Say what you will about the #NeverTrump movement, they definitely have principles. And, I think, that’s what makes #NeverTrump groups like The Lincoln Project so appealing to liberals. NeverTrumpers are so principled, articulate and passionate about how much they fucking hate Trump that they sometimes outshine liberal leadership on the subject. (I find the vast majority of liberal leadership rather timid and tepid, at best.)
Now, I have to note — the existence of the #NeverTrump movement has a spooky similarity to the War Democrats of the Civil War. So, in a sense, history is repeating itself, which does not bode well for the long-term political stability of the United States.
In fact, it’s not too difficult to imagine a situation during a Second American Civil War where President AOC picks a NeverTrumper as her veep in an effort to unite the country, or something.
That sounds rather fantastical — it is — but it is at least within the realm of possibility, the way things are going.
I guess what I’m saying is, NeverTrumpers could balloon in political significance should Blue States find themselves actively trying to destroy the Republican Party. I mean, a liberal democracy needs some sort of conservative party if it’s going to be a…functioning liberal democracy.
If there is a Second American Civil War and the “Good Guys” — read, people like me — win, NeverTrumpers would be the core of any new conservative party, for better or worse.
We really need to destroy the Republican Party, by the way. It’s gone septic and its very existence as an organization is an existential threat to our democracy.
It happened again. Today I was looking at Tik-Tok and was pushed an extremely and I mean EXTREMELY specific video on my For You Page. Here’s what happened: I went to the doctor yesterday and he asked me around my alcohol consumption.
After some joking around, I admitted I drink a lot.
Ok, flash forward 24 hours and what am video am I pushed on my For You Page? A video a man having that specific conversation with his doctor. Like the literal same conversation.
Let’s go through how this is possible.
There’s the case that somehow, in aggregate, that Tik-Tok knows via my likes and time watched that people like me drink a lot and have that type of conversation with our doctors…so I got the video. That’s a fair enough explanation other than it happened 24 hours after I had that specific conversation with my own doctor.
The Future is Now.
Another argument could be made that through a combination of knowing about people like me aggregate and my phone’s location that they knew to push me that video because they knew that not only do I drink a lot, but within the last 24 hours I had been to a doctor. (This one actually seems to make sense.)
Then, there’s the more kooky explanations — at a minimum Tik-Tok is listening to me via my phone. I’m beginning to think a lot Big Tech companies do this already and Tik-Tok is just the most conspicuous.
Of course, I continue to have a lingering suspicion that Tik-Tok is much more direct than any of the above — it is somehow reading my mind.
But, lulz, that couldn’t possibly be happening, right? Right?
Zeroth Law A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. — Isaac Asimov
By Ender
The most powerful nation in the world is careening towards an existential choice: autocracy or civil war. I hate violence. I hate guns. Hell, I hate conflict. But we’ve approached a historical moment when the average self-aware American needs to do a gut check: what are you willing to do to maintain and, if necessary renew, the American Covenant?
As such, I feel forced by the human, American equivalent of Asimov’s “Zeroth Law” to say that given that I would rather die on my feet a free man than live on my knees a slave to MAGA that maybe we should begin to prepare for civil war. This is an extremely risky option.
There are no assurances that we, “the Good Guys” would win. A simple glance at the first Civil War is a huge warning not to think about it — from 1861 to 1863 the CSA had a very, very good chance of winning. That’s one of the many things about war that sucks so bad: you just never know. You could end up killing a lot of people and still not achieve your war aims. Just ask the multitude of Iraqis and Iranians that died in the early 1980s.
But at the same time, the MAGA New Right is telegraphing their objectives. They want the United States to be an autocracy, a managed democracy. They are doing this in broad daylight. If you look at the Twitter feed of people like Jesse Kelly, it’s pretty much full of the exact same things I rant about, only from the exact opposite end of the political spectrum.
What I fear, he wants, and vis versa.
I’m not proposing you buy a gun or anything — please, for fuck’s sake don’t — but I am saying you have at best about four years (January 2025) to get your affairs in order before we either slip peacefully into a Russian-style autocracy or we have a civil war of some sort.
If you have the means, buy a passport and get out while you still can. If you’re like me and don’t think you’re going to have the means to leave, you need to start to game out what you’re going to do. In some respects, a lot of this is macro and out of the hands of any one person. The choice of civil war or autocracy isn’t really in my — or anyone else’s hands.
But if we do have a civil war — which I pray we won’t — freedom loving people have to get over themselves and start thinking on an existential level how they can help the war effort. I know myself well enough to know that I’m probably going to throw myself into the revolution should it happen. I’m a good writer, speaker and organizer.
Should history decide to give me the opportunity to help save the United States, I’m going to answer the call.
Or, put another way, don’t let yourself be cowed by the civil war talk of the New Right. Rather, call their bluff and start to game out what you might do on an individual basis to combat those fucktards when the moment comes. The Blue States have a huge advantage when it comes to their economies, political unity and concentration of population.
The issue is, just like with the early days of the first civil war, if the Blue States will have the wherewithal to fight fire with fire. It could be that the Red States will sucker punch Blue States and while they’re recovering simply strangle what’s left of American democracy while Blue States recover from the inital blow.
But the Zeroth Law tells me, on a personal, abstract basis what to do.
The evidence continues to build that Trump was his own worst enemy when it came to the events of January 6th. If he wasn’t such a fucking IDIOT, his attempt at a self-coup or “autogolpe,” would have been successful. The crux of the issue is — the whole plot was done in a frenzied panic.
Me, if Trump is successful next time.
It gives one pause for thought to think that it isn’t that Trump isn’t an autocrat — he is — it’s just he’s so fucking lazy and stupid that he couldn’t pull it off even though he could have.
Or, put another way, the Hand of Fate pointed at Trump and gave him the opportunity and motive to stage a successful autogolpe in the United States. What he didn’t have was the means — he’s a barely cognizant man child who was simply playing himself.
This brings me to something I’ve found myself thinking a lot about of late: Trump is not a “great man.” He’s just an avatar. Right time, right place kind of guy. Hitler, or Stalin or whomever weren’t just playing themselves, they had agency — they warped history through sheer ego.
That avatar, not great man, element was in full display with Trump’s attempted autogolpe. Someone like Hitler wouldn’t have let the process get as far along as Trump did. And if Hitler was in such a situation, he would have used whatever means necessary to make sure he never had to leave office.
But Trump, oh boy. What a fucking moron.
We love you, Chauncy. You would never try to end our democracy.
Having said all that, there is the issue of Trump single-handedly, through sheer incompetence, forcing us into a civil war. It would happen either because Cyber Ninjas “proved” he “won” Arizona or he becomes Speaker when Republicans take the House in 2022 or he runs again in 2024 and there’s a nullification crisis when a MAGA Congress refuses to certify a Biden win.
Again, any of those scenarios would involve Trump being nothing more than a historical empty vessel. Any other autocrat would deftly transition the United States from liberal democracy into autocracy given any of those opportunities. But Trump is a fucking idiot so he could just crash into history and cause Blue States to bounce or Red States to bounce and cause the whole country to come crashing down unless the military decides to step in with some sort of temporary junta.
What I’m saying is — while we’re all going to be forced to take Trump both seriously and literally when the history of the United States is written, in a sense we dodged a huge fucking bullet (at least for the moment.) Almost any other person in the same political spectrum as Trump would have successfully destroyed American democracy.
Each time COVID bounces from one person to the next, there’s a chance it might mutate into something along the lines of the virus found in The Stand. It’s an admittedly microscopic chance, but it does exist. Throw into the equation people from all over the world in Tokyo at the moment and it’s easy to imagine a Stephen King-size clusterfuck.
So, it’s at least possible that at some point in the next few months (years?) we’re going to have to go through all of this again because an Omega Variant breezes past all our vaccines and starts killing people not in the thousands, but the millions.
But that’s all very speculative. It’s just if the COVID pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that when you’re dealing with a virus, all the narrative management in the world isn’t going to save us.
And, yet, it could be I’m over thinking all of this. I’m often wrong. I hope I am this time, too.
If the book The Fourth Turning is to be believed, we’re currently in a holding pattern until Something Big happens around 2025. I don’t believe in reveled truth, but that jibes with my personal belief that January 2025 is going to be huge because we’re either going to peacefully drift into an autocracy or, gulp, we’re going to have a civil war.
We’re kind of in a historical holding pattern at the moment. We live in an Era of Meh. But whenever that changes, everything is going to be thrown up in the air. People who currently are just kind of drifting through history may be forced to rise to the occasion.
One person this is very true about is AOC. She’s young, smart and articulate. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where when the crisis of January 2025 happens she is forced into the spotlight in a big way. She might find herself in a Giuliani on 9/11 type situation.
Or, put another way, a side effect of the impending chaos we’re careening towards would be someone like AOC. She’s ripe to be pushed into the next level of our political life for no other reason than she may feel compelled to take a stand that puts her in serious risk.
I have no idea what any of this would entail, but if the country is falling apart because a MAGA controlled Congress refuses to certify a Biden win in January 2025, AOC seems like the type of person who might lead the effort to stop such a tyrannical move.
Editor’s Note: I can’t tell if Undead Gawker is boring or if the snarky milieu of the OG Gawker has so permeated our mainstream culture so much that…meh. But the following is all in good snarky fun and it’s the type of post that would get people talking if my dream of a Modern Political Gawker every magically came into being.
I sometimes find myself thinking — is Canada a real country? The reason why I ask this is Canada is so nationalistic compared to the United States that it’s almost like they know they’re not a real country. The “country” of Canada hides its insecurity about itself via being really nationalistic.
Let’s look at what Canada is more closely. It’s not really a nation-state. It’s more of two nations force-fused together with some leftover land above the United States tacked on. What race is to the United States, language is to Canada. There’s a reason why Canada defines itself as being NOT the Untied States. They don’t really have much of an identity otherwise because of the Anglophone – Francophone divide.
In a sense, North American geopolitical boundaries make no sense in the context of geography. What North America SHOULD look like is a huge French Canada that comes down through the center of the continent and reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The United States should be a small — but powerful — country that resides from Maine to about North Carolina.
Why this didn’t happen is, well, the French weren’t all that interested in North America and so the English speakers were able to plow through the middle of the continent, leaving the rump remains of New France and the parts of America that remained loyal to the crown.
But is that a real country? Defining yourself by what you’re NOT is kind of a strange national identity. What’s worse, the United States is so big that should we have another civil war, it’s very possible that this particular issue will solve itself.
You’re the real MVP.
If the United States should, say, split into the rump Blue USA and Trumplandia, it’s easy to imagine Blue USA gobbling up Canada so Blue States remain contiguous. This would happen regardless of what Canadians felt about the matter.
Another issue that faces Canada is global climate change. It’s very easy to imagine 50 years from now the United States finally invading Canada for its “resources” which, in this case would be the resource of livable land.
So, is Canada a country? I guess so. But it’s more a construct of the modern world that started about 1865 when America figured out that whole slavery thing. Once the United States realized it had the Wild West to settle and the “Dominion of Canada” wasn’t all that interesting, it’s position as a “country” was finally established.
There’s a lot of buzz of late about the “death of movies.” And, sadly, I fear some of it may be right. American culture is facing something of an existential crisis because the very idea of any sort of “mainstream” is now beginning to melt away. Identity politics is now so absolute that the legitimacy of any heteronormative story is up for debate in the overwrought conversations of Twitter.
I know I sound a little too Joe Rogan with the above, but it comes from a place of love — a love of movies as an art form.
You know it.
Here’s what I think is going to happen — movies are going to continue to drift into culture insignificance until one of a few things happen. If we stop being force fed movies about people running around in capes, then, maybe people might sit up and take notice. But this is unlikely to happen because you can make a shit ton of money with movies like that, so, lulz.
Another way to “fix Hollywood” would be to end “Woke Hollywood.” Instead of trying to make us more woke, tell us a good story. Don’t worry about identity politics — tell a good story. I want less Beanie Feldstein screeching about lesbian sex positions to a Plain Jane lead in Book Smart and more, I don’t know anything. I only keep ranting about how much I fucking hated Book Smart because I was shamed into seeing it by my center-Left echo chamber and the movie is the epitome of preaching to the audience about how being woke is so important.
But, as I always say whenever Book Smart is brought up — I wasn’t the audience. So if you’re a bi-curious high school girl in the suburbs of LA, you probably loved that movie.
Yet another way that movies may come roaring back is because of technology. It could be that once we fully transition to MX (VR and AR) or, hell, even some sort of Strange Days-like MindCap technology, that movies will, like vinyl, make a big comeback as young people grow disillusioned with immersive media.
The crux of the Hollywood’s current problem is a combination of industry dynamics and the need for it to suck its own cock when it comes to there being a “message” in movies. America is so tightly wound at the moment, that a huge segment of the potential viewing audience is turned off with Woke Hollywood, hence the popularity of message-free MCU movies.
I only get a little upset about this specific issue because I love movies. It’s not that hard to tell a great story in a movie. Hell, *I* want to tell a few of those great stories so bad that I recently bought Final Draft. So, lulz.
But are movies dead? Yes, in the short term. Long term, however, I believe they’ll turn out just fine. We just need a New Era of story telling that harkens back to the early 70s.
I’m day drinking rye on my way to working fleshing out the outline of the first of four novels I’m planning, so think of this as me channeling Lester Bangs while I psyche myself up to my attention to the main event.
In short, I’m drunk and writing.
Anyway, the new Gawker is boring. It has an element of spunk to it, and, yet, not one of the article headlines I glanced out just a moment ago was enough to make me sit up and take notice. Sometimes, you need to be ornery. We live in such surreal times that if you had the backing to start a new blog like the Undead Gawker, I would pull out the stops.
Find a few young obsessives — or maybe an old obsessive like me? — and tell them to rant. They would get traffic through marketing and buzz. Now, here’s what I would do if I was in charge Undead Gawker. I would very carefully study the site’s Webstats and try to glean what, specifically was catching the most people’s interest then I would attack that subject with the strangest, snarkiest hot takes I could possibly pull out of my ass.
You know what Undead Gawker reminds me of right now?
Radar Online.
Give me a blog format, a jug of rye, access to Undead Gawker’s webstats and an expectation of 10 solid posts a day and I could put that site on the map. I know what makes Twitter liberals tick. I know their internal media narrative. I can make bankshot references to cultural touchstones that every Twitter power user knows.
The point is: fucking hire me, Undead Gawker.
Ugh.
Anyway, this rye tastes nice and the novels I’m supposed to be working on are looking more and more attractive.
Ugh. Seeing undead Gawker is beginning to eat away at me because I know I could really help them out, given the opportunity. What I feel like doing is obsessively writing about the site until they take notice and let me write for them in some capacity.
I would love to cover the Civil War Or Autocracy Beat.
And, yet, I don’t know. I do have four novels to develop and write. It seems like a huge waste of time. If I were to go the “Leave Britany alone” route, it would be just because my frustration got the best of me.
The point is — now that we’re (maybe?) coming out of the Rona era, there may be a first mover advantage for a blog to cover this new era we are entering. I’m the perfect person to start it, but only in the context of having a business partner. Given I’m apparently the most ghostable person on the planet, I need to just buckle down with the novels.
The thing I want — to either work for Gawker or found my own Gawker-like site, just isn’t going to happen. Or, it will only happen if something rather spectacular happens, like I win the lottery or something.
So, lulz, I need to focus on the four novels I’m developing and writing.
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