Tag: Glorious American Revolution of 2021

Call MAGA What It Is: American Fascism


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s been a struggle to get mainstream media to get to the point where it calls the “untruths” that Trump has said over the last five years what they are: lies. And, as such, I don’t have a lot of hope that MSM will ever get around to calling MAGA what it is: fascism.

The upsetting thing about all of this is, of course, the last time fascists won an election — in Germany of 1933 — there were some pretty extraordinary circumstances involved. But in the case of the United States, fascists will come to power because of one of the major parties of our undead liberal democracy would rather establish minority autocratic rule than let scary brown people and women gain any additional power.

All of this is happening, it seems, because a lot of white middle class people are terrified, in an abstract fashion, with the social changes taking place in what they feel is an alarming rate. Something about Obama winning re-election in 2012 was some sort of weird racist wake up call for people like that. And most of them can’t even articulate in any concrete terms the origin of their intense negative polarization. They would never admit that they’re racist, or misogynistic — they don’t even believe in systemic racism or sexism in the first place!

So, a lot of well intentioned conservative white people feel as though they don’t have any other option than to vote in fascist MAGA. Just from my casual conversations with my conservative relatives they are really terrified by the idea of being “canceled” — and having their life ruined — just for being conservative.

And that’s how America turns into a fascist state. Or we have a civil war. I continue to vacillate wildly in my mind between thinking we’re going to slip silently into autocracy and thinking we’re going to have a civil war.

I still honestly don’t know which one is going to happen.

Known Unknowns Of Trump’s Belief He Will Be ‘Reinstated’ By August


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have gamed out in pretty explicit detail on this blog my fears about what might happen this year should Cyber Ninjas “prove” that Trump “won” Arizona. It doesn’t matter that the whole thing is a fraud and a sham done to further Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him — all he needs is a win, any win and he will hysterically say he is still “really” president.

Oh, now take a deep breath.

The crux of the crisis we may be facing is…then what? Trump’s popularity outside of the violent MAGA personality cult is seemingly at a historic low. And, yet, even at this nadir, Trump’s devotees are still a solid 20-30% of the electorate. Given that political science tells us it only takes an organized 5% of the population to take over a country, if Trump really leans into his bonkers belief that he has to be reinstated, well, we could be fucked.

Logically, Trump taking the sham Cyber Ninjas “win” and running with it to make surreal declarations about his return to the presidency would have him laughed off the public state. Or, at least, would be ignored to the point that the only place he can rant about it in public is OAN, NewsMax or FOX News. And, yet, this is Trump we’re talking about.

The Republican Establishment lives in abject fear of Trump because they’re afraid that if they don’t kowtow to him, he will bolt the party, taking a huge chunk of the Republican Party with him. As such, his hold over the Republican Party is near Hitler over Germany in early 1945 levels. It’s very easy to imagine that Trump might pull off one last hat trick and get elected Republicans across the country to entertain his insane rantings to the point that they convene some sort of conventions to study the idea of “nullifying” the Biden Administration.

Or something. Whatever method they picked, it would happen spontaneously and, at first at least, be done to “own the libs” and provoke a lot of ridicule from said libs. My fear is, all of this will turn pretty serious — and dark — pretty soon when suddenly what started off as a joke turns into a secession crisis.

As an aside, this does make one wonder which state might be the first to actually jump off the cliff for Trump and attempt to secede from the Union. There are so many to choose from. South Carolina seems the one to have some sort of historical reason for doing it for obvious reasons. But, of course, its large minority population would never stand for it. Then there’s Texas, which likes to think it has one foot out the door already. But while hysterical Texas Republicans talk a good game, the state is shifting blue too fast and it’s difficult for me to imagine them actually pulling it off. That leaves the small population, lily white plains states. I could see maybe Montana, Idaho, Montana or South Dakota being the state to break that particular glass.

And now we come to the part I don’t know what to expect — is it even possible that MAGA will “cross the Rubicon” and follow the Dear Leader towards the path of actual disunion?

That very important element of this dystopian hellscape scenario I simply can’t figure out. It’s possible, I guess, that Trump will finally saunter into political irrelevance when he demands he be “reinstated” or the Biden Administration be “nullified” and…nothing happens. Or, put another way, Trump’s power outside the MAGA base evaporates when this happens. Meanwhile, within the base, the fact that this didn’t happen will be see as yet another grievance to be thrown onto the funeral pyre.

So, I dunno. It really could go either way. Which, unto itself, is rather dark and disturbing. When the richest, most powerful country in the world has a 50/50 chance of a severe political crisis within days or weeks, that does tend to make one sit up and take notice.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love America’s Coming Existential Political Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate violence. I really, really hate guns and violence. And, yet, I’m not an idiot — it’s pretty obvious that Republicans have come a bloodthirsty cult, hell bent on turning the United States into an autocratic white Christian ethno state like Russia.

But I’m still not a violent person, so there must be something else one can do in preperation for the very real prospect of an existential political crisis likes of which we’ve not seen since the fall of 1860. For me, the simple answer is one of expectations. Do not rely upon the idea that something that should otherwise be a basic assumption — the person with the most votes, wins — is what is going to happen.

The problem with that assumption in modern America is manifold. First, Republicans are actively making it as difficult as possible to vote. Second, even if Democrats do manage to get the most votes, Republicans are have made it clear that they won’t believe it and will do everything in their power to nullify the results.

As such, those of us who still believe in liberal democracy face an issue of expectations. When the nullification crisis finally happens, that is going to be when we finally have the existential question before us that I keep talking about on this blog: autocracy or civil war.

The specifics of this clusterfuck are still too far off to be mapped out, but I do think if you have the means you need to two things: buy a passport and make sure you live in a state that jibes with your political views. The thing about an actual civil war is while they open up a lot of opportunities to fix systemic problems — they’re fucking scary as hell and there are no assurances that your side will win.

The original American Civil War was very much a touch-and-go event for the North until, say, Gettysburg. Even though the North had the population and economy, for years into the battle it lacked the political will to do what was necessary to win the war. So, too, the augment could be made that Blue States, despite having bigger economies, more cohesive polities and more concentrated populations may collectively shrug if MAGA sizes control via nullification and we become an autocratic managed democracy.

I feel very much as though I’m someone living in America about 1859 — everyone knows Something Bad is going to happen in a few years, but the details are still to be worked out. This is when I point out the old quip about how people go bankrupt, “gradually then all at once.”

That’s my fear with the United States. Things are going to obviously be unstable for years and then…whammo….we’re going to face the prospect of either civil war or autocracy. It’s going to happen very quickly and without any notice to such an extent that MAGA Republicans — who apparently constantly have political violence on the brain — will take advance of their ability to do some shock and awe against Blue States.

This all becomes very muddled very quickly because I have no idea of the specifics of this existential crisis — just that all signs point to it happening at some point between now and January 2025.

But the point is — be prepared for significant political turbulence in the United States in the coming years. The type where heroes will be made and cowards will be shamed. Good luck.

Welcome To The Late 1850s, Matt Gaetz!


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s interesting that it was Matt Gaetz, not Donald Trump who Went There by ranting about how MAGA Republicans need to use the 2nd Amendment to defend themselves. I always thought that at some point after election night 2020, Trump would start ranting about this very thing in a final bid to stay in power.

It’s a testament to how lazy and dumb Trump is that he didn’t do this. Trump has always been nothing more than an avatar for existential problems in the American political system and, as such, he is successful by just breathing. He personifies the rage a lot of white people feel as the dead hand of demographics marches ever more towards America being a majority minority country.

From a historical standpoint, Gaetz’s hysterical invocation of the 2nd Amendment is very much on brand for the late 1850s. There’s even a book, which I’m trying to read, called The Field of Blood about how violent American politics became in the years leading up to the Civil War.

And, in a sense, we should be thankful that we’ve been spared any violence in Congress. People were beating the shit out of each other in Congress at an alarming rate in the late 1850s. If you add modern American gun culture into the mix, things could get pretty scary and tragic pretty quick.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. Does anyone take Gaetz up on his suggestion of political violence against Big Tech or is all just another lulz as we hurdle towards a final choice of autocracy or civil war?

Norm Ornstein On Deep State Radio Is Right: The Republican Party Is A Violent Cult


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All the political metrics in the United States are pointing towards a very dark future between now and January 2025. In fact, it’s not so much a question of if, but when, we face a very stark choice: autocracy or civil war.

So when I heard Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute lay out the same arguments that I have been ranting about on this blog for months now, it took me aback a little bit — I’m not the only one to thinks we better enjoy this quiet before the storm.

The only thing that continues to frustrate me is not enough Blue Check liberals on Twitter are taking these cold hard metrics and then asking what the implications of them are. I mean, what does it mean, as Ornstein says, that the Republican Party is now a “violent cult.” How do we prepare for that going forward.

Rather than just noting this ominous development in the public Twitter lyceum why don’t the nattering nabobs of negativism start to figure out what we are supposed to do about it.

This is when I wish I was smart enough to write for VOX, or New York Magazine or even The New Yorker. It would be nice if liberal-progressive thought leaders could come up with some sort of plan of action like they did before the 2020 election. The 2024 election has the potential to be far worse than the 2020 election because the likelihood of violence is significantly greater.

Tragically, just thinking off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of as to how to respond to the Republican “violent cult” is to be prepared to fight dirty just like they do. Or, put another way, we have to recalibrate our views of the Republican Party. They are no longer one of the two major parties in the United States, they are a violent cult hellbent on destroying our liberal democracy one way or another. We have to be prepared to call their bluff in a way we haven’t since 1861.

I hate even having to entertain such a drastic idea, but the only reason I am is, well, the Republican Party is a violent cult. We can’t pretend that they’re a normal political organization anymore. They’re equal to American Slave Power of the 19th Century.

God help us all.

How Likely Is It, Really, That ICE Will Push Me Out A Window One Day?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I often use the throwaway line that if America turns into an autocracy that I will get “pushed out a window by ICE for not shutting up.” But, really, how likely is that even if America becomes an autocratic managed democracy like Russia? I suspect it’s a lot closer to reality than you might think.

But for things to get that bad, some thing would have to happen before. One big thing would have to be the purging of the media in some way. A MAGA purge of the media seems very possible to me. It would probably happen in a rather abrupt fashion when, behind the scenes, President Pompeo or Hawley put the squeeze on TV execs via their broadcast licenses.

And, yet, if people like me really did begin to get pushed out of windows by ICE, things would have gotten so dark that the one thing that has kept America a free country for a lot longer than you may expect would have changed: our self perception. This would probably be accomplished via a Constitutional Convention that was rammed through by MAGA state legislatures.

So, I suspect the whole pushed-out-a-window-by-ICE scenario is something that could very well happen, but it would likely be something that happened a generation after America stopped being a liberal democracy once and for all. Though, it could happen in the context of the radicalization associated with a civil war.

The key takeaway, however, is Republicans have no shame and crave only power and wealth. In the end — if we don’t have a civil war — they’re going to crash past any existing democratic norms we have and take things to the next level.

This will include, I’m afraid, pushing people like me out of windows for not shutting up.

America’s Liberal Democracy Is In A Tailspin



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

American liberal democracy is dead, but for one thing — our national self-perception. It was only because of a very specific set of events that Trump did not win a second term and have four years to demand a Constitutional Convention that would turn the United States, at last, into nothing more than Trumplandia.

But the anti-democratic problems in American politics that brought us Trump continue to push us towards an autocratic managed democracy future. And this is when I find myself struggling to figure out what happens next. History would suggest that we’re going to quietly slip into autocracy and that will be that. It will just be conventional wisdom that for a Democrat to become president, Democrats will also have to control Congress. This won’t happen very often because of voter suppression and gerrymandering.

That will be it.

We will turn into an Americanized version of Putin’s Russia. And, honestly, it’s easy to imagine that as long as MAGA autocrats don’t go after freedom of speech head-on that there will be something of a truce in our politics — MAGA autocrats will weld hard power for generations to come while liberals will vent on TV and Twitter, accomplishing nothing.

And, yet, form follows function. It’s very easy to imagine President Pompeo, or President Cotton or President Hawley (the list goes on) growing greedy and demanding a Constitutional Convention that would do away with some pretty basic freedoms that Americans simply assume will always be there. And that’s when — if we haven’t had one already — we may very well have something akin to a civil war.

This is not to say that we might not have a civil war as part of MAGA’s bungling of our transition from liberal democracy to autocracy. That’s a very real possibility between now and January 2025.

But I don’t know. I just don’t know. All I do know is everyone is going to have to pick a side soon enough. It will be existential and unavoidable.

MAGA Has Gone Septic Within The Republican Party


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of a quirk of personal history, I’m a lone center-Left person in my family. So, up until recently, I would often have fairly in depth conversations with my conservative relatives. I say “up until recently” because now things are just too heated whenever we attempt to have a political discussion, so we just don’t talk about politics anymore.

Which, in itself, is ominous . If we can’t have any civil discussion about politics, then our politics is beginning to fail us on a micro level, which will inevitably lead to some pretty scary things on a macro level.

Anyway, the point is — other than me, my family is made up of bedrock conservatives. It definitely seems as though we’ve passed the event horizon when it comes to MAGA finally consuming the entire mainstream conservative movement. For instance, I brought up how the Trump Administration at one point had a meeting where they weighed being a cruel as possible to people trying to get into the country. My conservative relative — who does not consider himself MAGA — was totally cool with this pre-meditated cruelty. And he’s a Christian, headed to heaven, while I’m on a highway to hell.

This is anecdotal evidence that indicates that Twitter liberals, who go back and forth between bemoaning MAGA and laughing at it, need to get woke. It is a pretty dumb misconception on the part of non-MAGA people that it’s a movement made up of ignorant, stupid people who are part of a personality cult.

A more accurate description of MAGA at this point would be traditional conservatives who are dismayed at how rapidly America’s views on race, gender, religion, abortion — you named it — have changed in just a few years. Or, if you really want to get simplistic about it — the election of Obama in 2008 scared the shit out of them. They suddenly realized that America is browning and white people will be in the minority — everything else is just rationalization.

As such, the dead hand of history is pushing us towards a massive crisis between now and January 2025. Everyone is going to have to pick a side. Everyone is going to an existential gut check about what they’re willing to risk in the real world because of what they believe in.

And remember, if the United States buckles, then so does the entire post WW2 framework that has kept the peace for the last 70s or so years. WW3 will likely happen and there will be something akin to a Great Reset that will determine the fate of mankind for centuries to come.

I know that sounds dark and hysterical, but I’m just looking at reality right now and making an educated guess as to where things are headed. I could be wrong. I often am.

The United States Is Careening Towards A Dark Decision: Second Civil War Or Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep vacillating wildly between thinking it’s obvious that we’re simply going to give up on democracy and thinking we’re obviously — when forced into a corner — going to have a civil war.

To this day, I still can figure out which course of action we’re most likely to pick.

I say this because the last 30 or so years have been a steady progression towards autocracy. At each opportunity to avoid taking the next subtle step towards a manage democracy, we’ve zoomed past any possible speed bumps without blinking an eye. So, with that in mind, it seems logical that when MAGA Republicans make their last power grab and nullify in Congress the election of any Democrat that we’ll just shrug and that will be that. Autocracy will be established in the United States and the dynamic of form follows function will kick and and I get pushed out a window by ICE.

And, yet, there’s a big difference between lulzing the slow decline of our democracy and having to confront that we’ve officially crossed into autocracy and Republicans have finally consolidated power for generations to come. So, it also makes a lot of sense that once fey Millennial hipsters realize that MAGA is officially their new overloads that they will freak out on an existential level and we’ll have a civil war.

But one thing is clear — there are a lot of red lights flashing on modern America. I ponder almost every day why MAGA has such hatred within it and I still can’t figure it out. Or, put another way, I can’t figure out why otherwise sane, educated people support MAGA, even it’s “cruelty is the point” mantra of governance style.

If you look back at what happend in 2020, it’s kind of astonishing how close we came to losing our democracy for good. The combination of Trump being extremely lazy and stupid, Biden being very centrist and Trump’s bungled handling of the pandemic was something I could not have easily predicted in late 2019.

I kept thinking around election time 2020 how epically lazy and stupid Trump was for not pulling some pretty basic autocratic plays. But he was all talk. The frightening thing about Trump is, of course, that that “talk” is what his followers voted for. That’s what they wanted in 2016 and 2020: the “you’re fired” guy from The Apprentice.

As such, I wouldn’t get too excited if somehow we magically found the sliver bullet necessary to end Trump’s malignant political career. Trump was simply a vessel for our democracy’s destruction — he had no leadership skills. Once he’s out of the way, there are a dozen young would-be MAGA Republican autocrats waiting in the wings to finish the job Trump started.

Call The Cyber Ninjas Recount Of Arizona What It Is: Sedition


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has occurred to me that we’re so wrapped up in the MAGA-Trump Big Lie about the 2020 election that we’re missing something far more basic about what’s going on in Arizona: it’s sedition.

Arizona Republicans are actively working to “prove” that Trump “won” the 2020 election even though this has been proven to be complete bullshit over and over and over and over and over again. There comes a point when any such recount is, by definition, done with a bad faith agenda.

You can’t keep demanding a recount simply because you don’t like the result of the election. If you keep doing so, it becomes clear that your goal isn’t to find out the “truth,” it’s to give ding-dong Trump and his raving racist MAGA followers an excuse to destabilize the government.

Now, let me pause for a moment to say I’m often wrong. Like, all the time. So, maybe I’m just being hysterical again. After all, Trump is very lazy and, by some metrics, while his power over the Republican continues to be absolute, his influence elsewhere is waning.

So, I dunno. A lot depends on things that I can’t predict and Trump can’t control. It’s easy to imagine that my dystopian scenario of a nullification crisis leading to a secession crisis is just more of my usual “Trump derangement disorder.”

It’s just I can’t help the nagging feeling that the United States is careening towards a rather dramatic and stark choice. Either we have something akin to a secession crisis now, or we have it in 2024-2025. Either our democracy dies with the whimper of a transition to MAGA autocratic managed democracy or we have a civil war and some sort of opportunity to maybe revive our democracy. (But that is really assuming the absolute best possible endgame.)

I guess, in general, the issue is there is an existential rot at the core of our political system and the question for me is do we somehow magically continue to muddle our way through this or does the obvious happen.

Only time will tell.