As I’ve written before, MAGA’s Big Lie argument boils down to they only see elections that they win as legitimate. And, really, what happened is this: Trump and the people in his administration got so wrapped up in the autocrat idea that they could never, ever lose power that when they did they were thrown for a loop.
So, there’s a huge chunk of the electorate that now wants an autocracy. They have broken free of any democratic norm and they have only one goal: make it so the MAGA New Right never, ever loses power again.
The natural ebb and flow of a democracy such as ours barely is, the Republican Party is going to gain power again eventually. Then they will consolidate power and that will be that. You can call that prediction “doom shit” all you like, but it’s the truth.
Our only other options are military junta or civil war.
A lot of my “doom shit” comes from simply listening to what the MAGA New Right is saying and taking it both seriously and literally. If you do that, there’s no other conclusion but the United States is in a chronic, lingering severe political crisis.
If you listen to what people like Jesse “Welcome To The New Right!” Kelly say on Twitter, their movement is nothing short of an American Taliban. They want to destroy everything America stands for, enslave women and minorities, and generally turn A Handmaid’s Tale into a documentary.
Me, January 2025
I’m well aware that a lot of what they say is “own the libs” frothy bullshit, but the general gist of what they believe is no less radical than anything the Taliban would have you believe. The MAGA New Right is so absolute in its abstract fears of white Christians being “replaced” by woke soyboys that they are more than willing to burn America to the ground, rather than risk being “canceled” for being racist pieces of shit.
The MAGA New Right glorifies political violence. They have made it clear they will stop at nothing to turn the United States into a minority run autocratic white Christian ethno state. Why else do they love the autocrats in Russia, Turkey and Hungary so much? That’s the baseline of what they want to turn the United States into.
If you believe, as I do, that there’s a real risk of the United States imploding into civil war sometime between now and January 2025, then it’s even more likely that the MAGA New Right will become an American, Christian equivalent of the Taliban. The ideological underpinnings for this to happen already exist. Just mix in the use of stolen WMD on major cities, a complete collapse of our government and society and what else is going to happen but the rise of Taliban-style extremists in the United States?
But, of course, I’m making a number of huge assumptions. It’s very possible that we’ll just slip peacefully into a Russian-style autocracy without firing a shot. The media will be purged and the ICE infrastructure will be weaponized, but if you’re a Good German, your life really won’t change that much. In a sense, that would be the best case scenario for everyone involved if the other end of the spectrum is a catastrophic civil war where we bomb ourselves into the stone age because of an abstract fear over being “canceled.”
I’ve decided to answer searches that bring people to this site. So, let me answer this question. The short answer is: maybe.
The long answer is, well, it’s one of a series of potential endgames. MAGA New Right people get a lot of things wrong in their overheated need to glorify political violence.
The first thing they get wrong is thinking that somehow a violent civil war would be better for them than simply being patient and staying within the quickly dying norms of our undead democracy. The MAGA New Right’s best option is we turn into a MAGA themed autocracy — which, right now, is theirs to lose. No one will get hurt — other than people like me who won’t shut up about what a fucking cocksucker our new autocratic ruler is — and they get what they want, which is a white Christian ethno state.
But, no, just like how Europe in 1914 went to war with great gusto, the obviously self-defeating gorification of political violence on the part of the MAGA New Right is probably going to cause a civil war — but not the one the New Right thinks.
What is likely to happen is, if there is, in fact, a Second American Civil War, it will be when Blue States attempt to leave the Union in January 2025 when a MAGA controlled Congress balks at allowing Biden (or whomever) to become president. As such, President DeSantis (or whomever) will freak out, attack the secessionist Blue States and we get the civil war that all the fucking cocksucker MAGA New Right assholes think is going to happen when they stumble across this site looking for my “doom shit” on the subject.
Of course, the wild card is the U.S. Military. We might find ourselves with the third option — a military junta — if it steps in to calm things down should there be a 2025 Nullification Crisis.
It seems as though at the moment there is just a lot of abstract interest in a civli war on the part of a lot of MAGA New Right shitheads. They feel as though liberals are forcing them to radicalize and the goalposts have been moved to much that we’re officially in, “Welp, let’s have a civil war to end Cancel Culture once and for all.”
This is such a dumb fucking thing to think because a Second American Civil War would be such a fucking tragedy — because of the likely use of WMD — that even the most diehard MAGA New Right fucktard might regret being so excited at the prospect.
But, back to the question at hand: will there be a Second American Civil War?
At the moment, I don’t think so. I think we’re going to slip peacefully into a MAGA-themed autocracy and the New Right will enjoy minority rule for generations to come after January 2025. If that doesn’t happen, it will because the leadership of the MAGA New Right, specifically fucked things up and bungled that peaceful transition.
I don’t think we appreciate how bad things are going to get the moment Republicans gain power again. The January 6th Insurrection has radicalized them on a systemic level to the point that once they gain power again, they’re unlikely to ever let it go peacefully.
I could see the crisis happening something like this — because of gerrymandering, the Republican Party gains power again in the House and then impeaches both Biden and Harris because, lulz.
Once the GOP has absolute and never-ending control of the House, they use it as the cornerstone of a white Christian ethno state. But once you know you’re completely detached from any accountability, you’re bound to overreach. As such, that’s why if a MAGA controlled House simply nullies any Biden win, that, in itself, could make the United States so unstable that we have a civil or a military junta is established.
That is just one of a number of different scenarios where we are faced with the choice as a civil war, autocracy or military junta. As such, it is clear to me that having that choice is now an immutable force of political history. We’re fucked.
Our absolute best option is we get a military junta that sorts this clusterfuck out. While an autocratic white Christian ethno state would probably at first be not all that bad until, well, people start getting pushed out of windows like they do in Putin’s Russia.
I have no inside knowledge about what Trump may have known about the January 6th Insurrection, but I do have a sense of how he thinks. I also have noticed some things about him over the last five years of terror and here’s my general sense of what Trump knew — or didn’t know — about what happened on January 6th.
Given what Trump was ranting about leading up to the event, it seems safe to believe that the goal of the “plot” was to scare the shit out of Mike Pence specifically. So, in general, the plot was to gather a bunch of bonkers MAGA people together near the Capitol, give them a bunch of hype speeches then direct them to attack the Capitol where they would either a) simply buy them time b) succeed in scaring the shit out of Mike Pence so he wouldn’t certify the vote.
Other than that, there was a lot of vague activity with the general goal of either buying time or scaring Mike Pence, but I doubt Trump, himself, knew all that many details. Because, Trump is so incapable of keeping a secret that we would know specific what he did know! So when he tweeted something like “January 6th is going to be lit!” that’s a direct indication of what was rolling around Trump’s mind.
But there is a caveat to all of this.
One is, even if we learn specifically what Trump knew and when he knew it, Trump continues to be politically above the law so…lulz. There is absolutely nothing we can do to hurt Trump politically. He will continue to linger in the shadows of America politics, waiting to pop out to destroy American democracy once and for all.
But wait, there’s more! Even if somehow we magically end Trump’s political career, there are a dozen would-be autocrats who will use what they learned from what happened on January 6th, then do exactly the same thing or worse in an effort to nullify a Biden 2024 win.
I’ve seen enough. The conditions are now in place for some sort of major political-related tragedy to happen just about any moment in the United States. I have no inside information from the Dark Web (or whatever) I just have a hunch. The MAGA New Right’s rhetoric has reached a point where it’s just a matter of time before someone takes them both literally and seriously and someone important gets hurt.
A lot, of course, would hinge on who got hurt, how badly and how. I don’t like to articulate exactly the kinds of things I fear might happen because I don’t want to put it out into the universe, but needless to say, whatever happened might be Big.
Oh boy.
If such a tragedy happened, here what I think would we see. First, there would be silence on the part of the MAGA New Right. They might vaguely say something about “thoughts and prayers” but that would be it. They would be hunkered down, trying to figure out what their talking points would be.
After about 24 – 48 hours of radio silence, the media narrative they would want us all to believe would be it was the act of someone who was “mentally unstable” and nothing they said or did had anything to do with it — even if there was some sort of manifesto that directly said they did! In other words, for their bullshit echo chamber, they would nullify reality with this event just like they did with January 6th.
“It wasn’t me,” they would say in unison until the faithful believed it.
Now, this has always worked in the past. But there is a small chance that if the Something Big I fear might happened was Big Enough that this wouldn’t work. Remember, the two sides are so absolute in their views now that politics only functions on the edges. So, if it was absolutely proven that Trump’s ranting about being re-instated was specifically and directly responsible for someone getting hurt, then the reaction of that crucial 1% of the electorate that open minded would determine everything.
There’s a huge but to all of this — the MAGA New Right is a macro issue. So whatever happened would have to be not just big, but fucking HUGE to actually put them on the back foot for, say, an election cycle or so. Again, while I have a few scenarios in my mind, I just don’t like to write them out.
So, in general, I think we’re just too divided for any type of tragedy to unite us, even briefly. It would have to be international terrorism, and only then it would be for about 24 hours. Or, if it was domestic political terrorism, it would have to be a huge fucking event.
In general, we’re fucking doomed. The macro trends are too powerful and the trendlines are all pointing towards the existential choice of autocracy, military junta or civil war.
One of the talking points you find within the center-Left Twitter echo chamber is how damaging FOX News is. I agree with this talking point, and, yet I feel it needs to be put in context.
Because of the nature of our society and government — we are supposed to be a liberal democracy, you know — FOX News exists because there’s an audience. In fact, what’s worse, the audience that it makes so much money scaring is growing more and more interested in watching North Korean-style propaganda like OANN and NewsMax that has the barest connection to reality.
That’s what they want, they want to be lied to. Or, put another way, for them the lie is the truth.
And, so, if FOX News had a come-to-Jesus moment and started acting more like CNN, it would lose all its viewers to OANN and NewsMax. How do you fix THAT problem?
FOX News is a symptom of one of a number of macro trends that are lurching us down the inevitable path of the existential choice of autocracy, military junta or civil war. All the conditions are there, it’s just a matter of what the catalyst will be.
But it will happen — something’s gotta give.
At the moment, a lot of people who poo-poo my “doom shit” do so because they simply can’t process, can’t imagine, the idea that the United States, the most powerful country in the world, could face the type of existential choice I keep ranting about.
In short, they have no vision.
And, yet, I have to admit that I can’t predict the future. There is no reveled truth. I could be wrong. Or, more accurately, when we do drift peacefully into autocracy the people who laugh at me won’t even realize what’s happened because their, specific life, hasn’t change all that much for the time being.
When it does, they’ll get upset in private and never, ever admit that I was right all along.
On a practical level, at least in my own personal life, American politics is dead. I have all but stopped talking politics with my far more conservative relatives. This is very bad because it means the very heart of our democracy — individual interactions where some sort of consensus is developed — no longer beats.
Trump is to blame for this clusterfuck. He’s to blame because by taking the most extreme position possible — and dragging the vast majority of conservatives with him — negative polarization has reached such a Singularity that any discussion of politics with someone you disagree with inevitable turns into a screaming match.
Now, obviously, this was already happening because of how insane the GOP turned after Obama won a second term, but the rise of Trump didn’t exactly help the situation any.
Instead of politics we just have a general drift towards a dark and unknown future.
Who organized the Pence Gallows in front of the Capitol? Sometimes, the biggest tell about an event comes from something we simply take for granted. In this case, it took some planning to set up a gallows for Pence on January 6th. That thing didn’t just magically appear out of nowhere. It suggests that there was a specific point to the insurrection — scare the shit out of Mike Pence so he wouldn’t certify the vote.
Why did Trump give Jim Jordan the Medal of Freedom on January 11? Again, it’s easy to dismiss this by saying Jordan was such a long-term toady of Trump’s that of course he would get the Medal of Freedom before Trump left office. And, yet, the case could be made that Jordan did something specific in that prompted Trump in his zero-sum-game mind to feel compelled to give Jordan a “gift” in exchange for…what? Silence? Actively fucking up any investigation into what happened January 6th? Why did a Proud Boy leader visit Trump in the days before January 6th? This is one of those things where what actually happened is kind of nebulous. Did a Proud Boy leader get a tet-a-tete with Trump in the White House? What did they talk about? There are a lot of conflicting stories about all of this, but someone needs to ask some questions to figure out what happened. How much did Trump know about the plot for January 6th? It is reasonable to believe that Trump was the driving force for what happened on January 6th….but just like with the Russia conspiracy stuff, it was probably very chaotic and haphazard. Trump probably would dip in to a meet every once in a while to give “his people” a general goal then wonder off. This gives him legal “plausible deniability” because all he had to do was incite the mob — he likely didn’t know exactly that was going to happen. He just knew there was a good chance they would attack to Capitol in such a way that it could scare the shit out of Pence so he didn’t do his job.
Long Answer If you’re searching for some sort of easy answer as to if the Red States would win a theoretical Second American Civil War, I just don’t have it for you. You probably are out at the cabin, drinking Miller Lite with the guys and someone gets a little too worked up about Vaccine Passports or Cancel Culture or whatever the fuck it is that cocksucker MAGA New Right idiots are upset about at the moment.
You pull up your phone and ask Google, “Will Red States win the civil war?“
And so, here you are.
First and foremost, you’re going to have to make concrete your hazy, abstract thoughts about a “civil war” and give me some sort of war aims. Even more important, is the issue of why do Red States even need a civil war in the first place? What, specifically, would make Red State people think that they need to start killing their fellow Americans in an organized manner because of their political views?
As I tell my conservative relatives at every opportunity, all Red States have to do is be patient and they’ll get everything they ever wanted and then some. Blue State leadership — at the moment — is divided, tepid and weak-willed and, as such, Red States could very easily establish a MAGA New Right autocracy without firing a shot. It’s when you leave the realm of politics and start making things existential that Red States have a severe problem on their hands.
But, lulz, the MAGA New Right glorifies political violence and is itching for the opportunity to eliminate the “liberal problem,” so it’s something that is at the forefront of a lot of Red State people’s minds.
If you’re still eager for a Second American Civil War and want to know if Red States will win it, I need to know what your war aims would be. What’s the point of the civil war relative to you? With the First American Civil War, the war aims of the South were clear — independence in order to protect slavery. With any Second American Civil War, Red State war aims seem extremely abstract.
Red States so hate the way Blue State people think that they’re willing to risk everything for the opportunity to physically harm them en masse. But why? Why do that when you could simply be patient and have the country slide peacefully into autocracy. It appears that the glorification of political violence on the part of the MAGA New Right is nothing more than what you would expect as part of a Fourth Turning — it exists because it exists.
Back to war aims.
I’m having to do some political reverse engineering here, but here goes. The first problem that the MAGA New Right Red States face when gaming out a civil war is, at the core of their desire for a Second Civil War is a severe existential fear of the browning of America. So, after the initial political violence began, it would soon become clear that establishing some sort of white Christian ethno state would be the chief Red State war aim.
As such, Red State people, who to date have been getting everything they want via traditional politics will get a rude awaking — POC will freak the fuck out the moment the MAGA New Right makes it clear they want to “put them in their place.” Hence — a race war will begin. And part and parcel of that race war will be crimes against humanity on the part of Red State governments (collectively known as Trumplandia) who will begin to systematically kill POC in a frantic effort to maintain control.
So, right off the bat, Red States have a race war to deal with — they just don’t have a unified polity because of that.
Then, you have two other major issues: population and economics. If California stays in the Union at the onset of a Second American Civil War it, unto itself, would be enough to allow Blue States to dominate everything from the West Cost to Texas in the South to the Mississippi River in the center to Minnesota to the north.
Add to this, in general, the Blue States have far bigger economies and more dense populations geographically and things aren’t looking good for Red States.
But if you STILL want to have a Second American Civil War because you “just want to be left alone” then Red States have a few things going for them. First is, Blue States aren’t really taking seriously how deranged Red States are going into any Second American Civil War. So, it is possible that some sort of sucker punch could happen that would knock Blue States off their feet long enough for Red States to consolidate power — still a problem: race.
Additionally, it’s almost inevitable that WMD will be used by both sides, so you could sketch out a scenario whereby the MAGA New Right is simply so much more fanatical than the Blue States that when push comes to shove on the use of WMD, Red States win because they’re willing to vaporize more people.
The argument could also be made that if Trumplandia simply wants to leave the Union to form its own white Christian ethno state, then, yes, Red States would then probably come pretty close to achieving their war aim. There would be a massive migration of POC out of Trumplandia, but the MAGA New Right hates POC to begin with, so win-win, right?
And, remember, none of this clusterfuck would happen in a vacuum. The DPRK could lop nuke our way to scramble things. WW3 would probably break out during the second civil war, the list goes on.
So, no, Red States wouldn’t win the Second American Civil War, or if they did, they would severely regret the whole thing by the time they “won.”
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