing it. America is about as taunt as it can possibly be. All that has to happen for severe political violence up and including civil war to happen is there be just a little bit of added pressure on the system.

At the moment, it seems to me that The Bad Thing that is going to happen is we slip peacefully into autocracy. Nothing will change at first, but gradually because form follows function the United States will become politically identical to Russia with the twist of white minority rule. Wealthy, well-educated center-Left people will flee the country and the United States will grow inward looking, poor and unstable.

I mention this to my Traditionalists relatives and it doesn’t register that center-Left people leaving the country en mass would be bad for the country — they’re too wrapped up thinking that somehow I’m looking down on center-Right people. It’s kind of surreal. When your first reaction to millions of your fellow Americans voting with their feet is to think the person who suggests this as a possibility is being snooty…is unique.

It’s not a matter of center-Left people being more economically productive than center-Right people, it’s about the destruction of the United States because tyranny has descended upon the land. But, I guess, if you’re a center-Right Traditionalists, you don’t like the idea that YOU could be the bad guys.

I don’t know what to tell you. Things are dark and going to get darker.

America’s Immediate Future Is Perilous



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Something wicked this way comes. We’ve officially entered the danger zone on a macro basis when it comes to the stability of the United States. A wide range of things could happen starting now that could cause Red States to leave the Union in a collective huff. (I still believe that any civil war directly caused by Red Constitutional shenanigans in 2024 – 2025 will lead Blue States to bounce.)

The point is — I’m on edge. And I’m likely to be on edge from now until whatever clusterfuck happens in 2024 – 2025. I don’t think enough people appreciate how awful things are going to get as part of the 2024 presidential cycle.

The United States is an anocracy and, as such, the final step will be either a peaceful slip into full-blown autocracy or a civil war. And it’s not going to be any type of rolling political violence like Barbara F. Walters thinks — it’s going to be a battle royale based on the state level.

If there is a civil war — and God forbid there is one — WMD will be used extensively and millions upon millions will die. The political map of North America will be rewritten as well. Either with a forced union of Canada and the United States or some sort of split in the United States between Trumplandia and the US of Canada.

I’m also on edge because all that has to happen for something closer to Ms. Walters civil war scenario to happen would be Trump shuffling off this mortal coil in his sleep. The MAGA New Right base is so primed to believe he was knocked off by the Deep State that THAT would be when we would have something akin to The Troubles.

They say you go bankrupt gradually then all at once and I think that’s America’s fate. We’re just about to end the “gradually” phase. We’ve just about entered the “all at once” part. I don’t know what it will look like, but being an expat in South Korea for a few years taught me a lot about how to survive in a crisis and the United States is now in a severe years-long political crisis which will either implode — autocracy or explode, civil war.

And, again, I honestly have no idea what you can do to protect yourself. I hate guns and violence. But I do believe in ideas. And I would suggest you figure out what ideas are your True North and what you’re willing to suffer for or fight for when the time comes.

The rest will take care of itself, I guess.

MoscowMitch & The Republican Establishment Will Not Save Us


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to be eager to read Barbara F. Walters’ new book “How Civil Wars Start” when I get it from Amazon, hopefully this week. But in the interview she gave to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I was taken aback by her belief that somehow, someway Mitch McConnell would come to our rescue and prevent us from having a civil war.

Uh, no.

The MAGA New Right’s fascist infection has gone septic. We’re totally fucked. I say this because if McConnell did The Right Thing and simply started to say “No” to Trump and work towards some accountability for him, Trump could just gather up all his deporables and start his own party. So, no, MoscowMitch has every reason to embrace fascism up to and including pushing us into civil war or full blown autocracy.

I think what’s going on is, from the point of view of political theory, one could make the argument that — I guess? — MoscowMitch might side with democracy is the other option was civil war. But that is an extremely dubious assumption in my view.

What’s more likely to happen is there might be some vague talk on the part of MoscowMitch about doing something to prevent a civil war, but he probably won’t even believe it’s possible until the shooting starts. So, again, we’re fucked. This is it folks, the end of the Second American Republic is careening towards. It will happen at some point, probably, between Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025.

The only question at this point is how the Second Republic will finally end. Will it be civil war? Will it be autocracy? Might it even be a military junta of some sort? But what isn’t going to happen is what Traditionalists assume — they get all the “cruelty is the point” policies they love, but they get to keep the goodies of democracy.

They don’t even think in those terms. It will not be until, literally, the excesses of autocracy (or civil war for that matter) are up close and personal that they might begin to regret making common cause with the MAGA New Right instead of libtards like me.

Of course, then they’ll tell me “for the sake of the family” to shut up. And then I get to tell them what I keep telling them will be my answer, “Fuck that and fuck you. You should have listened to me when it meant something.”

So, that’s it. You really, really, need to figure out what you believe in the real world. What you’re willing to risk your life for when the time comes. That’s all the advice I got for you at the moment.

The Vision Thing: An American United Popular Front


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Given that the MAGA New Right has it’s paramilitary group The Patriot Front, the center-Left needs it’s own organization. Not one bent on street violence, but a political organization that would promote the defense of liberty and democracy by facilitating a wide-range of political groups making common cause against the rise of fascism in the United State.

Now, this idea is sort of moot. What is the Democratic Party at the moment but a united popular front of various center-Left groups that run under the rubric of “Democratic Party?” I guess I want an formal organization that would put AOC in the same room as various NeverTrumpers where they would game out a collective, united reaction to the shitstorm we face in 2024 – 2025. Something with the specific goal of getting people like Liz Cheney talking to AOC face to face in public about their united desire to save the failing Second American Republic.

U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivers an opening statement during the opening hearing of the U.S. House (Select) Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on July 27, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. During its first hearing the committee, currently made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, will hear testimony from law enforcement officers about their experiences while defending the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob on January 6. (Photo by Jim Bourg-Pool/Getty Images)

And, yet, again, I don’t know how much good it would do if you really think about it. By definition Cheney is now a RINO in the eyes of both the Republican base and the Establishment. Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump. We’re so far beyond the event horizon for tyranny that there’s little, in real terms, that a United Popular Front could do.

The ideal is still appealing to me because it would be nice to have some formal mechanism for holding the line when we’re faced with autocracy or civil war in 2024 – 2025. Such an organization would be an instant lightening rod for the MAGA New Right, of course. Anyone participating would get death threats, and go only knows what else.

So, lulz? This is one of my ideas that is good on paper but probably is meaningless in practice. And it’s not like anyone listens to me anyway. I just needed to get this off my chest because it seemed interesting, like it had potential to help things as we prepare for 2024 – 2025.

American Anocracy: Traditionalists & My Hysterical Doom Shit


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was wrong about Trump. I was so busy focusing on what was clear — that he was elected by people who thought he was an autocrat, that I totally missed how lazy and stupid he was. He talked a good autocratic game, but he was not a Great Man. He was simply an avatar, a vessel for white Christian rage over the secularization and browning of America.

And, really, it’s not that I want Traditionalists to say that I’m “right,” what I want is them to change their fucking minds and to make common cause against the fucking MAGA New Right fascists that they’ve aligned with instead. But that’s just never going to happen until America’s slide to autocracy becomes personal.

That’s where their abstract fears about being “canceled” for just being conservative meet my concrete fears about running afoul of President Pompeo (or whomever) at some point when our transformation into autocracy is complete. The Traditionalists in my life are notorious for debate nullification. If I made a very valid point against their alignment with the MAGA New Right fascists, they simply tell me “no it won’t” or “that’s bogus.”

They know what they believe and fuck you, lib.

All of this is very frustrating to me because American Anocracy, this twilight period before we either have a civil war or turn into a Russian-style autocracy is the moment in time when Traditionalists could make common cause with libtards like me and PREVENT me having to get up close and personal with a weaponized ICE agent at some point post-2025.

But Traditionalists simply do not take my ranting about the dangerous America — and I — face, seriously. They think it’s just more of my “hysterical” fears that were wrong about Trump and are wrong now. And I know what’s going on — they love, love, love MAGA’s policies and they don’t like the idea that MAGA could be “on the wrong side of history.”

So, again, fuck you lib.

The thing we need — a united, popular front against MAGA made up of Traditionalists, Leftists, Liberals and NeverTrumpers just isn’t going to happen. Traditionalists because of negative polarization and and extensive permission structure are now all-in with the MAGA New Right. They so affixed to the MAGA New Right that, in the end, if Trump does what I believe he will do, which is run again, they will YOLO it and for him AGAIN for no other reason than they simply hate Leftists and don’t believe they have any other viable option.

In other words, they’re Good Germans who will vote for Herr Hitler because he promises to make the economy strong and, besides, he’s not REALLY serious about hurting Jews, is he?

We’re fucked. We’re totally fucked. The thing that Traditionalists assume, that they will be able to get all the policy goodies they want without any backlash or consequences, simply isn’t going to happen. Either we have a civil war or we turn into a political clone of Russia and I die at the hands of an ICE agent.

I know that sounds like just more of my “hysterical doom shit,” but that’s what I believe. And, again, I don’t want Traditionalists to say I’m “right” in the end, I want them to stop being fucking fascists.

But that’s not going to happen.

Yes, Virginia, America Is An Anocracy



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I like to pride myself in having a fairly large vocabulary, so to learn that there is a word for what I’ve been calling the United States “an autocracy without an autocrat” gives me a word boner. I had no idea that the word “anocracy” was a thing, but, lulz ,it is.

I learned this word from Barbara F. Walters, who wrote a book I bought pre-release, “How Civil Wars Start.” It comes out on the 11th and I’m waiting with baited breath to read it. Anyway, being an “anocracy” is one of the preconditions of civil war — with you’re not a democracy yet not yet an autocracy.

Which perfectly sums up what the United States is at the moment.

I’m sure there’s a lot of political theory that explains in technical detail what a fucking clusterfuck in the United States finds itself in, but all I know is America is no longer a democracy at the moment. We’re living in a historical quirk caused by Trump not being a Great Man, but rather nothing more than an avatar, a vessel for white Christian fear and rage over the browning of America.

As I’ve said before, while I’m really looking forward to Ms. Walters book, I disagree with her on the nature of any coming Second American Civil War. She’s assuming that it will come from Reds who start some sort of rolling political violence like The Troubles of Northern Ireland. That only makes sense if, say, Trump peacefully shuffles off this mortal coil at some point between now and 2024.

But the MAGA New Right is ascendant and they would have no reason to do that if they are able to, through or through crook, get presidential power again in 2024. As such, it makes a lot more sense that if will be Blues, at the state level — probably starting with California — that will leave the Union and start a civil war.

Or not. The MAGA New Right is so popular, in real terms, that it’s possible that Trump — or whatever other autocrat gets the historical gig — will win fair and square and we don’t even put up a fight. We slip peacefully from anocracy into an illiberal autocracy.

At the moment, I don’t know which scenario is going to come true. It really could go either way. All I know, as I keep saying, is something’s gotta give. We can’t stay in this half-world of anocracy forever. This is the twilight of the Second American Republic.

The Second American Republic is on its last legs. The question is, do we have a civil war and found a Third American Republic, or do we just become, on a political basis, a clone of Russia?

Only time will tell.

Tyranny Only Matters To Traditionalists When It’s Personal


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is clear to me now that for my Traditionalists relatives their red line when it comes to the rise of tyranny is when things become personal. They are so absolutely fixated on being “canceled” just for being conservative that they are willing to embrace the policies of MAGA to the point that we become autocracy. They don’t see it in those terms, of course. They just think I’m being “hysterical” to even broach the idea that there will come a point when their very vocal anti-MAGA relative may run afoul of the autocrat and have his head knocked in
.

This is because, of course, they don’t like the implication that the policies that they support are, well, bad. And they are bad. They’re tyrannical and cruel. But for them, again, I’m being “hysterical.” There’s no way that my fears of ICE (or whomever) snatching me off the street could possibly happen should another Republican become president.

They laugh at my notion that by definition, any Republican who becomes POTUS from here on out will be an autocrat and do everything in his — or her — power to strangle Lady Liberty one way or another. They support MAGA’s “cruelty is the point” policies and, as such, they’re willing to burn our democracy to the ground — for them we’re not even a democracy. We’re a “constitutional republic,” you know.

The obvious implication of all of this is, not until whatever the autocrat does effects them, personally, will they sit up and take notice. Otherwise, everything is an abstract. To put it another way — they would be the people who absolutely support Roe V. Wade being overturned….until their 15 year-old-granddaughter gets pregnant and suddenly her life is ruined because her parents can’t afford to spirit her out of the country to get a safe, legal abortion in Canada.

THEN they sit up and take notice.

The same with me. I’m a loudmouth crank. I say whatever the fuck I want. I never do the right thing. I don’t even know what the right thing is, sometimes. (All of this is within reason, of course.) What I mean is — whatever the consequences are of me calling President Pompeo a fat fuck while drunk at a bar in 2027 are, I’m willing to suffer.

My relatives love me, but it won’t be until they are face-to-face with tyranny on a personal level when I get snatched off the street by ICE that they will begin to re-think their support of “cruelty is the point” policies that the autocrat has instituted.

So, for me, all this talk of illiberal democracy or autocratic America is not an abstract. This is my life we’re talking about. I’m willing to ride this particular free speech pony to the bottom. I keep telling my Traditionalist relatives that I will never shut up and for them to know that when they inevitable pull me aside and try to tell me, “For the sake of the family, I suggest you shut up.”

Fuck that. Not going to do it. If they had made common cause with me against MAGA at the start of this clusterfuck, they wouldn’t be put in that type of position. Because of their failure to do that, we’re all just going to have to suffer at the hands of autocrat.

If you want to call that my own implementation of “cruelty is the point,” the so be it. But I’m never fucking shutting up. Free speech is my American birthright and if I want to call President Pompeo a fat fuck, I’m going to do it. Damn the consequences to me or my family.

Of course, my Traditionalist family members can’t process that as even being a possibility. They think that’s just my usual crazy talk. The only reason why I’m so adamant about this particular situation is that this is not an abstract to me. You can be scared of brown people all you want to, be willing to give up all of the implied freedoms associated with living in a democracy to prevent them from taking political power from you, but in the end I’m still going to be dead in a ditch because you didn’t make common cause with me when you had the opportunity.

And any assurances I might get that they will help me out if the worst happens ring hollow. They’re just saying whatever necessary to shut me up by that point. Why do things have to get that bad? Why can’t we all unite against MAGA to defend our democracy that is found within our constitutional republic? But no. Cancel culture and woke culture that hurts their fee-fees is too important to them.

They never take me seriously, anyway, even when I’m proven right! Probably because they just dismiss me as a well meaning crank, just like everyone else does.

Anyway. I know what I believe and I know what I’m willing to suffer for in the real life. Which is better than a lot of people out there.

Trump As America’s ‘Negative Yeltsin’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to read a book about the rise of Hitler and Nazis and I have to admit that there are a lot of eerie parallels between Trump and Hitler. And, yet it’s the difference between them that I think are most telling.

While both men were underestimated by their opponents, the thing that is clear to me is that Trump is not the Great Man that Hitler was. Trump is nothing more than an avatar, a vassal for the rage of white Christians who are afraid of the browning of America. Trump is just himself. He doesn’t manage or direct the flow of history, he just rides it towards an unknown destination.

As such, it’s not Hitler I would compare Trump to, but rather a kind of negative Boris Yeltsin. Both men seek to destroy and they both cause a lot of chaos. Yeltsin brought about the peaceful destruction of the Soviet Union. So, too, could Trump ultimately do the same thing with the United States.

Trump, like Yeltsin, is paving the way for a successor who will ultimately be the real Man of History. So, if we manage not to buckle into civil war, it will be President Pompeo, or Cotton, or Cruz, or Flynn, or, Hawley or, or, or, or, or whoever ultimately becomes a very powerful, very long-lasting American autocrat. Whomever the autocrat ends up being, they will become fabulously wealthy and powerful.

The thing that has me on edge is I still can not game out which of the three possible outcomes the United States is going to take. Will we have a civil war, or turn into an autocracy or have some sort of military junta? I just don’t know. Logically, at the moment, we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy because we’re already an autocracy without an autocrat.

And, in the end, when we do become an autocracy, at first things really won’t change. It will only be gradually that the autocrat will begin to abuse their now free reign to do whatever the fuck they want. And that’s when people like me will feel the direct effects of no longer living in a Western democracy, of living in an illiberal democracy.

I know this sounds like my usual “doom shit.” But something’s gotta give. There really are too many similarities between the Weimar Republic and modern America for us not to sit up and take notice. To realize how fucked we are. And we are really, really fucked.

Our political isn’t just collapsing — it’s collapsed. We’ve reached the point where two people who disagree politically can’t discuss matters of the day without screaming at each other. That’s just one step away from the two sides taking up arms and settling those issues on the field of blood.

So, while Trump definitely shares a lot of historical traits with Hitler, for the time being I don’t think he is our Hitler because I don’t think that’s the proper historical analogy. The proper comparison is the fall of the Soviet Union and the transition from Yeltsin to Putin. Someone is going to be an American Putin and THAT person is going to be the person that strangles American freedom and liberty once and for all.

Besides the whole autocracy or civil war question, the other question is — who will Trump pick to be his 2024 veep? He’s so dumb and always goes for the worst possible decision that I think it’s possible he’ll pick Mike Flynn. But I also think fucking cocksucker and fat fuck Mike Pompeo would definitely be someone that Trump would look hard at. Pompeo would quickly make life for loudmouth drunk cranks like me hell, especially when I won’t shut up about what a fat fuck he is.

But only time will tell, I guess.

America, The Tinderbox


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I believe the United States, the most powerful country in the world is careening towards destroying itself. And if that doesn’t happen, then we will become illiberal democracy on a par with modern day Hungry if we’re lucky and Russia if we’re not. In other words, the United States between now and January 2025 is either going to implode (illiberal democracy) or explode (civil war.)

I believe this because by all macro metrics the United States’ Second Republic is running on fumes. The system can not and will not work. Trumplandia is above the law, just like the Nazis were above the law in 1920s Germany. I continue to read a huge tome on the rise of the Nazis in the Weimar Republic and the similarities are chilling.

I keep talking about 2024 – 2025, when in fact we may not have to wait that long. Several events could force the issue and bring the United States to its knees sooner than expected. If either Trump shuffled off this mortal coil peacefully, that might be enough for the conspiracy crackpots of the MAGA New Right to agitate for State Secessionist Conventions. I’m not joking. That’s really possible.

Meanwhile, if it was BIDEN who shuffled off this mortal coil peacefully, then you can sure as hell bet that Speaker Trump becomes a far more likely reality and THAT would definitely probably push us into civil war because Speaker Trump would then be one heartbeat away from being POTUS again I could totally see Trump being so stupid as to go transactional at last and demand MAGA bring the country to its knees to force the Senate to convict President Harris.

And, if you really wanted to get dark about it — if there was any type of major domestic terror attack between now and January 2025, we’re all fucked. There would be a civil war, or severe, rolling political violence of some sort. Everyone is primed and ready to go at it with guns and shit because they hate everybody for political reasons.

But, as I keep saying, it’s possible that we’ll just slip peacefully into illiberal democracy, to autocracy. If that happens, then initially, nothing will change. White Christian Traditionalists will continue to chuckle about how people like me are “hysterical” because their Red Line is strictly personal. They will be quite content that we’re not longer a democracy because they will finally get what they want –white minority rule.

It won’t be until their loud mouth crank family member — that would be me — gets drunk and won’t shut up about how President Pompeo is a fat fuck no matter how skinny he gets and ICE swoops in to take me away will they finally, finally, FINALLY want to do something about our transition from democracy to autocracy.

Of course, for me, at least, by that point it will be way too late.

The point is — we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked. Gird your loins for a bumpy, dark few years ahead of us.

Cold Civil War: Why Americans Hate Each Other


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw a headline somewhere — I think it was Politico– which implied that the current cold civil war America is going through is about “nothing.” I totally disagree.

The reason Americans hate each other, at it’s core, is about a dearth of white babies. (I hope that doesn’t come across as racist. I just find it midly amusing to say “white babies” in this context. Also, do think that at its core, the reason Americans hate each other is Traditionalists, on a systemic basis, are afraid of losing power to POC.) America is a nation of immigrants and, as such, wave after wave of new types of people have refreshed the idea of what it means to be American over the years. Remember, Italians were not considered “white” until some point around the end of WW2.

Anyway, back to the white babies thing.

The writing on the wall is clear — white people are going to be in the minority within a few decades and that is freaking white Christian Traditionalists the fuck out. Throw in the huge, gaping differences in social views between urban and rural areas and the United States is ripe for collapse.

But the thing that is putting huge pressure on our political system is white Christian Traditionalists feeling a huge amount of insecurity about their place in American society. Ezra Klein’s book, “Why We’re Polarized” was a real eye opener about the origins of the current clusterfuck we find ourselves in.

So, far from being about “nothing” our cold civil war is definitely about something — power. This struggle over who has power in American politics because of the systemic racism of white Christian Traditionalists is bending our politics to a breaking point.

And, really, the Second American Republic is imploding so fast politically at the moment that I sometimes wonder if we’re going to even make it to the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. I believe America is an idea, not the autocratic concept of blood and soil. Yet people I know who should know better take it as gospel that the United States is not a democracy, but a “Constitutional Republic,” and, as such, fuck you lib.

Should Peter Navarro’s non-violent coup work in 2024, that really will be the moment our cold civil war may turn hot. When half the electorate thinks the United States is a democracy and half thinks its a Constitutional Republic and Trump becomes president via some of the more obscure elements of the Constitution, that’s a recipe for a hot civil war.

Or not. It could be that we slip peacefully into autocracy and that will be that. People like me will, inevitably, cross the autocrat and simply vanish. THEN the white Christian Traditionalists in my family will sit up and take notice because things will be personal for them.

But, by then, it will be too late for me.