Tag: Glorious American Revolution of 2021

2012: The Year Everything Changed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It used to be that there were all these predictions about how the Mayan calendar predicted the End Of The World in 2012 for some reason. Well, that obviously didn’t happen, but something did happen – 2012 was the year that white people in America began to reach a tipping point with their abstract fears about the changing nature of the country.

So, let’s think about what, exactly, happened in 2012 that caused the political hellscape that we currently enjoy. The most obvious thing is, duh, Obama won a second term. And I think the reason why there was a cascading effect from that event was a lot of Republicans thought Obama was some sort of political fluke caused by the perfect timing of the Great Recession right before the 2008 election.

When it became clear that Obama was actually the first wave of what everyone knew was coming — the advent of America being a minority majority nation, a lot of white people freaked the fuck out. It was the 2012 election that was the last election where Republicans were willing to work within the democratic norms that we all have come to enjoy for the last 240 odd years.

Something about what happened in Obama’s second term facilitated the rise of Trump, MAGA and the Republican Party becoming fascist. It was the high speed social transformation of Obama’s second term that really caused the Republican Party to pretty much be accurately represented by Trump.

If I was, like, smart and stuff, I would be able to give you a itemized deep dive of the specific events that caused conservative white people to freak out and fall into the arms of ding-dong Trump. But, I’m not that smart — and, as such, will never write for VOX, natch.

But it is curious. I think what may have happened is at some point between 2012 and 2016 Republicans realized they had lost the culture wars and, as such, they had to strike back with someone who was a “fighter.” After that happened, the rest took care of itself. Trump was a deranged lunatic, but the Establishment eventually realized he was not only hugely popular with the base, but he could win the 2016 election. So they lulzed everything for young hack MAGA judges and a plutocrat tax cut.

I love alternative history, so I often struggle to think up a way whereby we could have avoided the rise of MAGA and Trump. All I can think up is Al Gore winning the 2000 election. Even then, Obama is such a singular figure in our nation’s political history that it’s easy to imagine him winning anyway and causing MAGA to arise in response.

If you read the book The Fourth Turning, you would say that Someone Like Trump was going to pop up at some point between 2016 and, say, 2024. The demographic trends were going to cause someone like Obama to get elected and then, in turn, someone like Trump would get elected in reaction.

One last thing I think we don’t really appricate is how the introduction of the iPhone may have also sealed our fate. Once social media was no longer tied to our PCs, then things like “cancel culture” and the mainlining of things once seen as freaky was going to happen one way or another.

Anyway, the ultimate end game of this clusterfuck is a complete mystery to me. I have no idea what happens. I do know, however, that we’re going to face a choice of either MAGA autocracy or a civil war. Which one we will pick, I don’t know for the time being.

America’s Path To Autocracy Goes Through Texas


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want to understand the political, historical and demographic forces at work in the United States right look no further than Texas. The Lone Star State is the place where we see America’s overall decent into autocracy in the micro. For a generation, people have been talking about how Texas is “shifting Blue” and there will, at some point, come a moment when it’s no longer reliably Red. Such an event would be huge — Democrats with the failsafe of Texas on the electoral board would be in a very good position going forward.

There’s a huge problem with this, however — Texas Republicans know this, too.

As such, Texas is thus one of a number of states around the Union where the Republican Party has grown hysterical and autocratic. They will do anything to keep power, to the point where they don’t blink an eye at running roughshod over democratic norms.

So, when you talk about the political future of the United States, you have to take into account that the Republican Party is, well, fascist. They are laying the groundwork for forcing the issue: we will either become an autocratic managed democracy or we’re going to have a civil war.

And Texas is a prime example of how the Republican Party, on a systemic level, would rather destroy democracy than do any soul searching so they could continue to win elections fair and square. They would rather destroy the whole system than risk such forced existential introspection. We have get woke to the very real possibility that at some point between now and January 2025, the United States will become, on a political level, Texas.

The anti-democratic moves that the Texas Republican Party is doing on a systemic level will be applied to the United States by the national Republican Party for the very same reasons — Republicans know they have unpopular policies and the only way they can stay in power is to cheat via turning the country into an fascist autocracy.

There are no easy answers. Either the autocratic forces at work within the Texas Republican Party — and beyond — win the day, or we have a civil war. That’s it. That is our choice.

Twitter Chatter: Something ‘Big’ Is About To Happen (Lulz?)


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here and there these days, you see cryptic Tweets from major “resistance” people on Twitter saying something about how something “big” is about to happen. I’ve grown extremely jaded about such things — Trump is politically above the law — so I pretty much think any such talk is either bullshit, delusional or something that should evoke a lulz.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend something “big” is about to happen. What could it be?

First, I don’t know. Second, there’s only one thing that I would consider “big” at this point — concrete evidence that some big names in MAGA, including Trump, actively worked with the January 6th insurrectionists with the specific goal of a successful violent coup.

But even absolute, rock hard evidence of this would only last one Twitter news cycle at this point. Historical determinism — the dead hand of history — has kicked in. There simply is now no escaping the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. Something’s gotta give.

I say this because even if you knock out Mad King Trump as a viable political force, a dozen other would-be autocrats are lurking in the shadows to finish the job he started. And all it takes in one of them winning one presidential election and that’s it, that’s all she wrote — we become a white Christian ethno state. The center-Left has been proven to be completely ineffectual in protecting liberal democratic norms and a President Pompeo or President Cotton (etc, etc, etc) will flip a switch and turn us into an autocracy.

The media will be purged, one way or another, the ICE infrastructure will then be weaponized and people like me will mysteriously begin to fall out of windows. At this point, it’s just an issue of how long things stay “normal” before we wake up in a dystopian autocracy hellscape. Though, given how MAGA dark money craves a Constitutional Convention, it may that which is our absolute last gasp of freedom.

Having said all that, the other option is MAGA will bungle our inevitable transition into an autocracy and we have a civil war. A very nasty, very bloody mess of a civil war that will involve WMD domestically and WW3 abroad. It will be so horrific that everyone — even, hopefully the “good guys” who win — will regret it happen and in desperation will give it some sort of narrative and value after the fact. (Like what happened after the end of the First American Civil War.)

The key takeaway from all of this is nothing is going to save us. Even if we knock Trump out politically, the same rot that caused him in the first place is still there and someone else will use what they learned from Trump and finish the job. Or we have a civil war.

Revisiting Ezra Klein’s ‘Why We’re Polerized’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States definitely has a late-stage Republic vibe to it these days. Something is warping our politics in surreal ways to the point that on an individual basis one can find oneself having some pretty bonkers conversations. At the core of this, of course, is America’s third historical rail: race.

I read Ezra Klein’s Why We’re Polarized and it was very illumining, but for one thing — he went into all this detail as to why we’re polarized, but could not figure out what to do about it. He offered no solutions, probably because there are none at the moment.

It would be like someone writing a similar book in the late 1850s — there just was no solution to the division America faced within the construct of traditional American democracy. Something was going to give.

Just within my own family, I’m the political red headed step child. Everyone in my immediate family is bed rock, old school conservative. If the issues behind the rise of MAGA were not fucking with our politics, they would be pretty much just your regular very conservative people — they only flirt with MAGA because of negative polarization. They simply feel they have no other choice but to go wherever MAGA takes the Republican Party.

The macro bending of our political system warps individual political conversations in some pretty bonkers ways. I have a very conservative relative who is upset about the Virginia police official who lost his job after an online leak showed he gave about $20 to the Kyle Rittenhouse defense fund. This relative was upset that the officer got in trouble both because of a leak and because of the small size of the donation. To my relative, this is just another example of “cancel culture run amuck.”

Meanwhile, to me, I’m flabbergasted that my relative wouldn’t see what I see — you deserve to lose your job (especially if your in law enforcement) if you support a political murderer. It doesn’t matter how much you donated or how we found out. No one with such fascist political views should be in law enforcement, period.

It’s small things like that that trouble me a great deal. Fascism is ascendant in the United States in a rather conspicuous manner and one day we’re either going to slip into an autocratic managed democracy or we’re going to have a civil war.

At the moment, I think there is a historical determinism to the United States becoming a white Christian ethno state of “blood and soil.” The Establishment Powers That Be have a vested interest in keeping everyone calm and so when we’re absolutely forced to make a decision, they’re going to tell everyone that living in a fascist state is just The New Normal.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that on a macro historical level, America’s fate rests more on how likely it is that Trump or any number of his potential successors is deft at shepherding us into autocracy or if they bungle it. Only if things get out of their control will we go the other high risk, high reward route: civil war.

I don’t want a civil war, but I also don’t really want to live in a MAGA-themed autocratic state where I have to worry about ICE pushing me out a window. In a strictly rhetorical manner, I would rather risk dying on my feet a free man than living a slave in an autocratic state.

But that’s just me doing my usual “doom shit.” It’s possible that things will endup being far more subtle than I keep sketching out. We’ll drift into autocracy, but it will be a “light touch” autocracy for a long time until someone realizes that they can get away with anything they want on a political level and they overreach. Americans get woke to living in an autocracy…..and I don’t know.

Anyway, I would advise you to get a passport or make sure you live in a part of the country that aligns with your political views. Good luck.

Deep State Radio & My ‘Doom Shit’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I listened to the most recent Deep State Radio and, while I was pleased, I noticed something. While they kept talking the “doom shit” that some people on Twitter get mad at me about when it comes to MAGA, Trump and our coming decent into autocracy, there was an element of ignoring the pink MAGA elephant in the room.

That elephant is they are so concerned about the political problems we face when it comes to MAGA that they said not a word about the other option before us: civil war.

Now, I know why this is — they’re working with metrics that are real, not speculative and they don’t want to sound hysterical or like their doing “doom shit.” But I compare it to a fictional, anachronistic podcast in, say, 1859. They would be talking about the rise of Slave Power and how “these United States” risked being all slave under autocratic Slave Power rule. The idea that Lincoln would win and slave states would leave the Union in protest is probably something they would dare broach.

But not one listens to me, so I talk about it all the time.

As I keep saying, we have something of a spectrum ahead of us with a MAGA autocracy on one end and a civil war at the other. I vacillate wildly between these two possibilities in my mind. At the moment, I think we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy because The Powers That Be have every reason to tell an enraged populace that Everything Is Fine.

It will only be if MAGA bungles the historical inevitable of America transitioning into an autocracy that there is any risk of the “doom shit” that I keep writing about here and on Twitter becoming a reality.

Before I go, let me explain my gratuitous use of “doom shit.” See, one of those well respect Resistance Twitter accounts who do a lot of yeoman work covering the Trump Era got mad a me for pretty much saying, “I simply don’t believe Trump is every going to be legally held account for anything he’s ever done.”

They yelled at me and said, “You have to stop it with the doom shit.”

At the moment, at least, it’s not “doom shit” — it’s what really going on. Mad Kind Trump is politically above the law. And, even worse, even if we magically fell him on a political level, he’s always just been an avatar — there are a dozen would-be autocrats lurking in the shadows, waiting to finish the job he completed.

As such, we still face the choice of autocracy or civil war between now and January 2025.

Why Does MAGA Want A Second American Civil War So Bad?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Much like the lead up to WW1, MAGA has glorified political violence to the point where they think all their fucking problems will be solved if we just have a civil war and settle the “liberal problem” once and for all.

Besides the obvious — war is hell, is never pretty and never goes the way you plan it — there’s the issue of MAGA not being nearly in the pole position to win any civil war once they finally get what they’re lusting after so badly right now. They would be much better off just being patient and letting the existing drift of macro political history forces give them the autocracy they want peacefully.

But they’re idiots who can’t understand that — so they want a civil war.

And, yet, why?

I struggle with this a lot these days. One idea is MAGA sees “civil war” as a kind of short hand, much like the “Insurrection Act” was around January 6th. They’re sitting on the back porch of the cabin with their buddies smoking pot and drinking Miller Lite and they start talking about how dem dar lib’rals “won’t leave them alone.” Then get all riled up and start taking their anger to its logical extreme — a civil war.

But the vast majority of these fucking cocksuckers haven’t gamed this idea out in any practical fashion. All they know is the hate liberals and in some sort of vague manner think if only the United States was more like modern Russia that they wouldn’t have to worry about “cancel culture” or their children being forced to learn Critical Race Theory. There’s no logic to any of what they believe. They just have a general sense that “things ain’t right” and, as such, Something Bad should happen to liberals. But I doubt they really have any concrete ideas about a civil war other than that’s the worst thing they can think of.

So, in a sense, MAGA’s political stance is completely recursive — they believe what they believe because they believe it, and fuck you lib. But this is a very dangerous dynamic because it gives a general historical determinism to a general drift towards SOMETHING bad, be it a civil war, or something else.

I have no idea what is going to happen, but I am growing aggravated with how wrapped up in the idea of a civil war MAGA has become. If nothing else, it means the United States is growing far more politically unstable than one might otherwise think.

But as I keep saying, it wouldn’t just magically happen. Just as MAGA thought Trump invoking the Insurrection Act was magic pixie dust that would solve all their liberal problems, so, too, has “civil war” become some sort of abstract cure-all.

What any of this means in practical terms, I still don’t know. Only time will tell, I guess.

Second American Civil War Flashpoints


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s get some things out of the way. One is, while the MAGA far Right has crossed the abstract Rubicon when it comes to a Second American Civil War, it wouldn’t just magically happen.

You would have to have some sort of secession crisis caused by something like Cyber Ninjas “proving” Trump “won” Arizona or a some sort of nullification crisis in the 2024-2025 time frame. Even then, there is plenty of reason to believe that instead of a civil war, America will chose the other option: autocracy.

Someone like Ron DeSantis will become president — potentially fair and square — then purge the media and weaponize the ICE infrastructure so loudmouths like me either get pushed out a window or end up in a camp somewhere.

But let’s say, just like in 1861, we aren’t able to take any of the peaceful off ramps and we actually have a Second American Civil War, where can we expect the most bloodshed?

The first area that comes to mind is somewhere like Ohio and Indiana. These are smaller states with high population concentrations that would likely be the center of significant fighting between Red and Blue. Red, on a political level, controls both of the states, but they have big Blue neighbors and there are enough Blue people in the states that there could be some very heavy fighting. It would be a lot like the type of fighting we saw in Europe during WW2.

Another place I would imagine there would be a lot of fighting would be Texas. This state has a huge, diverse population and once we no longer see things in terms of politics but rather the dynamic of war, then the state is likely to implode and have an intra-state civil war. So much so, that its ability to help Trumplandia in any broader war would be significantly hampered.

The rest of the South west of the Texas would also pretty much just go tits up the moment Americans took up arms against each other. The old CSA South would be were the most atrocities would likely take place because of race, race, race. It’s easy to imagine historic race-war-like crimes against humanity taking place there — the type of stuff people would eventually get hung for if the “Good Guys” (at least in my view) won.

It just seems like the rest of the country would stabilize a lot quicker for various reasons. If California could get its act together, it would control a huge swath of the country east and north of it, while the Northeast would be firmly in the Blue camp. But it’s places where Blue and Red states neighbor each other — or there are sizable minority populations — where the highest number of deaths would occur.

Hopefully, I’m wrong one way or another. I hate violence. Though, as I have mentioned before, in an abstract way, the idea of civil war at least would give us the possibility that we could end the MAGA threat once and for all. But, lulz, who knows what is going to happen. I hope we just keep punting this problem down the road for the foreseeable future.

DeSantis: The Autocratic Next Time


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All macro political trends indicate that the United States is drifting — maybe careening — towards a transition into an autocratic managed democracy like is found in Russia. The man who could very well be the once to tip the balance is current Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

He’s the political creature that we’ve long feared: Trumpism without Trump.

So, it’s easy to imagine he becomes POTUS and makes autocratic rule palatable enough that it won’t be until Tom Cotton, or Josh Hawley or Mike Pompeo inevitable become POTUS that the ICE infrastructure is weaponized and loudmouths like me start to get pushed out of windows. But for the duration of the DeSantis Administration we’ll see a dynamic whereby hard power is weld by MAGA and cultural soft power continues to exerted by liberals in the media.

We’ll just drift into a Russian-style government so by the time the media is purged and ICE pushed me out of a window we won’t even think about it. About 50% of the population won’t even notice or care that the United States is no longer a liberal democracy because they will, at last, “just be left alone.”

That, at least, is one option.

But there are two other scenarios to think about when feeling bad about how dark America’s future is right now.

One is, Trump is so stupid and craven that he completely fucks up what is otherwise a done deal. He either kneecaps DeSantis out of envy or he somehow bungles our transition into autocratic managed democracy by embracing the “24 or before” slogan and everything goes wrong. In a sense, this would simply delay the rise of fascism in the United States, not stop it.

Meanwhile, the other option is, well, a fucking civil war.

I hate violence and I don’t want a civil war. But if you look at the United States on a macro historical level, we’re very similar to the America of the late 1850s — there may come a point where we have to chose between continued domination by Slave Power (MAGA) or we are forced to slice this particular boil once and for all.

But there are no assurances that the “good guys” would win in such a situation. So, I don’t know what to tell you. We’re fucked.

‘While I Breathe, I Hope:’ White People In South Carolina Would Live To Regret A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want to understand how fucked up any talk of a “second American civil war” is, look no farther than South Carolina. South Carolina was the first to leave the Union the first go round, and it’s easy to imagine a situation where on a political level, the MAGA National Socialists there get ahead of their skis and are the first to declare themselves a member of “real” America — Trumplandia.

But that would be the white Republican Party thinking strictly in terms of political power — they have it, and the “libs” don’t. What’s the ultimate “own the libs” play for South Carolina but to leave the Union AGAIN because they think Trump is really won the 2020 election.

So, South Carolina Republicans get all excited, bolt the Union…and then a race war starts. That’s because there’s a big difference between political power and the type of power necessary to found a new nation. The very reasons why South Carolina would want to be first to leave the Union — a historical connection to The Lost Cause, the browning of America and a historical-political fuck you to libs — would be the very reasons why black people in the Palmetto State would likely take up arms to stay IN the Union the moment secession was declared.

That, in turn, would cause the white establishment in South Carolina to grow radicalized and before you know it, we’re talking about Zyklon B being used in race-based concentration camps across South Carolina. I wish I was kidding or being hyperbolic — I’m not. If America really does have a second civil war, all bets are off. WMD will be used, there will be Qanon themed killing fields and race concentration camps. It will not be pretty. It will be a tragedy and everyone — even white people in South Carolina — will live to regret how excited they were at the prospect of taking up arms against their fellow Americans.

But it definitely seems as though we’re careening towards something along those lines pretty soon — or, at least, at some point between now and January 2025.

Good luck.

It Definitely Feels Like We’re Careening Towards A Second American Civil War Sooner Rather Than Later


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Almost all the Web traffic this site gets is what seems to be Southern “Lost Cause” types stroking one out to the idea that there will be a Second American Civil War sometime soon. Or, at least, the idea of a such a tragedy is so much in the forefront of some people’s minds that they search for the discussion of the possibility of a second civil war and stumble across my dystopian hellscape scenarios.

One reason why I’m growing ever more concerned about America’s political fate is even people like me find myself beginning to feel squeezed. My hatred of MAGA is center-of-the-sun-white-hot, and, yet, there are growing number of excesses on the part of the center-Left that have begun to really get on my nerves.

If someone like me is beginning to feel like a political orphan, that means the far Left and far Right are consuming what is left of the middle. To the point that you wake up one morning and realize all you have is negative polarization. And that’s all the other side has, too. That is not a recipe for a stable liberal democracy.

And I don’t have any ready answer for how we get out of this situation. Trump’s power with the MAGA base is still absolute to the point that should Cyber Ninjas “prove” he “won” in Arizona, there’s a serious possibility of severe political violence across the nation up to and including a secession crisis that starts a civil war.

Or not.

It could be this is a passing political phase for the United States. We’ll punt the structural problems we face constantly down the road and all my hysterical, dystopian hellscape predictions will looked back upon as just silly. But as the old saying goes, a person goes “bankrupt gradually then all at once.”

So it’s at least possible that we’re careening towards the biggest geopolitical shock since the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940 — the most powerful nation in the world could very well buckle and start to bomb itself into oblivion because…. Of scary brown people?

Who knows. I just continue to be uneasy.