I got so angry about Trump’s administration that I started a novel project which is now up to six novels. And one of the things that made me the angriest was the “tender care facilities” that happened with little kids because of Trump’s shenanigans on the border.
I think of that now that we know it’s possible that Trump may have stolen nuclear secrets, of all things, and hidden them at Mar-a-Lago. This really makes me angry. It enrages me. It enrages me for a number of reasons, chief amongst them being that there’s a very good chance that Trump, yet again, will get away with it.
He will do something, anything to muddy the waters so the usual shuck and jive will happen where we all get really angry then gradually lose interest and Trump escapes. And the chief thing I think Trump could do to escape would be to announce his 2024 bid.
That is typically how Trump operates.
Whenever he’s cornered and we all think we have him, he does something even more stupid and dramatic and horrible and corrupt and no consensus can develop about what to do with him. I suppose Trump could also go transactional and get his mob of angry idiots to try to overthrow the government in an effort to protect himself. He hasn’t tried that lately.
Welp, I have to give Trump credit, it’s at least possible that a nation founded by Washington and renewed by Lincoln could be at last destroyed by malignant dingus Donald Trump. Pretty much all that has to happen is Trump go transactional and that’s it.
The United States would buckle into something akin to civil war. There would be no narrative, no ready endgame and we would careen into a very dark and uncertain future.
The fact that a legal raid on Mar-a-Lago would cause the Right to race to cling Trump as close to them as possible says America is far, far more fucked up than we could possibly have imagined. And we’re doing it willfully, with our eyes wide open.
The key issue is Trump, on a political basis, back in the game now. And all he would have to do to have some sort of immunity again would be to announce his 2024 bid. Now, obviously, the darkest scenario is Trump is indicted, runs anyway and in a bid to protect himself does something akin to being transactional.
Or, at least transactional connected, like he did with January 6th.
I guess what I’m saying is — I have no idea how any of this ends. And one way it ends is severe, chronic political violence that would be the setup for either autocracy or a far more traditional civil war situation around late 2024 – early 2025.
I just don’t think we appreciate how weak and unstable the United States is right now. If Something Big happened, I’m not so sure that the United States would be able to unite to do anything about it. We’re so divided, that we’re just as likely to collapse into open warfare as we are to unite to save the world again.
The reason why I say we’re in a crisis is we still don’t know what documents the FBI found when the raided Mar-a-Lago. All we know is whatever it is, it was bad enough that the Trump is trying to get ahead of it all by saying the FBI “planted” incriminating evidence.
What’s so alarming about all of this is there is no ready endgame — the classic definition of a crisis. There are, however, a few different ways this all might shake out.
One way is there’s a tragedy of some sort that makes the country stand still for a few hours (days?) while we process what has just happened. It would clear the air and we would all take a deep breath and realize maybe some of the Right wing rhetoric was a little too frothy for its own good.
The other, darker endgame would be that there’s a tragedy of some sort and, rather than calming everyone down, it only escalates things. The two sides begin to violently attack each other and we have the first long-term political violence in the Republic’s history since the end of Reconstruction.
The other, more subtle endgame is no endgame — we all feel like we’re racing towards a tragedy….and then nothing happens. The country is on edge for the long term until late 2024, early 2025 when all my dystopian hellscape predictions about a civil war or a transition into autocracy would take place.
Right now — I have no idea which of these endgames we will ultimately see happen.
For all the talk by myself and others comparing Trump to Hitler, there’s one way where the two men are very different and that’s how Hitler would handled what’s going on right now. If Herr Hitler was feeling the long arm of the law just about to reach him and the Right was so primed and ready for political violence, he would lean into it.
Hitler at this point would go transactional.
Maybe he wouldn’t say it outloud, but he would tell the SA or SS to go out and knock some heads, or blow some shit up. I suppose the direct analogy would be if Trump told the Proud Boys directly to commit some political violence immediately in an effort to make everyone so mad that it was practically impossible for the government to prosecute him.
Usually, Trump escapes from justice no matter how bad he is. But two things are at play at the moment. One is, there are just so many different investigations into him that it’s almost inevitable that one of them is going to hit pay dirt and really bring Trump closer to justice. Of course, in that instance, Trump can just laugh at all of us by announcing his 2024 bid and scream at the top of his lungs that he’s a poor, poor martyr for the cause. (This, of course, is very much something that Hitler would do in this situation.)
The other is — we still don’t know how bad the Mar-a-Lago situation is. As Stephen Colbert frequently says, with Trump things are always, always far, far worse than you fear. As such, if Trump really was up to something Very Bad with all those classified documents at Mar-a-Lago we really are going to risk maybe not a civil war, but some of that rolling political violence that people like Barbara F. Walter keeps talking about.
The reason is — two absolutes would smash into each other.
The absolute need for the government to protect national security would smash into the absolute need on the part of MAGA to protect the Fuhrer. And if Trump poured gas on this particular situation by going transactional, then we really, really are in a lot of trouble not in late 2024, early 2025, but RIGHT NOW.
The United States, the wealthiest, most powerful nation the globe has ever seen is teetering. There’s a good chance that there may be major political violence in the near term. I say this only because you can’t have the Right’s echo chamber spewing violent, vitriolic rhetoric this much without someone, somewhere taking them up on it to prove a point.
And that doesn’t even begin to address the other pink MAGA elephant in the room — the exact reasons why there was a raid in the first place.
So, the first issue — the rhetoric. It definitely seems as though we’ve cross the Rubicon to some extent when it comes to the Right and violence. They definitely seem to be doing everything in their power to get one of their followers to come out of the woodwork and blow something up or hurt someone prominent. Or, put another way — things are really beginning to overheat politically in the United States.
There is going to be some sort of sacrifice or tragedy that will either escalate things or calm things down. I suspect that if my nightmare becomes a reality and there is a major, organized political terrorists attack that, given America’s national personality that it will clear the decks and we’ll all calm down. It could be for a little while, depending on how big the event is.
Or, of course, things only get worse.
It just seems as though the raid may be looked back upon as something the sparked political violence as bad, if not worse than the January 6th Insurrection. And what makes all of this even worse is there is some historical determinism to it — what else was the FBI going to do? Trump, personally, is the reason all of this bullshit is happening because the longer he’s not charged with anything the more the rule of law is collectively eroded in the public’s mind.
Ok, now for the other issue that of what is may have been that the FBI found. Because Trump — yet again — has demanded absolute fidelity from MAGA before they know the full truth, there’s a real chance that we’re going to find out something Really, Really Bad about why the FBI was at Mar-a-Lago and all the MAGA “thought leaders” who have been screaming about the need for Civil War because of the raid are going to look pretty dumb.
Of course, the fact that they keep trying to drum up support for the idea that evidence was “planted” is a tell — there’s a good chance that whatever it is, is so bad that it could really hurt Trump.
Now there’s one last thing to think about — to date, Trump hasn’t gone transactional. He hasn’t told his followers to be violent. He kind of did around January 6th, but what if he, feeling like a caged rat as the hand of justice finally begins to get close goes transactional and tells his supporters to be violent? How likely is it that they would? And what if they did?
Anyway, we’re in a crisis. There’s no obvious endgame. Buckle up.
A common theme within my center-Left echo chamber is how “dumb” MAGA Republicans are. And, yet, this totally misses the point of what’s really going on. MAGA isn’t dumb — it’s craven. There’s a big, big difference. Now, I’m not saying all the obviously very dumb things that MAGA Republicans say online and elsewhere aren’t dumb — a big chunk of it is — but there’s also a lot of cravenness to it as well.
Usually, this cravenness comes from intentionally conflating ideas in such a way that they either muddle what is trying to be said or they mislead people into thinking things that aren’t true.
MAGA knows what they’re doing when they say dumb things, or conflate ideas to be misleading. And, in some cases, it’s all just a big troll. They know that if they come across as dumb and provocative that their ideas will be amplified by clueless center-Left people on Twitter.
Or, put another way, I think we’re underestimating MAGA. We’re careening towards a very, very dark fate. What exactly that fate is, I don’t know. But we need to sit up and take notice that things are going to come to a head pretty soon and what that will look like is anyone’s guess.
But to dismiss MAGA as “dumb” is doing the anti-fascist movement no help.
The same dynamic that led me to start this planned six novel project in the first place is back in place — I’m enraged by MAGA. I’d kind of calmed down the last few years because of the Biden Administration being very normal. But the reaction on the part of MAGA to the FBI simply holding Trump accountable has so enraged me that I find myself focused again.
Let’s get writing!
That’s the whole point of this novel series — to have a place to vent about how much I fucking hate the extremes of Trumplandia and the “woke cancel culture mob” (if you will.) I’ve set up the universe of the novel on an existential basis so if you read all six novels you will not only know way, way, way too much about me, but you’ll also get (through subtext) me preaching about how fucked up the extremes of both sides are.
Of course, I hate MAGA way, way, way, way more than I hate the “woke cancel culture mob.” The woke mob is illiberal and destructive and I hate it. But that’s all soft power. The fucking MAGA cucksuckers want to use hardpower to, well, uh, “solve” the problem that is ME.
Anyway, the point is, I’m going to spend the next few days recharging my batteries and then hopefully jump out of the gate to start working as hard as I can to finish six novels that conclude with a very unique, interesting universe for my characters to run around in.
Now, of course, there is the issue of timing. It’s very possible that I could do all this hard work and, lulz, in the end, there’s either a civil war or the autocracy gets so bad that I can’t even publish the novels.
And, it’s not like all six novels would be published all at once. They would be staggered, so I’m kind of flying blind. Things could have changed so much by the last novel comes out that it will see very, very dated. It’s just taken me a lot — and I mean A LOT — longer for me to figure out this first novel than I originally imagined.
And then I turned what was supposed to be just two novels telling one story (with a cliffhanger in between them) into a sprawling six novel epic that explains how things got so fucked up (in America and in the fictional place I’ve come up with.)
Of course, there’s the issue of me.
I not only (apparently) come across as a crazy nutjob from my social media output, but I’m also not exactly getting any younger. So, if you factor in I have to get an agent, then sell the first novel then stagger the release of five novels after that, well, I could be Really Old in Real Terms by the time that process is finished.
But I really love this universe I’ve come up with. I do need to work on some short stories and I also need to have a few back up novel worked out as I go forward.
Anyway. I know I keep saying this and then months and years slide by and I really haven’t gotten anything done that can be published. But I have learned a whole lot and I’m getting a lot better as a writer and a storyteller. These things just take time.
I just hope I live long enough to see everything come to a successful conclusion.
I love my relatives dearly and, in general, it’s always fun to have a political discussion with someone who disagrees with you. That’s supposed be the heart of the politics of a democracy, at least. Until today, I assumed there was only one red line for my Traditionalists relatives — the personal.
That is, me literally being snatched off the street by weaponized ICE at some point after 2025 when President DeSantis finally strangles what’s left of our democracy.
But I was apparently wrong — there’s a Red Line before that: political violence.
Of course, it would have to be MAGA who started the political violence for my Traditionalist relatives to finally, finally be willing to say enough is enough and to maybe (?) make common cause with the center-Left for the sake of the country. If both sides were involved in the violence or if the center-Left did it, then, no, not even political violence would be a Red Line for my Traditionalists relatives because they could just write it off as the woke cancel culture mob being mad because they weren’t able to turn every last person in the world gay.
That’s their sentiment, not mine — I’m just the messenger.
Anyway, I think it’s a testament to the political temperament of Americans when it comes to political violence. Republicans, if they do, in fact, at last freak the fuck out and start murdering people in cold political blood really risk losing the Traditionalist vote.
That would cleave off a sold 18% of their electoral support.
But I think, in practical terms, that if things have gotten so bad in the United States that there’s actual political violence in the street then, lulz….it’s going to be too late by that point. It won’t matter which side Traditionalists are on in real terms. We’d be going to the show.
Political violence has a dynamic all its own and once you let that out of its tube, there’s no fast and hard answers as to where it might stop.
Ever since the January 6th Insurrection, the United States has been classified by political scientists as an “anocracy” rather than a democracy. And given how absolutely hysterical the Right has grown with the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, we’re lurching towards a new, disruptive moment in this new historical and political phase in American history.
I will be shocked — but not surprised — if there’s major political violence at any moment. An terrorist explosion. An organized attempt to “eliminate” any number of high profile government officials. And you know that Fox News, after about 24 hours of “thoughts and prayers,” will come roaring back with talking points about how “America has a mental health crisis.”
They will go right back to be insane and goading their views to hurt people for political reasons.
If my fears come true — remember, I’m almost always wrong — then it would happen in the context of the 2022 midterms and then the 2024 presidential election. I will be flabbergasted if we make it through the 2023 – 2025 timeframe without significant political violence. Like, the worst political violence since the end of the First American Civil War.
It’s going to be very scary and either it’s the starting off point of a National Divorce or it’s how we start our autocratic journey. Because those are our two choices — autocracy or civil war. I suppose you might say we could have some sort of military junta….but that’s just on paper.
The passions of the late 2022 – early 2025 era will just be too much. No more middle ground. Everyone is going to have to pick a side, or a side will be chosen for you. And, in the end, I think we’re just going to slide into autocracy. Poors like me will have to either shut up or get shot in the back of the neck by an ICE agent while wealthy Blues will leave the country en masse for various corners of the globe.
Don’t know what to tell you other than — if you can, get your affairs in order and get the fuck out of the United States. We’re going to either implode (autocracy) or explode (civil war.) And in either situation there’s going to be a Great Reset with WW3 involved.
At least with the Second Civil War option, I suppose there’s a chance that after WW3 happens a few billion people die, if the Good Guys win that Humanity will unite and we’ll be able to address global climate change.
I think we may know — if today’s Newsweek story is to be believed — why the FBI swooped in to Mar-a-Lago when it did. They had specific, credible information as to where the Classified documents were located. So, they went in ASAP to get the documents while the information was still hot and relavant.
Now, this brings up the issue of how Trumplandia is screaming at the top of its lungs right now that the FBI OBVIOUSLY “planted” evidence during its raid. If that’s not a tell, I don’t know what is.
As such, I think it’s safe for us to assume that it’s at least possible that Trump had Something Big in his possession when the FBI stormed the place. Which leads to the question of, what was it?
I have no idea. But for Trumplandia to rush to yet ANOTHER Big Lie instantly leads me to believe that whatever it is, it’s gotta be pretty big. Or, at least, Trump is freaking out about it.
It could be that we’ll never know. Trump is so good at “criming” that by the time we get anywhere close to knowing the truth, he’ll be POTUS again and we’ll all be so busy trying to leave the country now that we’re an autocracy that we won’t have time to care about all the secrets Trump stole.
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