Tag: Second American Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America’s Second Republic is collapsing before our very eyes. We live in an era of political lawlessness, where Trump and his acolytes are above the law and free to think up continuing mischief.

I continue to read a book about the rise of Hitler and I’m struck by how the United States now is very much like the Weimar Republic of the 1920s. We’ve had our beerhall putsch and now we’re waiting to see if Trump (or some other autocrat) wins the presidency in 2024.

And, really, the key issue is we have to face is no one is going to save us. The United States is collapsing on a political basis. The question is, collapsing into what? We have three options — civil war, autocracy or military junta. And, at the moment, I just don’t know which of the three will be the final endgame. The most obvious is we simply slip peacefully into autocracy. That definitely seems the most logical outcome.

Yet, I can’t dismiss the idea that we may have a civil war and bomb ourselves into the Stone Age. That is a very real possibility. And, I would say, the thing that might prevent such a civil war is the total lack of Blue leadership. So, if there was a sudden rush out of the Union by Blue States after a stolen 2024 election, we would see some rather dramatic arrival of Blue leadership simply out of history’s desperate needs at the moment.

But it would be a really big shock.

The third option is a military junta. That’s very possible, too. I could see the United States come to the brink of civil war and there be a military junta formed specifically so we might have a Constitutional Convention that would fix the systemic issues the United States face at the moment. We might see a President James Mattis in that particular situation.

That seems unlikely, however. I continue to vacillate widely between thinking it’s obvious that we’re going to have a civil war to it being obvious that we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy.

I just don’t know which one is going to happen at the moment.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If America either has a civil war or becomes an autocracy, it will happen because of one element of its body politic — the Traditionalists. These are typically white Christians who, in the past, would not see the idea of America being a democracy as a partisan issue.

While they have always been the least progressive of the American body politic, they at least saw the United States as a democracy and would reluctantly, long after everyone has had, embrace change.

My conversations with my Traditionalist family, it is clear that they no longer see the United States as a democracy, in fact, they see us a “constitutional republic” for the specific purposes of protecting their collective power. The Constitution is no longer a venue for the will of the people, it is a firebreak against the encroachment of POC, secularists and feminists.

And that, my dear reader, is why the United States will fall. Because of an extensive permission structure and negative polarization the only “red line” that Traditionalists have is personal. In other words, not until they, specifically, have a personal problem with the new autocratic regime will they sit up and take notice. That will be the moment when they stop being Good Germans and become sudden believers in democracy again.

This is of great concern to ME, because *I* am that personal red line because I fucking refuse to fucking shut up. So, ultimately, when I get drunk at a bar in 2027 and rant about how I think President Pompeo may be skinny now, but he’s a fat fuck and always will be a fat fuck…and ICE swoops in and does God only what to me….THEN my Traditionalists family members will think about something other than how scary brown people or too-sensitive young people are fucking things up for them.

And, so, we have three options between now and January 2025 — autocracy, civil war or military junta. Or, put another way, we’re totally fucked. Nothing and no one will save us. We have to save ourselves. The system is not and will not working.

If you’re someone like the fine people behind the “Mueller, She Wrote” Twitter account and you STILL think somehow, or someway your latest Twitter “boom” will save us — you are a fool. You are a willful fucking fool.

We have some time. Figure out what you believe in and what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world. I don’t write for VOX, I don’t have a received vocal fry for my Tik-Tok, but I do know the truth — I believe in American democracy. That’s my true north. That’s what I’m willing to risk my life and scared honor for.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Besides “Mueller, She Wrote,” blocking me for my “doom shit,” another reason why I got beef with that popular Twitter liberal account is it seems so very clueless about any expectations that some “boom” is going to save us. Rather than expecting ANY accountability for Trump or the extended MAGA New Right, I would hunker down, start reading up on the rise of Hitler and the beginning of the First American Civil war and figure out what you’re willing to do for what you believe in. (In the real world!)

Barring something pretty dramatic I can’t factor in, the years 2024 – 2025 are going to be a historic clusterfuck of monumental scale. The entire post-WW2 liberal order could collapse once a civil war starts in the US. And, really, a civil war doesn’t even have to start. If we get a MAGA autocrat in 2025, then NATO is dead and everything is going to get scrambled and thrown in the air for a few years.

Remember, all of that would be happening right now but for Trump being a lazy moron who could not be a Great Man. The people who voted for Trump in 2016 voted for an autocrat. They thought they were getting an American Hitler. But, lulz, they just got a moron.

So, history is in something of a pause mode at the moment. It will get going again the moment the House flips and Trump (mabye) becomes Speaker. Trump becoming Speaker would be a huge shot across our bow, indicating how totally fucking bonkers the years not just 2024 – 2025 will be but as early as 2023, too.

But the point is — no one is going to save us. America is very unstable right now for a variety of reasons and either we become an autocracy or we have a civil war. Something’s gotta give.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America faces a very existential crisis — is the United States a “constitutional republic” or a democracy? Now, for those of you playing the home game, it’s quite clear what the answer is: it’s both.

And, yet, here were are.

The center-Right, afraid of scary brown people and liberated women, want to play our creaking Constitution like a xylophone so they can establish autocratic white Christian rule. Instead of doing the hard work of democracy — figuring out why their policies are so unpopular — they are tripling down on their existing hated policies and destroying our democracy while they’re at it.

And, as such, the United States finds itself in something of a pickle.

We’re careening towards a very dark situation in 2024 – 2025 where the issue of what America is will come to the forefront of all our minds with there is a very strong possibility that using the more obscure portions of the Constitution, Republicans will establish permanent white minority rule. And that will be that.

Or not.

There is a small chance of either a military junta being established or a full blown civil war between seceding Blue States and Red States who want to destroy Blue States once and for all. In that case, we would bomb ourselves into oblivion and be thrust into a very dark, uncertain future.

But the issue remains — Republicans are united in their desire to establish a fascist state in the United States, while too often the center-Left has its head so far up its ass that it’s too busy expecting some sort of “boom” to save us. Trump and the fascists are above the law and it’s comical that major Twitter liberal accounts like Mueller, She Wrote would STILL breathlessly report this or that “development” as if it means jackshit.

No one is going to save us. The system isn’t working. It will not work. We’re on our own. Gird your loins for a fucking political catastrophe of some sort between now January 2025.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If there is another civil war, it will happen because of a severe difference in opinion about what the United States is. The center Right thinks the United States is a Constitutional Republic and, as such, if they fuck with it enough and establish white minority rule, then fuck you. They throw around things like “mob rule” and “even de Tocqueville warned against democracy.”

Meanwhile, the center-Left believes that while the United States IS a Constitutional Republic, it is a de facto Western democracy and a wide ranging set of norms have developed over the years to facilitate a government “by the people, of the people and for the people.”

So, if there is a civil war — and it’s very possible there won’t be and we’ll just slip peacefully into autocracy — at its core it will be because of that difference of opinion. And that difference of opinion comes from white Christians freaking out about the browning and secularization of America. They see the Constitution not as a way to express the will of the people, but a firebreak against the loss of white power on a macro basis.

Now, the dumb thing of all of this is, obviously, that there are any number of scenarios whereby the center-Right gets everything it wants without resorting to violence. So, it would be a huge self-own on the part of the center-Right if they decided to force the issue and cause Blue States to leave the Union which, in turn, would start a civil war where the most powerful nation in the world bombs itself into the Stone Age.

I don’t think one can process at the moment how fucking insane a Second American Civil War would be. Everything would collapse, not just in the United States by the entire world. And there’s no assurance that it would ever be put back together.

Anyway, the point is — gird your loins. The next few years will grow more and more bumpy until they reach a potentially astonishing climax around January 2025.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America is at a crossroads. The chief issue of the day is how do you have a functioning republic when one of your two major political parties sees the “constitutional republic” not as a way to have a functioning Western democracy but as an excuse for minority rule?

The answer is, of course, you don’t.

Either you slide peacefully into autocracy, have a military junta or descend into civil war.

But the Second American Republic, the one Lincoln gave his life to found, is in its twilight years. No later than January 2025, it will come to an end one way or another. We will either simply shrug and become an autocracy or we will fucking bomb ourselves into fucking oblivion over cancel culture and CRT.

And, as I keep saying, I just don’t know which option we will chose, which door we will open. It really could go either way at this point. The Right has become so bloodthirsty and so in need of sucking its own cock that they could self-own and start a civil war that they don’t need to get what they want.

It’s all very stupid.

And, yet, that’s where we’re headed. The right feels as those the center-Left is “forcing” them to radicalize. Talk about blaming the victim! Anyway, as I keep saying, it’s over. Either we become an autocracy or we have a civil war and maybe, just maybe, found a Third Republic.

But one thing is for sure — Lincoln’s Second Republic is on its last legs.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My Traditionalists relatives love, love, love Florida’s govenor Ron DeSantis. “I wish I could vote for him three times,” is the exact quote. And, it could be worse. If fat fuck Mike Pompeo becomes our American autocrat in 2025, he’s really going to come down hard on freedom of speech right away, while DeSantis will at least wait a little bit.

Form follows function.

Anyway, there’s nothing stopping DeSantis at the moment. Except for Donald Trump.

Either Trump turns on DeSantis an neutralizes him — maybe by threatening to start a Patriot Party? — or DeSantis is about to shiv Trump politically and away we go.

It doesn’t matter though — we’re fucked. Any Republican president we have is going to be an autocrat. And that either prompts us to have a civil war or we slip peacefully into autocracy.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m growing tired of writing about this. But the United States is running on political fumes at the moment. At I think the thing that would spark a civil war in roughly the 2024 – 2025 timeframe will be how the center-Right hides behind the United States being a “constitutional republic” to avoid the tough task of adopting their policies to the realities of modern America.

They would rather use autocracy as a crutch than mellow out or try to figure out how to appeal to non-bonkers white people.

The reason why this is important is should Republicans steal the election but still technically stay within the Constitution, the center-Left will grow so enraged that the “Great Divorce” that MTG keeps babbling about will happen not when the GQP leave the Union, but when Blue states – probably starting with California, do.

Then everything — and I mean everything — will come crashing down. A civil war will start and that will prompt WW3. The “Great Reset” that insane, bonkers Right wing nutjobs believe will happen…will happen. But not because of any conspiracy, it will happen because white people are afraid, in the abstract, of being “canceled” simply for being conservative.

Or we simply have one last democratic death spasm and slip peacefully into autocracy. And if it happens, initially nothing will change but gradually, over time, we’re going to politically become identical to Russia.

Both of our potential options suck so fucking bad. We just won’t be able to muddle through like we have the last few decades. Something’s gotta give.