Tag: Second American Revolution

Will There Be A Second American Revolution In 2021?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, if you’re a MAGA cocksucker who has stumbled across this site because you think there’s going to be a “second American revolution” to reinstate Trump — fuck you, you piece of shit.

Having gotten that off my chest, let’s think about this seriously. Almost no one reads this blog, but those who do seem to be MAGA people interested in my fear porn about the United States becoming either an autocracy or having a civil war / revolution. Of course, they’re coming at this fear porn from the exact opposite direction — my fear is their hope.

Now, remember, a “revolution” is not a “civil war” although the exact definition of these two events is apparently hotly debated by political historians. I guess what MAGA people think is there will be some sort of popular uprising if ding-bat idiot Trump isn’t “reinstated” sooner rather than later. They’re frustrated and long for some way to bring back Trump — even if it means political violence.

While I can think of a number of civil war scenarios off the top of my head — most of them involving the Cyber Ninjas recount of Arizona — an actual MAGA “revolution” is a lot more difficult for me to imagine. It seem as though all these searches for “America revolution 2021” come more from abstract frustration on the part of MAGA cocksuckers more than anything else. They know it would be “cool” if they would pull the ultimate own the libs move and stage a MAGA-themed Second American Revolution…but they don’t really know how it might happen.

So they do a keyword search for that type of thing and endup at this site.

If it makes would-be MAGA “revolutionaries” feel any better, I do think we’re one major political death away from significant popular political violence in the United States. There are a lot of old — and popular — pols in the United States whose unexpected death would cause a lot people to freak the fuck out.

But, for the time being, if you’re part of the violent personality cult that is MAGA you’re just going to have to pin your hopes on things getting out of control should Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona.

MAGA Craves An American Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What makes MAGA so dangerous is they voted for Trump in the first place because he was “the guy from The Apprentice.” That’s why people like me were so alarmed by Trump — on paper, he was an autocratic and if elected would turn us into a Russia clone. Of course, everyone got fooled when it turned out Trump was a very lazy idiot who talked a good autocratic game but was too much of an idiot to actually use some pretty basic autocratic political plays to get what he wanted.

But, in a sense, Trump has shown other — more focused — politicians that a large segment of the American electorate wants an autocracy. My nightmare is there dream. And one thing we have to remember is unlike the Nazis, MAGA Republicans aren’t expansionist. In fact, they will be content to pull American troops back to Fortress America and align with other autocratic states in an effort to have “peace in our time.”

As such, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where once MAGA inevitably controls the government again that they establish a Trumplandia autocracy that lasts for generations to come. America will be just like modern Russia — occasionally, there are large protests but nothing comes of it. And those protests that do happen are often broken up by the FSB — in autocratic America it will be ICE.

While I hate violence and definitely don’t want a civil war, on an abstract, rhetorical level, while on paper it is now a near-certainty that America is going to slip peacefully into a MAGA autocracy, there will be a moment — probably in the 2024-2025 timeframe — where we will be given the option of having a civil war to prevent that from happening.

That option is not something I can’t game out in any specific manner because it would happen because of specific set of circumstances. Any civil war in the United States about three years from now would happen because MAGA bungled what would otherwise be a political history gimmie.

And, of course, there are no assurances that even if there was a civil war that “the good guys” would win it. A lot of people could die — even get nuked! — and we endup put back together as an autocracy. So, I dunno.

But the thing we have to keep at the forefront of our mind is political form follows function and it is inevitable that once MAGA Republicans take power again that they’re going to turn us into an “illiberal democracy.” Things probably won’t change that much at first, but soon enough a MAGA Republican POTUS with a MAGA Republican Congress will purge the media, weaponize the existing ICE infrastructure and people like me start to get pushed out of windows.

The most alarming thing about this — besides me getting pushed out a window — is there will be millions of good natured, God-fearing normal educated people who will be quite content with this New Normal. Any excesses that this new Trumplandian government does will be rationalized away (until it gets personal and then they’ll get upset in private.)

As I keep saying, I wish I was smart enough to tell you what to do about all of this. If I was that smart, I could write for VOX and dance around on Tik-Tok talking about marginal tax rates.

Nothing Is Going To Save America From MAGA — We Have To Save Ourselves


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I see on Twitter a lot of froth about how this or that thing is some sort of magic bullet that will finally allow us to address the corrupt excesses of the Trump Era.

Sadly, this is pretty oblivious to what’s really going on. We had one shot at potentially bringing down Trump — the Mueller investigation — and we blew it. As such, Trump is now above the law on a political basis. MAGA’s political views have become exclusively based on recursive thinking and negative polarization. They believe what they believe because they believe it and fuck you, lib.

One can compare Trump to the plight of common sense gun control. Once it was established that not even the tragic murder of young children was enough to get past the “thoughts and prayers” phase of the debate on the subject, it was over. We now see gun violence as just a Modern Problem that comes with living in a free country — even though this is complete bullshit and pretty much exclusively an American problem.

The same thing with Trump after the January 6th Capitol Insurrection — if you still support Trump after that, there’s literally nothing the man can do to get you to stop supporting him. I have come to believe that video could surface of Trump having cannibalistic sex parties with Armie Hammer and it would be a lulz for MAGA. Or, more specifically, that might knock Trump out of the political equation, but MAGA as a vile, craven political movement would simply pick a new, younger and less addled leader to finish the autocratic job Trump began.

MAGA is hell bent on turning the United States into an autocratic white Christian ethno state. That’s the entire point of MAGA at this time. That’s why trying to argue with, or negotiate with or in any way deal with MAGA in a good faith political manner is a huge waste of time. They want to destroy our liberal democracy and the sooner we all get woke to this, the better.

No amount of stating the obvious about MAGA is going to change that. They have no shame and are so craven that they’re willing to look like fools uttering gibberish as long as they get to slip in the MAGA triggering concepts of “cancel culture,” “critical race theory,” “BLM,” and “Antifa.” They are going to push America to the edge. MAGA is well positioned to caused the United States to quietly and peacefully slip into autocracy when becomes conventional wisdom that the only way a Democrat can win the presidency is if that party also controls Congress.

But nothing is written in stone yet. The possibility exists that they will bungle this sure thing and, well, the United States has a civil war. We bomb ourselves into oblivion and we settle the issues of the day not in the halls of government but on the field of battle. I don’t want that, but it’s definitely becoming one of the two major options in front of us.

I do not know what you should do on a personal level going forward. I hate guns and I hate violence so….I don’t know. Get a passport? Move to a part of the country that fits your political views? But, in the end, I might suggest you just figure out what you believe in and what you’re willing to risk in the real world when the shit hits the fan.

Conditions Exist For A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On an abstract level, the United States is primed and ready for a civil war. But for the moment, however, “civil war” is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish for Far Right idiots who now glorify political violence. They see a civil war as the logical endgame of their hatred for liberals and anyone else who won’t “just leave them alone.”

The reason for this is, just like how the Insurrection Act wasn’t magical pixie dust that Trump could invoke to take “total control,” the people among the Right who now long for a civil war haven’t really thought through things. All they know is they hate liberals, love Trump and are violently frustrated at things like “the Great Replacement.” That, and, of course, they have small dicks and can’t get laid.

Anyway, the most obvious moment that a civil war might erupt in the United States is in the 2024-2025 timeframe. It’s very easy to imagine MAGA Republicans nullifying a Biden reelection, bungling the otherwise inevitable transition to autocracy and causing a civil war. I’ve come to believe that this won’t happen because the MSM has a vested interest in at least pretending that things are “normal” on an institutional level. So, it’s easy to imagine Republicans brazenly stealing the 2024 election and the MSM telling everyone that this is just the New World we live in and we just have to accept it.

So, in a sense, we have a few years before we have to worry seriously about a Second American Civil War.

And, yet, there is the Cyber Ninjas sham audit taking place in Arizona. The other scenario would be something like Cyber Ninjas “prove” that Trump “won” Arizona and Trump grows hysterical. He begins to rant that this “proves” he “won” the entire election. Then we have a situation similar to January 6th, only on a national level.

Political opportunists pop out across the country and MAGA controlled state legislatures begin to convene conventions to debate “nullification” of the Biden Administration’s win — even though this is complete bullshit and has zero basis in law. Soon enough, of course, these nullification conventions become secessionist conventions and we have a civil war.

And, yet, there is a lot about this scenario that I can’t game out. There is a hard core group of MAGA elected officials who have political bloodlust for an autocracy. But for them to go against all logic to actually attempt to leave the Union, knowing how unlikely their victory would be, is something else altogether. All I know is once Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona, we may have to all hold our breath a few days to see which way things fall.

But one thing we have to take seriously, no matter what, is MAGA Republicans want an autocracy. They no longer believe in liberal democracy. They are fascists. If we manage to make it to 2024-2025, they will use every fascist trick in the book to strangle our already barely functioning liberal democracy to establish a MAGA autocracy.

Again, I’m not smart enough to tell you what to do about any of this. If I was, I would be writing for VOX.

Louie Gohmert And Government By Gesture


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something that political Twitter is too often oblivious to is how all these dumb comments that MAGA politicians utter aren’t nearly as stupid as you might think. Things have gotten so tight and divided in our political system that honestly all people like Louie Gohmert want to do is somehow get the words “cancel culture,” “critical race theory,” “BLM” and “Antifa” in a sentence, any sentence so they can bait the MAGA base into hysterics.

MAGA policitains honestly don’t care about anything they say. Most of them aren’t nearly as stupid as they seem — craven, yes, stupid, no. Ideas like “cancel culture” and “critical race theory” are the clit of the MAGA base. Just the mere mention of them — even if the result is ostensibly word salad — is enough to get the MAGA base hyperventilating in hate-fueled pleasure.

In the end, of course, the question is once the politics of gesture succeeds in handing Republicans power again, do they ever let it go? And if they don’t do we simply slip into autocracy or we do we have a civil war? I’m beginning to believe that we’re just going to peacefully slip into autocracy and that will be that. MAGA Republicans will, at last, achieve minority control of the country and that will be that.

But while we wait for that to happen — we need to stop giggling at how stupid people like Rep. Gohmert appear.

MAGA Fascist Form Follows Function


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I talk to my far more conservative relatives about the dark path that MAGA is leading us down and a recurring defense they use is sort of, “Oh, that would never happen.” This, in large part, is a function of the extensive permission structure that’s been built up specifically to allow conservative people who are turned off by MAGA to turn around and vote for Trump anyway.

And, I have to admit, that while Trump is definitely “autocratic friendly” in the end, he was just too dumb and lazy to follow through on his more extreme anti-democratic rhetoric.

I feel, however, that anyone who lulzes the dangers of MAGA, ignores how on an systemic level, the Republican Party is now hell bent on establishing a “blood and soil” white Christian ethno state in the United States. Political history teaches us that form follows function and, as such, once MAGA inevitably comes to power again that what Trump only talked about in the past is going to become a reality.

The autocratic forces at work in the United States are just too strong. Historical determinism would suggest that there will come a point when all my dystopian hellscape scenarios are going to come true. And that’s when I wonder how my conservative relatives are going to react.

What I think is going to happen is they will become, at last, “Good Germans.” They will generally be pleased with how they can finally sleep tight at night because MAGA has eliminated any possibility of them being “canceled” simply for being conservative. Any excesses on the part of MAGA will be justifiable because the boarders will be secure, abortion will be illegal and elections “secure.”

I, being an anti-MAGA loudmouth, see things dramatically different. What is nothing more than an abstract for my conservative relatives is very concrete for me. I have no idea what the specifics of any of this will be, but the case could be made that at some point President Pompeo or President Cotton will purge the media in some way and then weaponize the existing ICE infrastructure.

As such, it’s very possible there will come a moment when my conservative relatives will be required to weigh their personal needs with my political transgressions in this new, dark MAGA fascist era. I’ve already told at least one of them to just turn me in. I know that sounds hysterical right now, but I’d much rather be turned in by my Good German relatives than have them beg me to shut up for the sake of the family.

It’s just not going to happen.

I often weigh how long, exactly, it might take for this “form follows function” concept to turn us in to what MAGA wants us to be –an Americanized version of Putin’s Russia. I struggle with this because it’s very possible that for some time after we become an autocracy, MAGA autocrats won’t really touch the one thing that would make people sit up and take notice: the First Amendment.

For some time, they would likely be quite content to weld hard power via law and policy and laugh at Twitter liberals who freak out at this or that autocratic thing that has been implemented. A lot of how this would actually go down depends on the personality quirks of whichever autocrat in waiting happens to finally ascend the throne.

But, my rough estimate would be we would gradually grow more autocratic and then suddenly get REALLY autocratic. My guess right now is this would happen when the MAGA fascist leader we finally elect demands a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balance budget amendment.” They will get their convention, then it will turn around and enshrine MAGA into law for good.

Then things are really going to get shitty for people like me.

Yet, I’m sketching out things that will likely happen at some point between now and, say, 2041. Of course, there is the other option, which is we have a civil war and after we bomb the hell out of each other, we sort things out and gradually go back to the way things were. But that would be a tragedy and I’d prefer not to go through that hell.

Anyway. Good luck, guys.

Slouching Towards Trumplandia: Trump Remains An Incredibly Dangerous Political Force


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s easy for Twitter liberals to dismiss Trump as political has been and fool. But once you stop looking at him on a personal level and begin to understand that he’s seen as something of a political totem for alarmed white middle-class conservative Christians, you begin to realize how dangerous he remains.

These white middle class conservative Christians see Trump as a flawed fighter for “real America.” They’re worried, on an abstract level, about the browning of America and how fast America is changing on a social level. Of course, they just look at people like me when I point out that they’re really afraid of losing power. They don’t look at it in those terms. They just know how Trump makes them feel and everything else is rationalization.

But wait, it gets worse.

Now that Trump has shown the way, the Republican Party on a systemic level now has wrapped itself not just with the flag, the Bible and the Constitution, but Trump himself. MAGA has metastasized within the Republican Party to the point that Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump. This has happen to the point that Trump has done his job. Even if we magically ended his political career somehow, there are literally a dozen other would-be Republican autocrats waiting in the wings to finish the job Trump started.

Each of them has their personality quirks, but their goal would be the same — to ensure white conservative Christian rule for generations to come.

And, to be honest, given how the Democratic Establishment and the MSM are not taking any of this all that seriously, I think in the end our liberal democracy will die not with a bang but with a whimper — it will simply become conventional wisdom that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if Democrats also control Congress.

Given that Republicans are actively suppressing the vote and gerrymandering, this type of synchronicity will grow increasingly difficult to accomplish. People will grow disillusion with voting altogether. In the end, the media with be purged and Republicans will demand a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” This reasoning will be a ruse, of course, and they will enshrine MAGA into the Constitution.

Given what I have to work with at the moment, this definitely seems the ultimate endgame for the United States. We will find our Putin and he will serve for decades. There will be the occasional protest, but nothing will come of it. The existing ICE infrastructure will be weaponized and people like me will start to get pushed out of windows because we refuse to fucking shut up.

But this hasn’t happen yet. The case could be made that there is a 50/50 chance that during the final transition to autocracy, a lot of people on the center-Left who are oblivious to all of this will suddenly get woke. This is when we come to our other possible scenario: civil war.

I’m growing to believe this is far less likely than I once did. For there to be a civil war, one of two things would have to happen. One, MAGA would need to strike too early. This might happen if Trump got his “win” in Arizona via Cyber Ninjas sham recount and he was able to force MAGA state legislatures to attempt to “nullify” the Biden Administration. The other way would be an unexpected “Great Man (or Woman)” who would step in a just the right moment to defend our dying liberal democracy and help us fight back the cold, dark waters of tyranny. Call this the Lincoln Option.

I just don’t see either one of those happening. We’re going to gradually, then all at once, turn into a white Christian ethno state. At first, things won’t really change that much and we’ll still have the trappings of a liberal democracy but as the years grind on form will follow function and in about 20 years we’ll wake up in Trumplandia.

Prove me wrong.

So, Could Trump Become Speaker Of The House?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Could Trump become Speaker of the House? The short answer is, of course, yes. But it’s a lot more complicated than you might think. The rumor we’re hearing now is he would run for a House seat so he could get the job. But that’s kind of besides the point.

Given that Trump has some serious autocratic inclinations — even if he is really fucking lazy — it would be far easier for him just to demand being named Speaker should House Republican win the chamber. (Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the Speaker have to actually be a House member.) It’s kind of a historical gimmie that they will, so it’s very possible that Trump will really screw over his lapdog Kevin McCarthy by stealing a position that should rightfully be his.

Now, the ominous implication of all of this is the reason Trump would want the job is so he could short circuit the Constitution by leading an impeachment charge against Biden and Harris so he could be come POTUS via the line of succession. This is a classic late-stage democracy play by a would-be autocrat. I will note, in passing, that the very thing we were always afraid the Republicans would do if Speaker Nancy Pelosi ever found herself in a position to become president –challenging the Constitutionality of the Presidential Secession Act — Democrats might do in this situation. Though, come to think of it, SCOTUS is now full of MAGA hacks, so lulz.

As such, we need to take this possibility seriously. It’s very easy to imagine Trump becoming Speaker, impeaching both Biden and Harris and then ranting hysterically about MAGA needing to “protect the 2nd Amendment” in such a way that there’s enough political violence across the country that the Senate convicts both Biden and Harris simply to protect the nation from a civil war.

I say this only because MAGA is now American fascism. It’s an Americanized version of the Nazi Party in 1933. The only thing stopping Trump from doing any of this is he’s extremely lazy and — and stupid. So, I can come up with all the hysterical dystopian political hellscapes I want to, but in the end, Trump could be so fucking lazy as to bungle even something as obvious as this.

So, I dunno.

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.