Tag: Fourth Reich

How Low Could Tyrant Trump Go Before The Military Steps In?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, before I lay this scenario out, let me be clear — I’m not advocating anything. I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas. And, what’s more, we all know that what I’m about to suggests happened that it would be just the opening salvo into pretty much a civil war / revolution situation.

But, having said that, here goes.

While it’s of course possible that Trump won’t win the 2024 election, it’s also true that at the moment it seems as though he is, in fact, going to win and we have to start to think now about what our reaction to that will be. Trump has made it very clear that he’s pretty much going to become a fucking tyrant the moment he is in power again.

He’s going to arrest people he doesn’t like. He’s going to invoke the Insurrection Act, the list goes on.

Really, the only thing that gives me any hope at the moment is that all these tyrannical things would not happen in a vacuum. If Trump really does go full tyrant straight out of the gate, there may come a point where a lot of well-meaning Traditionalists who voted for Trump because of negative polarization will finally, at last, sit up and take notice.

If Trump actually starts to not only round his critics up so he can “lock them up” AND he uses the military to crack down on any form of dissent, then, lulz, we got a problem on our hands. We may, very well, be going to the show. That’s what so dumb about tyrant Trump — if he had any self control he could get everything he wanted in due time.

But, no, Trump is so dumb that he could do what a civil war and two world wars could not do — cause an actual Glorious Revolution where the 60% of the population that hates Trump and MAGA with a passion actually collectively does something about it.

If Trump is a tyrant and makes all my hysterical doom shit fears become a reality, then there is at least a small possibility that the U.S. Military will step in and depose him in some way. The most logical way such a thing might happen is they could use the legal cover of the 14th Amendment to say both Trump and his veep aren’t legally in office to begin with.

We may find ourselves with a military junta (President James Mattis anyone?) who exists specifically to call up a Constitutional Convention that would enact a series of much-needed structural political reforms.

Another wild card is the issue of impeachment. If Trump goes totally completely fucking tyrannical and nuts from day one, if the House is Democratic, there is a chance that if the country is wracked with massive, rolling protests and there is even a General Strike, then there may be a snap impeachment that flies over to the Senate where Republicans may, at last, find their guts.

Or not. They’re all wussies.

But as I mentioned, Trump is really popular with about 38% of the population. If there was some sort of “Glorious Revolution,” well, there would be a counter-revolution that would probably happen in the guise of a secession crisis.

So. I don’t know. It’s all very curious. I can’t predict the future, so it’s possible that Biden will win re-election and, rather than demanding a National Divorce to stay out of prison, Trump just rants a lot and finally fades into oblivion. We’ll be safe another four years until the usual ebb and flow of a democracy causes a far more sly fascist revolution to take place in 2028 -2029.

Keep the faith.

Mental Masturbation About Using A Combination of The 14th Amendment & A General Strike To Depose Trump In His Second Term

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two things are generally true about me — I can’t predict the future and no one listens to me. In fact, not a lot of people even take me very seriously. But I am pretty good at making abstract concepts more concrete and also running scenarios.

With all that in mind, let’s mull how we might topple a tyrannical Second Trump Administration. The key issue is it hasn’t happened yet — and may never. So, lulz. But as recent polls indicate, we need to at least begin to contemplate what the fuck we’re going to do if Tyrant Trump gets a second chance at turning us into a Russia-style autocracy.

Now, remember, if it ends up being any other Republican then all of this is moot. Any other Republican would have the wherewithal to be sly and more orderly in their guiding us into a managed democracy. But this is Trump we’re talking about and he’s so dumb and erratic that there’s a good chance that he will really start to do some tyrannical bullshit that causes people to think seriously of something akin to a Glorious Revolution.

But there is a lot I just can’t game out.

It could be that I’m underestimating the patience of the American public. It could be that Trump really can go full tyrant and, well, lulz. He will be so legalistic about doing it that the U.S. Military will shrug and, well, there you go. As long as, in general, he doesn’t touch some basic rights like those found in the 1st Amendment, he will get a pass.

The people who might organize direct action, like a General Strike, will be too busy using their second passports to live in Europe and record their circle jerk podcasts.

Having said all that, it is clear to me that if things really did get that bad that we could use the 14 Amendment combined with a General strike to potentially entice the U. S. Miliary to depose Tyrant Trump. The argument of the Glorious Revolution would be that legally Trump was ineligible to run in the first place, so neither he — nor his running mate — are legally in office.

Now, some context.

Not only would both the United States and the entire world be in the middle of a massive clusterfuck if things get so bad that we’re talking like this, but there would be an equal and opposite reaction by MAGA. It’s not like they would just shrug and be cool with deposing their Dear Fucking Leader.

So. Any talk of combining a General Strike with the 14the Amendment is essentially advocating a civil war and I’m not prepared to do that. But I do think we all need to prepare ourselves for something astonishing to happen in the United States starting in late 2024, early 2025.

I can’t predict the future, so I suppose it’s possible that we may punt our problems down the road again, like we did in 2020. By my fear is even if we “just vote” and defeat Trump that he will, unto himself, spark a National Divorce — civil war — simply because he doesn’t want to go prison.

Sigh.

Keep the faith.

I’m Growing Worried

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re now almost exactly a year away from one of the most election days in American history. At the moment, it seems, we’re careening towards a crisis not seen since 1860. This crisis could manifest itself in one of several ways.

The most obvious way is, lulz, we simply drift into autocracy with our eyes wide open and shrug as we transition from the halfway situation of being an “anocracy” to full blown autocracy. Trump is re-elected, he goes full tyrant and there’s no reaction on the part of the majority of the population. Of course, that doesn’t mention the 1 million smug Twitter liberals who will flee the country en masse as soon as it’s clear Trump is going to transition us into autocracy.

That scenario, for the time being, seems to be the most likely one.

Alas, there are some other, far darker scenarios that we have to contend with.

One scenario is Trump is re-elected, goes full tyrant and, well, he gets so absolutely bad that there is some sort of “Glorious Revolution” on the part of the populace — maybe with the help of the U.S. Military. I could see the organizers of such a coup using a novel — to say the least — interpretation of the 14th Amendment insurrection clause to kick Trump to the curb by saying he was never legitimately president to begin with.

That might be the legal fig leaf that would allow the New Patriots to get the job done and still be able to sleep at night. But there would be a spectrum with this scenario, with there being a “light touch” revolt that has the specific aim of getting rid of Trump all the way to a far more general collapse of the country because MAGA freaks out.

But, wait, there’s more.

Another situation would be Trump loses, and starts to demand a National Divorce with the specific intent of him personally avoiding going to jail. Then we have a repeat of 1860-1861 with states leave the Union one by one and a massive fucking clusterfuck.

Meanwhile, there is a small chance that rather than wait until Trump goes full tyrant, Blues freak out and do something akin to a civil war / revolution of their own starting as soon as Trump is named the winner.

But my thinking on this has evolved. I no longer think that Blues would cause a civil war. A revolution, maybe, but not a civil war. It’s just the temperament of Blues to want to start a new nation. Blues like me just want to reform and remake the nation that we have.

One last thing — never underestimate the possibility that Reds will, once Trump is in office, begin the process of calling a Constitutional Convention. I think that’s a real possibility.

Anyway. Good luck. You’ve got a year. Use it wisely.

What If Trump Goes ‘Full Tyrant’ During His Second Term?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In general, Americans are collectively pretty chill. It takes a whole lot to rile us up. We’re not French, after all. In fact, the last time we really got ornery was in the late 1960s, early 1970s in the context of the Vietnam War. Once The Draft ended, then, lulz, everyone just wanted to shake their booty and being politically engaged was a thing of the past.

A book I really enjoyed as a young man is William Safire’s “Freedom,” which is a huge tome of a novel that deals with the early days of the Civil War leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation. The book deals with what I would call “Radical Moderates.” This is epitomized by when one of the characters says, “We’re all Abolitionists now.”

The average person in 2023 has no comprehension as to how radical freeing the slaves being a war aim was in 1862. So, in a sense, if you want to know what a Radical Moderate is, just think of how President Lincoln only gradually warmed up to the idea of freeing the slaves.

ANYWAY.

The point of all that is — if Trump goes totally bonkers and full tyrant, what happens? Anything? All the signs point to Trump winning in 2024 and then, in a very, very fucking erratic manner, shoving tyranny down the throats of Americans in an unprecedented manner.

And, as an aside, remember — if Trump does happen to lose, there’s really good chance that he will single-handedly provoke a civil war in an effort to avoid going to jail. Let that sink in.

This is where I note that general macro political trends are for the United States to drift (peacefully) into autocracy. It’s a gimmie at this point. Now, in late 2023, the United States is an “anocracy” or even, maybe, an autocracy without an autocrat.

So, if any other Republican was in Trump’s position, we would simply wake up on day 20 years from now — or less — and wonder why the United States is invading Canada to free it from the “woke mind virus.” But this is Trump we’re talking about.

He’s so stupid, lazy and idiotic that what should be a historical gimmie, could turn into a massive fucking clusterfuck. But, again, this all raises the question — how tyrannical can Trump get before there’s some sort of “Glorious Revolution” lead by Radical Moderates?

And, remember, pushing things to the limit is kind of Trump’s thing. The man has been a one man stress test to our entire political system, ranging from the courts to the election process itself. So, yeah, I could see Trump going stark raving mad and tyrannical at some point in his second term to the point that, say, there’s a General Strike of some sort that might bring the nation to its knees.

This, of course, raises an interesting idea — might the U.S. Military step in? I don’t think so. And, yet, if Trump was running around demanding the U.S. Military to do things to the domestic population that were clearly illegal and un Constitutional….maybe they would step in?

An interesting way that Trump might be deposed is the an novel use of the 14th Amendment. Remember, the Radical Republicans of Reconstruction were able to fuck with the South for a few years by saying the did not have a “republican form of government.” As such, if Trump went crazy and started to do things that the U.S. Military simply could not brook, it’s at least possible that the legal fig leaf that would be used would be that Trump was illegally in office to begin with because he was in violation of the 14th Amendment.

But all of that is just a speculative daydream at the moment. I think that while Trump is likely to go full bonkers tyrant the moment he’s in office again, that, in the end, he’ll solve all his problems with the U.S. Military by demanding a Constitutional Convention that rewrites the Constitution in the likeliness of MAGA.

If that happens, may God have mercery on all our souls.

I Fucking Hate MAGA Nazis

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas. And I hate conflict and violence to the point that I struggle to watch conflict — of any sort — in movies and TV shows. And all my anger towards MAGA, I’ve channeled into a six novel project that uses subtext to rant about how much MAGA Nazis suck.

Having said all that, we really need to accept that there is a good chance that there will come a day in the near future when MAGA and the Nazis are seen as historical equivalents. In fact, I would propose that MAGA Nazis are going to lead to the death of more people than just regular old Nazis. The population of the United States is just so much bigger than Europe in the 1940s and the power of the United States is such that, oh boy.

So, late 2024, early 2025 COULD be it. Either we turn into a MAGA Nazi autocratic state or we have a civil war (Reds) or a revolution (Blues.) Or, since I can’t predict the future, maybe we’ll somehow punt all our problems down the road again. Maybe some outside force really will save us from ourselves, like Mueller, She Wrote seems to believe.

‘What Is A Woman?” — Campaign 2024 & The Looming Political War Over Chatbot ‘Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The modern Republican Party is completely devoid of any meaningful policy ideas. All they care about is scaring their white Christian (male) base with scary things that have little, or no, basis in reality.

It all boils down to racism, misogyny and hate generated by a combination of the browning of America and the rise of women with growing economic agency. I call this American democracy’s “death by vibes.” White men don’t really know why they’re so angry, but they are.

So, to me, it seems pretty obvious that perceived chatbot “bias” will join the pantheon of bullshit that the “thought leaders” of MAGA fascist movement spew out. They are, at some point, going to pivot away from “critical race theory” to going totally batshit insane over the fact that things like ChatGPT don’t give them the answer they want when they ask it, “What is a woman?”

Now, I have to pause for a moment to say that the “woke cancel culture mob” continues to do itself no favors by having such a strict orthodoxy about some touchy issues. If they would just fucking chill out about some of the more extreme elements of the Trans movement or not get so angry over the fact that some God-fearing people blanch at the idea of “Drag Queen Story Hour” then maybe Traditionalists wouldn’t want to vote for fascism when they did a “vibe check” in their gut.

Alas, even I will admit that I fear I’m being delusional — that ship has sailed. We’re totally fucked. The two sides now both have “thought leaders” who feel they have a vested interest in demagoguing issues as part of an overall grift. The Right has a far more serious problem with such hucksterism, but the Left is not totally immune to it.

In my experience, the Left’s problem is a very strict Groupthink where there is an orthodoxy that Leftists will adhere to, even if it means they drive Traditionalists into the arms of fascists. It’s too late — these issues are going to be decided either via a civil war or a complete and final decent into fascism in the United States.

Anyway, get ready. People like MGT will soon enough begin to demand some sort of regulation of chatbot technology to protect the tender minds of young children who turn to chatbot technology to do their homework. And that could very well be just the beginning.

It could be, in the end, Trump or a President DeSantis demands that chatbots are purged of their “wokeness” to the point that all chatbots do is spew out fucking MAGA-approved talking points, no matter what you ask it.

The Right has a real problem with being so obsessed with defeating the “woke cancel culture mob” that they have something akin to an “anti-woke” orthodoxy of their own. The different is, of course, is fucking MAGA wants to use the hard power of the state to implement their fascist, anti-woke agenda.

Endgame 2025: Managed Democracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I continue to vacillate widely between thinking we’re going to have a civil war in late 2024, early 2025 and thinking we’re going to simply give up and become an autocracy, I see clear path towards the latter at the moment. Given what happened to the Roman Republic, I think there is a really good chance we’ll become a zombie democracy.

Or, put another way, if we’re able to avoid a civil war as part of the next election cycle, it seems logical that we’ll continue to ostensibly be a democracy but, in reality be anything but. We’ll become a legalistic, autocratic “managed democracy” like they have in Russia. A lot of how this goes down exactly will depend on if it’s Trump or DeSantis who is the GQP’s 2024 presidential nominee.

If it’s Trump, then, lulz, the possibility of the United States having a civil war grows significantly. If it’s DeSantis, then, yeah, we’ll probably lurch towards a few presidential cycles where we all think we’re a democracy, but, in fact, we’ve finally transitioned into autocracy. I just don’t see DeSantis ever peacefully leaving office.

He’ll pull a Putin and be POTUS for eight years, then become Speaker of the House and be the power behind the throne until he gets around to having enough power to call a Constitutional Convention. All of this would be happening in the context of millions of smug Twitter liberals fleeing the country for the four corners of the globe.

Our current political situation is very unstable and untenable. Something’s gotta give. This is very much the quiet before the storm. And as I keep saying, the only thing that really worries me is America’s original sin, race. It’s because of race that I could see us zooming past Russia’s form autocracy into something a lot closer to Nazi Germany.

MTG’s ‘Velvet Fist?’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really don’t know what to make of Marjorie Taylor Greene. If there was ever a ping from an extremely dark future, it is the rise of MTG on the political scene. Apparently, MTG has Speaker McCarthy by the short ones and he is something of her plaything.

The thing about MTG is she seems just a tick or two away from being just as bonkers as Trump. And, yet, she also far more focused and power hungry in an actionable way than Trump. While Trump pretty much just flails around, not really doing anything, it seem as though given actual power that MTG might be actually be the autocrat that Trump wants to be.

As I have often said, the issue of the moment is not so much Trump as who he will pick to be his veep in 2024. Trump is so old and fat that if he manages to become POTUS again without causing a fucking civil war, then whomever is his veep could very well be on the fast track to becoming POTUS.

As such, I’m growing more and more alarmed with MTG. It could be her, not Trump or DeSantis who will be our first autocrat. But she would have to win the veepstakes first. There are any number of fucking would-be autocrats who Trump could pick. Everyone from Pompeo to Hawley are chomping at the bit to be Trump’s veep and, as such, our first autocrat.

I don’t think people really appricate who primed and ready the United States is for the type of legalistic autocracy that Russia has. In my mind, by definition, our next Republican president will be our first autocrat. A sizeable chunk of the American population — mostly white Christian men, natch — are all-in on the idea of autocratic MAGA fascism. They may not really articulate it that way, but from my conversations with my Traditionalist relatives — they want autocratic MAGA fascism.

What’s so comical about all of this is, of course, that when you press them on the consequences of what they want — that I would inevitably run afoul of the autocrat they want so much — they get really upset. They don’t seem able to connect the fact that while they would be Good Germans under the Fourth Reich, I, alas, am such a drunk loudmouth crank that it is inevitable that I would endup with an ICE bullet in the back of my head.

Anyway. What do I know.

The Appeal of ‘The Fourth Turning’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I believe the historical concepts posited by the book The Fourth Turning to be nothing more than astrology for men who listen to Joe Rogan, I definitely get why the some people have really bought into the idea. I occasionally find myself walking around, say, buying groceries, when I think about what it would be like to walk into the store in the middle of a civil war.

I imagine some day in the near future where I’m scavenging for what food I can find in a trashed and ransacked store. I think this because I see how, on a macro level, the conditions for a Fourth Turning or Great Reset are floating around. I was alarmed to see a young man wearing a shirt advocating extreme guns rights.

I was reminded of how America is cleaving into two waring camps, one Red, one Blue. The issue is, of course, will we manage to muddle through this particular problem like we have since 1865 or if we’re going to implode into a Second American Civil War.

The idea that there is such a thing as a “Fourth Turning” plays into how a lot of other people are seeing what I’m seeing. The human mind is designed to see patterns and, as such, the idea that there is a regular pattern to history “feels true” and we use it as some comfort that the world around us isn’t as completely random as we fear.

But, as alas, the world, in general, really is random. Even the writers of The Fourth Turning admit that their all-powerful theory doesn’t explain why the American Civil War happened when it did. A charitable explanation would be a few Wig presidents died and, as such, the Civil War happened earlier than it might have happened according to the book’s historical dictate.

Or, you could say that the whole thing is bullshit and the authors of The Fourth Turning are giving meaning to the pretty meaningless ebb and flow of macro historical forces. We know the general movement of those forces, but we don’t know their destination. The interaction between Great Men (and Women) and macro historical forces is what makes it impossible in real terms for anyone — least of all the authors of The Fourth Turning — to predict what the fuck is going to happen.

The key thing when thinking about a Fourth Turning in the United States is it actually possible that Blue States, when faced with the prospect of being forced to “bend a knee” to autocratic MAGA fascism will actually be willing to secede from the Union? That is pretty much the whole shebang when it comes to how likely a civil war is anytime soon.

Given how politically ascendant they are, there really isn’t much reason for Red States to leave the Union. If it happens, it’s going to be Blue States. But I’m always wrong. Aways. So, as such, I think we’ll just muddle through and gradually transition into some sort of legalistic autocratic fascism like they have in Russia at the moment.

The only thing I worry about is America’s original sin, race. If the United States turns into an autocratic fascist state, there is every reason to believe it’s very possible we may zoom past Russia and turn into a Very American Fourth Reich. But I still don’t know — it could go either way at the moment.

How Trump Won In 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, Trump is very much a loser joke — which is what Hitler was for much of the 1920s after the failure of the Beerhall Putsch. So, here is how ding-dong Trump wins the 2024 election.

A Debt Celling Debacle
As I grow older, I begin to understand why graybeards are so reluctant to assume that the absolute worst is going to happen. And, yet, we have to take seriously the possibility that MAGA House Republicans are now so extreme that they’re willing to crash the global economy just out of pure spite. If there is a long-feared Debt Celling crisis and we don’t get around to minting a $1 Trillion coin to pay our bills because the House Freedom Caucus stands in the way…oh boy. Are we fucked. If there was a severe global downturn because of the dipshit House Republicans, that would definitely make the average American more receptive to a demagogue like Trump.

Trump Gets Indicted
It goes without saying that if Trump is indicted that he will see a dramatic change in his political fortunes. Combine a Trump indictment with a severe economic downturn and a second Trump Administration definitely seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Petite Singularity Recession
Even if we manage to muddle through a Debt Celling crisis, there is the issue that not only are we way overdue for a moderate-to-severe recession, but something akin to a Petite Singularity might be about to happen when things like ChatGPT 4.0 comes out and its results are “good enough” that your local capitalist pig can lay off as many workers as possible to save money during the contraction.

President Harris
This one really makes me nervous. President Biden is very old. He should not run for re-election, but, lulz, here we are. What’s more, I just don’t have a lot of confidence in Kamala Harris. The worst case scenario would be, of course, that Biden shuffles off this mortal coil at some point between Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025 while we’re in the middle of a severe recession, yikes!

A Patriot Party Promise
It could be that, in the end, there is some sort of brokered Republican Convention and Trump wins the nomination because he vows to bounce to the Patriot Party if he doesn’t get the nod. It seems to me that the key issue for Trump is just to get the nomination. If he gets the nomination, I will be shocked if he doesn’t win again.

The key thing to remember is — if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee, the likelihood of a Second American Civil War increases significantly. It will be Blues, not Reds, who demand a National Divorce.