Tag: Fuck Neo-Confederates

The Looming Second American Civil War: Race & The Paradox Of The Neo-Confederates


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I will admit that it definitely FEELS like the United States has finally run out of political gas and we’re just about to implode into a Second American Civil War. In an abstract manner, you could say there are about 20 states in the Mountain area of the United States that could secede and make then try to negotiate their peaceful exit from the Union. (This, of course, will never happen, but they can try.)

But that’s not really the issue. The issue is the former states of the Confederacy. It’s all the good old boys in across the South who are itching to see the South “rise again.” But, as I’ve said, ironically, it would make a lot more sense for Trump to drive Blue States out of the Union, then crush them using the Insurrection Act than it would for Red (CSA) States to attempt to leave the Union.

The issues: race and economics.

And effort to leave the Union by the old CSA states slam into two pretty huge problems. The first, of course, is race. No amount of pouting by easily triggered snowflake good old boys is going to convince the Southern black community that they could get a better deal in a New Confederacy. It’s a dead on arrival concept.

It’s that specific issue that makes me believe that even if Trump snapped at some point after January 6th and went transactional on Twitter about secession that it just wouldn’t work out. It might cause rolling political — and racial — violence across huge swaths of the country, but it wouldn’t be a civil war. And even if there was a secession crisis, I can’t think of a single old CSA state that cold leave the Union cleanly via a convention.

Andy secession would have to happen after a violent coup and even then, how secessionists would be able to take places like Atlanta, Richmond or Austin is a puzzle. So, at best, they might control big parts of the old CSA and declare some sort of Neo-Nazi state and start murdering black and liberals wholesale. But the whole “South Shall Rise Again” mythos would be…..not quite what the good old boys think it will be.

Let’s talk about economics.

The South, which would do much better as part of a Red State USA instead of a Neo-CSA, is not uniform anymore. States like Texas, Virginia and Florida are far more modern and urban than the Southern Good Old Boys would have us to believe. As I mentioned, Atlanta in itself is such a huge city that it would likely rather stay in the Union by itself than join any secessionist movement by the rest of the state.

As such, not only would you have to have some sort of political 9/11 for secession to take off, but your best bet as a Southern Good Old Boy would be for it to be BLUE states that leave the Union, not Red States.

But good old boys gonna good old boy.

A Second American Civil War Won’t Just Magically Happen


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep getting a lot of pings on this Website from people living in the Usual Suspects of the “Lost Cause” — South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas to name a few. They seem really excited about my dystopian hellscape scenarios about a Second American Civil War.

But I suspect a lot of the interest in such a second American Civil War comes from the recent soft coup by 17 states at SCOTUS. I don’t think people really appricate how ingrained the concept of “the South shall rise again” is in the lives of the average Southerner. So, for a lot of good old boys, even the hint of a new CSA is just too much for their poor old minds to comprehend.

With that in mind, let’s think about how we get from where we are to where we would need to be for an actual civil war to happen.

One reason why I think that this is sort of the end of the beginning of a long-term drive towards a civil war is there just isn’t any armed force big enough to challenge the U.S. Military. The Proud Boys are a small, angry disorganized group of assholes. They might blow shit up or murder someone in cold blood, but they aren’t even really even a militia. So, Cooter in Mobile can lust after Yankee blood all he wants to, but as of right now, such bloodlust is extremely misguided.

It would make a lot more sense for Red States to drive Blue States out of the Union, THEN use the U.S. Military on THEM rather than Red States leave and have the U.S. Military crush them. That’s a prime example of what a ding-dong Trump is — if he was anywhere near the political genus that Maggie Haberman would have us believe, Trump would have done a Reichstag Fire falseflag around Election, taken “total control” driven Blue States to revolt then crushed them via the Insurrection Act.

As it stands, he’s pretty much just ranted on Twitter. In other words — he’s done jackshit. It’s truly ironic it’s specifically because Trump, as a person, is so bad at his job as an autocrat that the United States may have dodged an actual fighting civil war because Trump just can’t get his act together.

So, in a sense, all the good old boy boners about a civil war NOW makes no sense. But the passions that Trump’s soft coup attempt has unleashed gives a lot Neo-Confederates a lot of expectations about what might happen — that aren’t based in reality. They FEEL like a new civil war is about to happen, but only in the abstract. It makes them feel good to think, in the abstract, that they can leave the Union and murder as many liberals as possible in the process.

The Good Old Boys’ best bet right now for what they want sooner rather than later would be Trump finally losing his fucking mind and starting to rant on Twitter about how Red States MUST leave the Union immediately. Or, put another way, Trump would have to go transactional on Twitter in some way.

For the time being, however, it seems that Trump may cause a lot of mischief on his way out, but unless we have a “political 9/11” in the next few weeks, it’s going to be closer to 2024-2025 before the conditions are right for a Second Civil War.

The Monster Always Comes Back One Last Time


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For the time being, we can all sigh a huge sigh of relief. The Electoral College voted without a hitch and now Biden is a pretty huge leap closer to actually being sworn in.

The Dead Zone as documentary.

But as with any horror movie, the monster is probably going to come back one last time. We got our first sense of that just about when the Electoral College wrapped up voting — Bill Barr is leaving just before Christmas. As such, we now enter the most dangerous phase of the Trump Era to date. Trump has every reason to demand a dozen Special Counsels to look into every aspect of the “Deep State” his way out.

These Special Counsels would be given a huge, vague charge so they could go after every aspect of Biden even before he’s sworn in. They would be what was needed for the Republicans to impeach Biden the moment they won the House and took over in 2023.

But this is Trump we’re talking about. It’s very easy to imagine he being far more dumb and ham handed about it all. I could very well see him doing something directly against Biden himself — or Obama, or whomever — specifically for the purpose of destroying the United States so everything would be so fucked up that New York State wouldn’t have the ability to concentrate on him.

Or, put another way, between now and January 20th is the danger zone. Everything from Trump going insane in such a way that significant political violence begins in the United States to a wide array of completely batshit insane things that so destabilize the country that there could be a serious secession crisis the first 100 days of the Biden Administration.

The main issue right now is Trump simply won’t concede so that gives MAGA hope that somehow, someway, they can still win. It’s a pretty massive clusterfuck we find ourselves in because either MAGA “catches the car” and there’s a civil war for that reason, or they don’t and they start blowing shit up…which starts a civil war.

And so we go back to the main issue of the day — the fate of 300 million Americans and about 7 billion humans rests on Trump. Will he continue to simply be a very incompetent ding-dong, or will he finally summon the energy to bring the United States to its knees and potentially destroy not just the United States, but everything.

MAGA Seditionist Secessionist Grievances Elude Me


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really struggle to figure out the specific reasons why growing number of MAGA seditionists have decided that secession — and the resulting violence — is their only course of action.

The closest reason I can think of is their devotion to their ding-dong Dear Leader is so absolute that they believe all his fraud claims and would rather destroy the Union than allow Biden to become president. But here’s the thing — this is still very poorly thought out and not very concrete.

At least with the 1860 secessionist crisis, there was a concrete fear that the South had — by definition, Lincoln being president would lead to first a retrenchment of slave power and then its ultimate destruction. That, at least, has some logic to it.

But to have such absolute support for just one person that you would rather leave the Union than accept Biden is legitimately POTUS now is rather curious. It still seems like a very abstract fear. Where is all this passion — even if it’s empty for the time being — coming from? From my conversations with conservatives, it seems it boils down to an absolute fear of the abstract concept of cancel culture. This is the idea that just by being conservative, a person risk having their lives ruined by liberal-progressive “cancel culture.” This is a really big deal for MAGA and Trump talks about it all the time.

I would suggest, however, that the real origin of our current clusterfuck is the end of the American dream for white blue collar men without a college education. In short — they can’t get laid. They feel left behind because not only can they not afford to get married and have kids, but they also feel that the growing economic power of women — with its associated sexual agency — makes finding a mate more difficult in the first place. The racism and willful ignorance springs from that, as well.

While it’s way too late, I’ll tell you how we could have fixed this problem — national service for all 18 year olds. If, say, AmeriCorps had been true national service and we had 30 or so years of all 18 year olds across the country being forced to hang out with each other for 18 months a lot of our problems would have been preemptively solved.

But’s too late now.

The damage is done. We’re just one political 9/11 event away from the entire Union States buckling and Blue and Red states actually beginning to attack each other on the battlefield.

The question now, of course, is we simply be locked in political neutral for a few years until the passions die down or will we not be that lucky.

Second American Civil War: The Electoral College Voting Today & The Prospect Of A ‘Political 9/11’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Today is one of a few days that we kinda know would be a prime moment for the “political 9/11” I keep worrying about. But, to date, I’ve been pretty much totally wrong. I’ve been wrong for number of reasons, among them Trump is just a ding-dong not an autocrat and there’s just not been any stomach in seditionist quarters to actually do the things necessary to provoke a secessionist crisis.

But today — along with January 6th — are obvious days where our current eerie political moment could change dramatically. All that would have to happen is a lot of faithless Electors throwing the election to Trump suddenly. Or, say, Michigan militia groups manage to hurt Electors so they couldn’t even vote.

Or, put another way — if the voting of Electoral College was paused or disrupted because of violence or the threat of violence, that, in itself, might be the crisis necessary to push us into a secessionist crisis. My point is — the American political system is so out of whack, so fragile right now that any extra stress on it will lead to its collapse.

One reason why I know America is in deep trouble is we’ve reached the point when some pretty Far Right concepts are now hurtling towards mainstream acceptance in the Republican Party. The surreal part of all of this is secessionists don’t have any concreate reasons for leaving the Union other than they hate liberal-progressives and woke cancel culture. That’s it. I guess you could say they love the Dear Leader so much they would rather destroy the country than risk living under a Biden Administration, but I still don’t know what, exactly, would be so bad about a Biden Administration that it would be worth destroying the country MAGA says they want to make great again.

And, as I’ve said, MAGA secessionists are completely oblivious about how, in practical terms, they might have some serious problems leaving the Union in the first place. Sure, there are about 15 small population, homogenous states in the center of the country that could probably make a good show of leaving the Union, but that’s it.

I can’t think of a single state of the old CSA that could make a clean break of it. Take Georgia for instance. Not only is Atlanta a major metropolitan area now, but the African American community would rather take up arms against any secessionists than let the state leave the Union for pretty obvious racist reasons.

As such, while I could see any Second American Civil War being a lot longer and a lot bloodier than MAGA could ever possibly imagine — the end result would be the same — they would fucking lose.

I really went on a tangent there. Back to the point — if we can get past today without a “political 9/11” then we’re in the clear until January 6th. If we get pass the Congressional Certification Crisis, then we have the Trump Goes Insane Crisis for much of January.

And, in the end, it could be Trump going insane that leads to the Union collapsing. If Trump goes transactional on Twitter and starts ranting about how Trumplandia needs to be founded, then, well, I guess we’ll have to see how many people take Trump both literally and seriously.

Let’s Talk ‘#Texit’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I know it’s “fun” for Red States to talk secession, it all seems rather dumb to me. Not only are Blue States better positioned to win a Second Civil war because they have bigger populations in smaller areas, have bigger economies and better educated people, the whole issue of race makes secession pretty difficult to imagine.

But right now, it’s “Texit” that seems to have caught the popular imagination among some ding-dongs. Let’s look at it.

For me, Texit isn’t viable for a whole slew of reasons. One is, if you wanted to pass it via a popular vote, there are too many patriots and moderates (and liberals!) in Texas for it to come anywhere near passing. And, as I mentioned, the issue of race makes Texit a pipe dream. I just can’t see black people rolling over and letting a fundamentally racist endeavor take place.

So, for Texit to happen, it would have to happen in the context of a broader secession crisis. Some sort of “political 9/11” would have to happen to so enrage Red State governments that they don’t have a popular vote, but rather snap Secession Conventions. There’s a huge swath of states in the middle of the lower 48 that could easily leave the Union under such conditions. And there best bet would be some sort of negotiated, peaceful departure.

Sadly, for them, I just don’t see that happening.

I just can’t imagine the Biden Administration lulzing 17 states or so leaving the Union. There will be blood, as they say. And the states in question are generally so small in population that the U.S. Military would make swift work of them.

And here’s where Texit comes into play.

As a member of the old CSA, a lot of good old boy Texans would go nuts in the passion of the crisis and demand Texas join its “wayward sisters.” It seems to me that rather than leaving the Union, Texas, itself, would implode. It would have its OWN civil war as the Red and Blue communities within it went at it.

So, in the end, Texas wouldn’t be much good to any new Trumplanian Republic because it would be too busy having its own civil war to join in.

And, let me stress this again — I’m from the South and the “Lost Cause” mythos is everywhere here. But the African American community simply isn’t going to allow a new CSA to be born. If MAGA cocksuckers in the old CSA tried to link up with the lily white Trumplandia states in the center of the country, there would likely be a race war.

Or, at least it would get very, very messy.

States like Virginia, Florida…and Texas would implode because of their internal political divisions.

The issue right now is, America is very fragile politically. If there is no catalyst, then it’s possible we’ll just drift in neutral for two years until Republicans win the House and turn around and impeach Biden for Hunter Biden’s laptop or something.

Something pretty big would have to happen at this point to change that future. Hopefully, nothing will.

Second American Civil War: A Secession Crisis Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love scenarios. In fact, that’s pretty much how I spend all my mental free time — thinking up elaborate scenarios and then playing them through in my mind. So, let’s think about what a secession crisis in modern America would look like. Hopefully, we’ll never have to find out how close I get.

The future is not bright.

The reason why this scenario is so difficult to game out right now is I can’t figure out if it will be Blue States leaving or Red States leaving. It really depends on Trump at this point.

He pretty much has the fate of not just the United States, but all of humanity in his tiny, tiny hands — without even really realizing it. The moment he decides to take “total control” or he takes up the cause of Red States leaving the Union as we grow closer to January 20th, the closer we grow to a secession crisis that would cause the country to implode.

If the United States imploded at this point — 2020 would be up there with 1453, 1789 and 1940 as seminal turning points in human history. But, let’s run the scenario with the assumption that it’s Red states, not Blue states that decide to leave the Union.

First, there would have to be some sort of catalyst. It could be anything. From Trump “joking” on Twitter that Red states should leave the Union to a major Red (or Blue) state figure being murdered or even just some sort of abrupt, sudden and unexpected event that causes Red States to decide they can’t abide by liberal-progressive cancel culture anymore. (Ugh.)

If there was a secession crisis, it would happen really fast. Like, all at once. at least 17 Red States would likely leave the Union in one fell swoop in snap Conventions. That would create a lot of momentum for other Red states to pick a side.

Now, here’s where things get tricky for would be Neo-Confederates. While it’s pretty easy for the lily white central Red states to bounce, when, say South Carolina, or Alabama, or Tennessee — or, even, for that matter Texas — get it in their head to leave the Union the African American community in these states will flip the fuck out.

So, it would likely go something like this — a huge swath of states in the sparsely populated central part of the lower 48 would leave cleanly. This would prompt the good old boys in the South to get REALLY EXCITED and see visions of the South “rising again.” And then…they hit a political brick wall: black people.

As such, the South would be the first place where the passions of a modern day secession crisis would explode into massive violence — maybe even a race war. Some states, like Florida and Virginia (and maybe even Texas) wouldn’t survive. (At least in my opinion.) They would implode. Virginia into Red rural counties and Blue urban areas, Florida into the panhandle, the middle peninsula and the south and Texas would probably just have its own internal civil war as communities with mixed Red and Blue exploded into violence.

Around this same time, the domestic political refugees would begin to bounce around the imploding Union at an alarming rate. There’s even a possibility that the U.S. Military itself would implode into Red and Blue at this point. And passions would get so whipped up that some pretty astonishing things would happen, like New York City declare itself a free state or something.

This would all happen really, really fast. No more than two weeks total. Here’s another point where I just can’t figure out things — would all of this happen in, say, early January when Trump finally snaps at the prospect of going to prison in New York State, or does it happen closer to January 20th?

Or does it not happen at all?

As I’ve written before, while all the conditions for all of this exist, Trump, to date, has proven himself all talk. It’s gotten to the point where it’s somewhat eerie. I hate the idea of any type of violence at all, and even I am astonished Trump hasn’t taken the final steps necessary to destroy the country.

There are some pretty huge wildcards. One, is suddenly strike by Iran either against Israel or somewhere domestically in the United States (or both.) Or the DPRK might rattle its saber just enough to give Trump an excuse to start a major regional war so he can simply use that as a distraction to stay in power. (Though I doubt that gambit would work.)

But remember, if the United States implodes, the entire post-WW2 liberal order implodes, too, and well, World War 3 starts as a number of regional wars break out. If you throw in a series of limited nuclear exchanges, as many as 1 billion people might die because white working class men in Red States can’t afford to get married and have kids.

I’m wrong all the time. I hope I’m wrong this time, too.

The Phony Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are very surreal right now. The reason — what should have happened after the election, hasn’t happened yet. What SHOULD have happened, given the metrics of the moment is a Second American Civil War.

Trump SHOULD have struck in some way before the race was called, Blue States SHOULD have reacted violently, Trump SHOULD have used the Insurrection Act and then the United States SHOULD have imploded into a full blown civil war.

But, thankfully, that’s not at all what happened.

It feels like everyone has put their affairs in order for a civil war….and nothing has happened. So, in a sense, many of us are kind of looking around in a daze, wondering why we still have lights and ready access to food. Everything is there, right now, for a violent civil war in the United States and yet the country continues to miraculously run on fumes.

So, in a sense, America is extremely lucky — to date — because the specific person who would otherwise destroy the United States, Donald John Fucking Trunp — is such a lazy opportunist that he just hasn’t done what many, many, many people in the Republican Party are begging him to do — take “total control.”

It’s a very surreal situation.

So, either something unexpected happens pretty quick, or we simply punt this problem down the road a few years. The traitors who hate America — the Republican Party — will continue to be a cancer on our politics, but not enough to start any violence. Until, of course, something changes and what SHOULD have happened in the Winter of 2020 finally happens.

But we’re not out of the woods yet.

America is on edge and pretty much all it will take is something, anything that puts a little bit of extra pressure on our political system and the rolling political violence that would be the first stage of the country’s implosion will happen.

But it could be the fall and winter of 2024 that that happens.

Just be thankful we apparently have managed to escape our destruction for the time being.

Second American Civil War: Could Trump Start It from Mar-a-Lago?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s talk that Trump will leave the White House for Christmas at Mar-a-Lago and…just never come back. This makes you wonder if he’s drifting towards stumbling into some sort of effort to destroy the United States by actively taking up arms against its government…while he’s still the government.

Can’t go to prison in NYS if it’s a foreign country.

I could see ding-dong wanting to hunker down in Mar-a-Lago because he would have a lot more ability to cause trouble there than at the White House. If he really wanted to destroy the USA — which I think he does — then once the Electors vote and his options at staying in power grow even more limited, he could go transactional on Twitter from Mar-a-Lago.

He could declare himself the president of Trumplandia — or whatever — and begin to rant that “real” America needs to leave the Union: all while still president of the USA. The more I think about it, the more this scenario makes a huge amount of sense, especially if you think that it would be done in the context of Trump both going insane and having an intense desire not to go to jail in NYS.

Can’t go to prison in NYS if NYS is no longer in the same country you are.

So, at the behest of Trump on Twitter, I could see Red States begin to leave the Union beginning between when the Electors vote and Jan. 20th. Trump would, at last, be number 1 in something — at being the worst president in US history.

But, let me be clear — to date, Trump has proven to be a very lazy opportunist. It’s a testament to what a ding-dong he is that I keep thinking up all these different ways he could fuck things up…and he doesn’t do anything. He hasn’t even, to date, fired Bill Barr.

Which, if he was some sort of autocrat, he would have done a long time ago. He might very well still do it, but every day he doesn’t Trump’s ability to fuck things up thankfully dwindles.

We’ll know soon enough, I guess. Time is running out for House Trump.

Debunking The ‘God Old Boy Revolution’ Narrative


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I get the sense that across much of “Red America” — especially the South — there’s a lot of talk of a conservative revolution against liberal-progressive woke cancel culture. They get all worked up then search for talk of a Second American Revolution and end up at this blog.

The Good Old Boy Revolution

Let’s break this down.

First, I can’t think of one conservative revolution. The closest I can think of is the South seceding from the Union in 1860-1861. But that was a counter-revolution (in a sense) and more of a semi-nationalist movement formed from slave power hating Lincoln.

I suppose the thinking is — we have all these guns, why not use them to prevent Biden from taking office? Or something. There are so many problems with this line of thought. One, such a Good Old Boy Revolution would need a catalyst and would likely be more done in the context of a general secession crisis than any sort of real “revolution.”

Or, put another way, the Good Old Boy Revolution would come in the form of some sort of Trumplandia draft in preperation for war against the USA than an actual “revolution.”

Also — the person who would be the leader of the Good Old Boy Revolution is Trump and he’s just an empty suit. A ding-dong. A useful idiot for the Russians. You would need sort of a Good Old Boy Man on a Horse for any revolution to begin, much less be successful.

But, I guess, in real terms, all the talk of a Good Old Boy Revolution is more frustration that Trump hasn’t taken “total control” yet. They want Trump to do something, anything, to stay in power and, to date, he really hasn’t done much in real terms other than shoot his mouth off on Twitter.

And, so, it’s possible that we’ll just drift the next few years politically until something happens that pushes the country over the edge into a hot civil war. Maybe it’ll, thankfully, never come. But we need to be aware it’s at least possible.