Politico has run a piece suggesting Jon Stewart run for POTUS in 2024. I have long thought he would be a great president. But there is a problem — and that’s Jon Stewart.
He likes to have power but he doesn’t like the responsibility that comes with power. Time and again while he was hosting The Daily Show, the moment people pointed out how politically powerful he was, he would fall back to “but I’m just a comic” and tell a fart joke.
For him to run for office — especially high office like POTUS — he would have to grow a lot more comfortable with being taken seriously and with people being aware of his power. As it stands, he seems a lot more interested in having a middling podcast and playing with rescue goats in a glorified petting zoo.
But if you could get him out of that mindset, he definitely would be a great presidential candidate and a great president. Maybe Stewart / AOC 2024? But there is, of course the problem that the country is falling apart and Republicans are going to pretty much do everything in their power to steal the 2024 election. As such, we may have a civil war if we don’t turn into an autocracy.
One interesting thing about Stewart is he is far more a traditional liberal than one might think. He is tight with Dave Chappelle and for some of the people on the Far Left that, unto itself, would be a deal breaker. But it would also make Stewart more appealing to those 100,000 swing voters strone across five swing states that decide every presidential election.
I would prefer he run for governor or senator from New Jersey before running for POTUS, but, lulz, nothing matters. I really want Stewart to run — and win — but at the moment that seems very doubtful.
I continue to see Twitter Liberals go out of their way to point out the shameless hypocrisy of MAGA “thought leaders.” It’s all very dumb. Nothing is going to change. MAGA is without shame and they continue to their craven drive to end American democracy and establish white autocracy minority rule.
Unless we have a civil war, it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to careen into autocracy and that will be that. No amount of earnest or angry tweet is going to change that. MAGA is ascendant and, as I keep telling my Traditionalists relatives, they’re going to get everything they ever wanted — and more — they just have to be patient. (This doesn’t seem to register with them, they’re still as angry as ever about the “woke cancel culture mob” personally canceling them for a stray remark that is recorded, goes viral and then ruins their life.)
And, what’s worse, we all know that when the time comes, Twitter Liberals will be the first to flee the country when it’s clear the United States is no longer a Western democracy. They have the means, motive and opportunity to flee the country en masse — maybe even in the millions. Fox News will turn from ranting about scary immigrant caravans to ranting about the liberal brain drain that has to be stopped at all costs. This will happen after a brief period of smugness on their part. It won’t be until the Autocrat gets angry at this brain drain that Fox News will change its tune.
If you want to position yourself for the future financially, I might suggest thinking out the global serves that might service all those Americans in Canada, Europe and Oceania. Think about how a million or so highly educated and trained American liberals suddenly living outside the country and what services and products they will want ready access to. This would be a very speculative and risky thing to do, but it might work out given what I feel is going to happen.
America is on the cusp of entering a very, vary dark period in it history. One that will transform us to a nation that at least like to think it’s the “freest in the world” to one that is no better than Hungary, Turkey or Russia. This transition to autocracy will upend the post-WW2 global liberal order and all sorts of unusual things may happen. We might see the United States ally with Russia and generally begin to become Fortress America.
We’re definitely going to become a theocratic white Christian ethno state. Or, like I said, we’re going to have a civil war. Take your pick. But no matter which direction we go, Twitter liberals are wasting their time pointing out the shameless hypocrisy of MAGA.
For me, the key thing about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is he’s a political opportunist. If this was 25 years ago, he would probably be just your standard issue ambitious Republican governor. He would be very much like George W. Bush.
But this is not 25 years ago. As such, DeSantis, along with the rest of the Republican Party, has shifted into full blown fascist autocracy. By definition, to be a Republican in good standing these days is to be a fascist. And you know they are by how touchy they get whenever you mention this. They say people like me have been calling Republicans fascists since 1964 and fuck you lib.
Yet, it’s self-evident that Republicans ARE fascists. Their talking points, taking as a whole, are those of autocratic fascists who want white minority rule. To my Traditionalist relatives — who I love dearly — the very idea of “autocracy” is such an abstract to them that they dismiss it as our future. And now they don’t even believe the United States is a democracy in the first place, so they are all-in to being Good Germans once white minority rule is finally established.
And once we became an autocracy, it’s doubtful it would register that we weren’t democracy anymore — but for me. I’m just not going to shut up and as our freedoms slowly begin to circle the drain there is going to come a point because form follows function when a loudmouth crank like me is going to cross the autocrat.
Then things become personal and suddenly they get upset that they can’t find me because I was picked up at a bar for ranting about how much President DeSantis can suck my dick. I’m not saying this will happen immediately after 2025, but once we’re no longer a democracy the general insecurity of our new autocratic ruler will gradually lead to a Constitutional Convention and me in an ICE Camp.
Of course, the other option is a civil war. That would be fun.
So, I have a relative — who I love dearly — who, whenever I bring up the latest egregious law breaking by Trump says, flatly, “Well, if he broke the law, he needs to be charged.”
We don’t have any political will to do anything about Trump! If you’re a conservative who hides behind the idea of the courts sorting things out, then you’re feeding into the cancer, making it bigger. You have to have an opinion! You have to get angry! Don’t vote for anyone who won’t hold Trump accountable! Make common cause with other people who believe in American freedom and democracy!
For once, don’t let your abstract fear of the “woke cancel culture mob” blind you to the rise of fascism in the America!
But I’ve given up hope. My Traditionalists relatives — who I love dearly — want autocracy and, but for me inevitably running afoul of the autocrat — would be quite content to be Good Germans under President DeSantis’ reign. And that’s pretty much things where things stand — we’re fucked.
The cancer is going to kill our democracy and we’re going to become an autocracy and my Traditionalists relatives are going to have to figure out a way to get me out of a Trump-branded ICE camp.
If I ever blow up with my DJ money, as they say, I will immediately become the subject of scrutiny and, as such, all my drunken women chasing and general bad behavior over the years will be probably be picked part. I know this is a very real possibility — I’m a very flawed person and I’ve done my fair share of things that some people will put me in the “canceled” dustbin of history for.
Having said that, in my experience, whenever I have a run-in with “woke” people on Twitter my biggest complaint is I just don’t know how to deescalate things. The moment they start using “woke cancel culture mob” buzzwords I’m taken aback. They frame things in a way that it’s impossible for me to say, “But, but, I’m on your side…:
Which gets me to thinking, what, exactly does it mean to be “woke.” The first instance of gratuitous wokeness that I remember is when in one of the Jurassic Park sequels everyone was saved by a young African American woman gymnast out of the blue. It was totally out of place and weird and I immediately realized that Spielberg was, in a very ham handed manner, trying to make a point, even if making that point was to the detriment of the story.
Now, of course, that young African American woman would probably be transgendered or something. Which, there’s nothing wrong with that, but unless the storyteller did the hard work of setting up her heroic turn would just be weird and take you out of the movie.
But, again, what does it mean to be “woke?”
I think it means different things to different people. It’s so abused by the Right to score political points that its use has grown very grating. But I suppose one definition would be framing things in such a way that straight white men are seen as the enemy. I’m not saying this is my definition, but it is a definition. To me, I see being “woke” often as a crutch that over sensitive people use on Twitter to start a fight even if what you said was just a random, stray thought without any deeper meaning.
But I will say this — people who are excessively woke are doing the cause of liberal democracy no favors. It’s extremely corrosive because if you totally alienate conservative white straight men then they’re going to vote for fucking fascists. And then where are you with your wokeness?
And, yet, I don’t think there really is any unified, agreed upon meaning for “being woke.” It’s generally so broad and so apt to be warped for the political motives of the Far Right that it’s kind of a “know it when you see it” kind of thing.
All I want is Leftist not to attack me if I don’t follow their orthodox. I generally am not Leftist and don’t even like them, but I’m willing to make common cause with them if that’s what I have to do to defeat the rise of the fascist MAGA New Right.
My first indication that something was off in American politics was when my Traditionalist relative pined me down one Thanksgiving during the second Obama Administration and was enraged. He went on at great length about how much he hated everything about the Obama Era. It was almost as if he felt a personal affront from the social changes that were happening in the United States at the time.
Since then, things have only gotten worse. My Traditionalist relatives no longer even believe that the United States is a democracy in the first place. And they give me some obviously well-thought out Republican echo chamber talking points about why this is the case. They are so blinded by the fascist ideology of the modern day Republican Party that they simply do not care what the ultimate consequences of establishing an autocratic white minority ethno state might be for the nation as a whole.
Of course, they don’t articulate it that way. They don’t come out and say that they want white autocratic minority rule. But that is, in effect, what we would get if they got what they wanted. And, given that I’m a loudmouth — often drunk — crank, the idea of us transitioning from the anocracy that we are now into a full fledged autocracy gives me serious cause for concern.
My Traditionalist relatives see everything in the abstract. They want abortion to be totally outlawed in all 50 states, because that’s just want they’ve always wanted and they honestly don’t care about what that would mean for millions of women. They believe “every life is precious” unless, of course, you’re an old person who might die from COVID, then you’re shit out of luck.
But, let’s go back to what may be warping American politics. What, specific thing, is making white conservatives men specifically flip the fuck out to the point that they want an obvious autocrat like Ron DeSantis to be president so bad that they would “vote for him three times” if they could.
I don’t think there is any one thing. I think it’s a combination of macro forces that are all coming to a head at the same time — around late 2024 – early 2025. Some of it how dramatic the shift in social expectations that took place in the second Obama Administration. Some of it is technology, social media and podcast have done a lot to radicalize the Republican base. And there is the old standby of Fox News, but I take that as a given — it’s a success because people are willful in their refusal to accept any fact that doesn’t fit their already formed partisan worldview.
The warping of the American political system — specifically conservative thought — is thus intractable and impossible in any practical way to fix. We are well beyond the event horizon for a massive clusterfuck in 2024 – 2025. And, at the moment, I think we’re just going to shrug and become an autocracy. Though, if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee the possibility of civil war increases dramatically.
Having said all that, there is a key exception to all the fascist bullshit that my Traditionalist relatives believe in — the personal. And it’s the personal — specifically me refusing to shut the fuck up — that is going to cause a huge amount of problems down the road regardless if we have a civil war or turn into an autocracy.
Once we’re no longer a democracy and President DeSantis begins to strangle the last vestiges of traditional American life — including freedom of speech — that is when I will have the moral high ground. They’re going to come to me in secret and demand I change my loudmouth crank ways “for the sake of the family” and I’m just going to tell them no — they had their chance to make common cause against tyranny and they gave it up because they were afraid the woke cancel culture mob was going to cancel them personally and ruined their lives.
It’s not exactly a situation that’s going to make me feel good, even though I was proven to be right, but it’s bound to happen. But we work with what we’re given, not what we need.
AOC is something of a liberal-progressive firebrand, and, as such, extremely divisive. She’s divisive to the point that the case could be made that given how young she is, she should sit 2024 out to give herself time to mature and to earn the right to run for such a high office as POTUS.
AOC
She’s so young that she has plenty of time to become a New York Senator and then position herself to run for higher office.
But there’s a problem — a huge problem.
Macro forces are at work such that 2024 could be a battle royale. It could be a political pitched battle between the autocratic fascism of the Republican Party and an alliance of pro-democratic forces that find themselves under the rubric of the Democratic Party. And, sadly, Joe Biden is so old and eager to work with his good, good friends in the Republican Party who now happen to be fascist, that he’s just not up to the task at hand.
It would be much better, given the stakes of the 2024 election, to have a young, progressive firebrand like AOC as the leader of the Democratic Party as the United States careens towards the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. She would be just the fresh blood needed in case things went really south and we found ourselves with a REAL Stop The Steal effort in late 2024 – early 2025.
And, in all honesty, given how radical the Republican Party is now, having a fighter who appeals to the base of the Democratic Party is probably a lot more useful in 2024 than someone who might appeal to those mysterious 100,000 people across five swing states that decide each modern election.
I don’t agree with AOC on everything — I’m a moderate, if radical moderate, but I admire her spunk and her youthful frame of mind.
As such, for the time being, at least, I think AOC is the best candidate for the Democratic Party in 2024.
From talking to my Traditionalist relatives, I’m alarmed at how popular the prospect of white autocratic rule in the United States is. Now, obviously if you ask them if they want a fascist state, they’re going to tell you’re being hysterical and that’s not at all what they want. But, then, they make it clear that they think democracy is “mob rule” and they are willing to vote for anyone who will end the tyranny of the “woke cancel culture mob.”
So, yeah, they want autocracy.
Now, while this is bad, the key issue is if we become an autocracy there is the problem of ME refusing to shut the fuck up, no matter what. I just don’t have it in me to be quiet once we fully transition into autocracy. I’ve been a loudmouth crank my entire life — often a drunk, loudmouth crank — and I’ve had the luxury of living in a Western democracy my entire life.
As such, I have to accept that there’s a real chance that should we become an autocracy I’m going to cross our new autocratic overlord and either find myself in an ICE camp, have to join some sort of real-world Resistance group or have to figure out a way to get out of the country.
I still don’t think we’re prepared for the reaction on the MAGA Right when all those liberals they hate so much actually do, in fact, leave the country en mass. Initially, they won’t know what to do with this turn of events. In fact, they’ll probably be pretty smug about it. And, then, when it starts to be a real brain drain — with a million or more well educated, well trained liberals leave the country — they’re going to freak the fuck out.
Some members of the Far Right will even go so far as to demand that it grow more difficult for people to leave the country. Form follows function, after all.
It will be interesting to see which direction we ultimately go. It seems, as least, to be growing apparent that we’re going to just become a Turkey or Hungary-style autocracy and that will be that. We’ll leave NATO (or be among the least democracy of the alliance). Given the America First nature of MAGA, America becoming Fortress America could spark a “Great Reset” of the world order because the United States is going go all Doctor Manhattan on us.
But their remains the possibility of a civil war. It’s not very high, but it exists and the crux of it happening would be if Trump or DeSantis is the 2024 Republican nominee. Trump is so stupid and lazy that he could, single handedly, spark a civil war by pushing Blue States into a corner. Meanwhile, DeSantis is far smoother and could pull off a peaceful transition into autocracy without a shot being fired.
Speaking of DeSantis, it is very interesting how my Traditionalist relatives address the difference between DeSantis and Trump. They say Trump “won because of all the press coverage of him” and, yet, they say, “DeSantis will win despite the press hating him.”
Which the fuck is it? Is the “liberal globalist cuck” Press all powerful, or is it not? I find this particular contradiction extremely aggravating. Get your story straight.
Anyway. Good luck, I guess. If you can the means to get out of the country, go for it. I may be up to poor people like me to fight the autocracy when it comes.
After Cassidy Hutchinson’s shocking testimony that Trump was only barely prevented from going to the Capitol on January 6th, it raises the question: what would have happened had he gone?
The key thing about such a clusterfuck happening is it would have dramatically escalated what was already a bad situation into a historic tragedy. There is a real chance that the presence of the sitting president at the front of a crazed, armed angry mob would, at a minimum, delayed the Certification of the vote for at least 24 hours.
Which, in a sense, would have been the whole point of him going to the Capitol in the first place: delay the process as much as possible to give Mike Pence as much time as possible to to contemplate what he was going to do when the time came. So, the case could be made that if there had been bloodshed because Trump went to the Capitol and that, by definition, delayed the Certification of the vote then there’s a chance Mike Pence would not have done his job.
So, there is a real risk that Trump’s coup attempt would have worked for no other reason than there would be such chaos that it would provide cover for it to work.
It definitely feels like we’re in the montage leading up to the United States either turning into a full-blown autocracy or…having a “National Divorce,” and, as such a civil war. To me, it’s clear that should there be a National Divorce, it will be Blue, not Red, states that serve the papers. Reds are ascendant and they’re getting everything they could possibly want through a combination of politics and a corrupt SCOTUS.
But, let’s suppose a civil war happens and Blues are successful in their war aims of leaving the Union and establishing an independent Blue United States. What would this strange new world look like?
The key thing to ponder is — which side got which states? There are a number of states that have a real difference between the governed and the government. The upper old midwest, “the Rust Belt,” is a prime example of this .There are a number of states there that would probably be flash points for a civil war. I mean, Michigan almost had a coup in 2020 and we were no where near to a civil war like we may be in 2024. And that doesn’t begin to address places like Texas which are politically shifting Blue in a macro way but are being held back by the autocratic politics of the Texas Republican Party. And, what’s more, states like Virginia are two states, one Red, one Blue, fused together who hate each other and would probably be the site of significant bloodshed if a National Divorce happend.
But, let’s imagine a time 10 years from now when all that is sorted out. After a violent collapse of the country, we have two nations where the United States once stood — the rump state of Trumplandia (USA) and some sort of Blue State, maybe the United States of Canada? What would life be like there?
On paper, the United States of Canada in 2032 would be a prosperous, forward looking nation. It would be a part of NATO and would be a part of whatever New World Order was established after the entire world went tits up during WW3 that happend as a result of the Second American Civil War. The USC Constitution would likely be much like Trumplandia’s but for things like the ERA being in it as well as the abolition of the Electoral College. There might be something akin to National Service. Abortion rights would be protected. Plutocrats would be expected to pay their fair share and there might have been an overall reform of the tax system. In fact, a whole host of much-needed reforms would likely have been enacted in the USC — including a rewriting or elimination of the 2nd Amendment.
I could see on July 4th, 2032 that one of the biggest issues facing the USC would be immigration — from Trumplandia. Or, even worse, the could be a lot of concern about the fate of African Americans in the Deep South as Trumplandia grows more racist and radical on the issue of race. It could get so bad, in fact, that either there’s something akin to a race war in the Deep South that would cause the conflict between the USC and the USA to linger, or millions of African Americans would be forced to emigrate to the USC.
One interesting thing is where all the useless Twitter liberals would be. Would they be still be smug in their big cities or when they left the country to its own devices during the National Divorce, did they say in the south of France to drink white Russians and smell their own farts? I think by 2032 they would have returned, still as useless as ever.
Once the USC got rid of the Electoral College, the Democratic Party would devolve into its component parts and there might even be an actual Social Democrat Party that was a serious contender. It’s possible that there might also be a Green Party that would force the other main parties to take global climate change even more seriously than they already were.
Meanwhile, in Trumplandia, things would be getting very dark indeed. Without any counterweight from Blue States, the USA would become very inward looking and the worse tendencies of MAGA would become enshrined in law. In fact, as I mentioned, things would suck so bad that Trumplandia’s large African American population might revolt on a regular basis, leading to renewed conflict between Blue and Red. I don’t think we give this element of the clusterfuck that would be a National Divorce enough thought.
Trumplandia would align with other autocracies like Russia, Turkey and Hungary. As I mentioned — any world where the United States has been split into two would be dramatically different because the transition would be very violent and very disruptive. A few billion people could have died in WW3 because of starvation caused by a few regional wars going nuclear.
And, of course, there is a real chance that WMD would have been used by both Blue and Red as part of any National Divorce and, as such, both the USC and the USA in 2032 would be recovering from that massive destruction.
Because of the issue of race, specifically in the Deep South, I fear any National Divorce would not be nearly as clean cut as either side would prefer. In fact, it’s even possible that during any Second American Civil War, Blue war aims could drift from simple independence to reuniting the country into something closer to the United States of North America.
It would be horrific. Millions would die. If it became an apocalyptic rock fight to the end between Blue and Red to see who got the USA “brand” then all bets are off. It could be that the United States could go from the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world to something closer to modern day Afghanistan. It could take generations for the USNA to fully recover from such a colossal clusterfuck.
But one thing is for sure — in 2032 we either celebrate as Red and Blue, or we celebrate as an autocratic MAGA Trumplandia over the entire country. There is no middle ground. Something’s gotta give. Get ready. Pick a side, or a side will be chosen for you.
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