Tag: Second American Revolution

We’re Doomed — Goodluck

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Unless something really, really, really unexpected happens, we’re totally fucked in regards to MAGA going forward. Or, put another way, there seems to be a spectrum when it comes to MAGA: either we go full blown autocracy or there’s a civil war / revolution.

I just don’t see us having a civil war / revolution, so autocracy it is. Though, I will admit that we have something of a slow cold civil war going on at the moment. The country is being torn apart by macro forces beyond anyone’s control.

There are all sorts of solutions had Democrats gotten there act together, say, in 2015, but we were all so busy assuming the good times would last forever that we didn’t realize how important it would when Biden decided NOT to run in 2016.

And, yet, because Trump is such a both weird and inevitable historical character, he, or someone much like him, was inevitable in American political history starting around 2016. Something about the social progress that happened during Obama’s second term really cracked the minds of conservative white Americans. As such, I fear someone like Trump was going to arise as an reaction.

But, the point is — it’s over. The America I knew and loved is no more. The plum of autocratic smoke from Mt. Trump has reached the horizon, to use an extended metaphor. Even under the best of circumstances, it would take a generation to fix all the fucking damage that Trump and MAGA have done to the country.

So, America is going to grow weaker, have more income inequality and probably eventually align itself with other autocratic states. And that doesn’t even begin to address what the fuck is going to happen when the technological Singularity finally happens.

Anyway. It’s over, folks. Good luck.

Lingering Freedom Of Speech Is Giving Us A False Sense of Security

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. The Pod Save America guys continue to jump the shark. They get so worked up about what was on the latest South Park that they seem to be rather blasé about how tyranny has come to the United States.

There’s just no turning back, it seems. We’re going to be an autocracy like Hungary if we’re lucky and Russia if we’re not.

I think what might happen is Eric Trump will run in 2028 as Trump’s proxy? Maybe? Eric Trump is very loyal and I could see Trump feeling pretty safe using one of his sons as a proxy. It is telling, of course, that instead of trying to change the Constitution, Trump floats the idea of him simply running for an illegal third term.

And, of course, there remains the lingering possibility of a civil war or revolution if Trump goes nuts and, like, clamps down on…freedom of speech and maybe assembly.

The great irony of all of this is the center-Left democratic coalition is so weak that Trump can pretty much do whatever he wants and it’s a lulz. It’s stuff like this that makes me think we’re in some sort of simulation. That the exact sequence of events necessary for the USA to become an autocracy would happen the way it is, is…eerie.

We Could Really Use Some ‘Radical Moderates’ Right About Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s clear with these weird mid-decade redistricting efforts that Red States are doing that the centrifugal forces tearing the USA apart are only accelerating. The thing is, if Democrats step up and do what they should do — redistrict too — the likelihood of revolution or civil war grows significantly.

It’s all a prime example of how fucked the country is. If Republicans don’t get what they want, then they seem willing to literally destroy the country. They have become a Trump death cult equal to the Nazis and Hitler.

I continue to mull the possibility of a civil war or revolution and for the moment I have my doubts that any such thing will happen. Blues just don’t have it in them to go mano-to-mano with the absolutely terrifying Reds.

And when they ever get around to be willing to do that, that’s when the bad stuff happens. That’s when the country implodes, race wars break out in the South and WMD are used by both sides. Then we hope the “Good Guys” (Blues) win and we wait about 40 years for the country to recover while the world moves on and China takes over the world.

Sigh.

To put it another way — either the USA slides into an autocratic managed democracy peacefully or a lot and I mean A LOT of people die in a revolution / civil war that will reduce much of the United States to rubble.

Good times!

‘New World Order’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All of this is very speculative, but if you take Trump’s expressed desires to their logical conclusion, it seem inevitable there will be some sort of “New World Order” established by him soon.

What I imagine it would look like is something like this — the USA will destroy NATO and, instead, align itself with Russia, Hungary and Turkey. It will begin to pull troops out of nations across the globe, the better to police the streets of an ever-more-militarized America.

All of this will happen in the context of taxes being cut and cut and cut for the wealthy — probably to zero, the rise of AI / androids and maybe, just maybe the replacement of the entire social safety net with a very weak and low UBI. And there probably will be a 30% VAT.

That, my dear friends, seems to be our “day after tomorrow” future.

The only potential “zag” that might happen is, well, some sort of revolution / civil war. If that happened, it would be very, very nasty. I could definitely see a race war happening in the USA as well as the use of WMD throughout the country by both sides.

Anyway. That seems like one potential future for us going forward.

Two New Autocratic Moves Of Note By Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are two interesting autocratic moves on the part of the Trump Regime.

  1. Rummaging Through Mortgages
    Just like Nixon sicked the IRS on people back in the day, I think Trump is going to rifle through people’s mortgages in search of “irregularities” he can put them in jail for. It definitely seems as though Trump is working his way towards, say Obama or Hillary Clinton so he can finally spooge that particular wet dream out.
  2. Seizing of D.C.’s Union Station
    This is a good chokepoint for people coming in the area from outside to protest. So, when Trump finally drops the next autocratic shoe, he will be able to prevent people from coming into D.C. to protest — or more — his autocratic behavior.

Things Are Politically Spinning Out Of Control In The USA

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For a variety of macro political reasons, the MAGA Right simply can not, will not be placated. They want to turn the USA into a white Christian autocratic ethnostate as fast as possible.

And, really, at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be anything that is going to stop them. I suppose if there was some sort of civil war or revolution that might give the MAGA Right at least pause for thought.

But, in general, that isn’t going to happen — I hope — and so we have to accept that the USA is transforming into a very dark zombie version of itself. We will be — or are — an autocratic state in all but name at this point and it’s only going to get far, far worse.

There just doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it, baring significant upheaval in a way not seen since the Civil War.

In fact, the only thing I could possible see causing the type of reaction against the MAGA Right that is needed is if Trump, like, started to seize or brazenly purge the major broadcast networks. And not in the round about way he’s been doing — it would have to be at his express direction.

Or if Trump started to round up people — like me! — for what I said online, then, yeah, that would catch people’s attention because freedom of speech is so native to the American experience.

But…who knows. Who knows what is going to happen.

Sometimes, I Think The USA Is Just Doomed, No Matter What

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some dark things are bubbling deep inside the American psyche and I just don’t know where it will all lead. It seems on one hand we’re doomed to a fucking MAGA autocratic state and on the other — gulp — political violence equal to a civil war / revolution.

At the moment, it seems if we’re lucky we’ll be something of a zombie democracy like they have in Hungary. If we’re not lucky, then we turn into a carbon copy clone of Russia — a very legalistic autocracy with a thin veener of democracy to it.

What makes all of this worse is there is a sold 37% of the electorate that wants this type of white Christian ethnostate. They’re very twichy about this or that thing being “woke,” but they’re also very much in the driver’s seat when it comes to the political fate of the country.

I think at the moment what happens is we slide into a MAGA autocracy that — at least initially — doesn’t touch freedom of speech. As such, people still get to vent powerlessly about how we’re not longer a democracy, but…we’re still no longer a democracy.

But, eventually, I think MAGA will seize enough control of the country that they will come after even freedom of speech and that will be that. ICE will be our SS or FSB and people like me will be randomly snatched off the street simply for telling MAGA to suck it online.

How long it will take us to get to that point, I don’t know. Maybe 10 years? Maybe sooner?

As for the civil war / revolution option. That is very much touch-and-go. It could go either way, really, but I think if we did go that direction it would probably be because Trump or his successor screwed up and misjudged Blues in a pretty fundimental way and all hell breaks loose.

Hopefully, of course, that won’t happen. I’ve resigned myself to living in a white Christian autocratic ethnostate and I would prefer not to become a refugee because the United States implodes.

‘The Spark’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, there is a lot — a LOT — of slack in our political system. Most people are too busy enjoying the last, final days of summer to care about politics. But I fear that at some point in the next few years all that will change in a rather dramatic and possibly tragic fashion.

One scenario — but not the only one — is sometime around the 2026 midterms someone throws a Molotov Cocktail at a cop at just the wrong place and time and the whole country explodes into chaos. Or, specifically, Blue Cities do. And that’s when the fucking cocksuckers of the MAGA Trump regime and ICE will pounce.

They will throw everything they have at Blue Cities — ICE, National Guard troops from Red States — all with the intent of making sure that the 2026 midterms are not free and fair.

And, really, all that doesn’t have to happen for all elections from here on out — at least in my life time — not to be free and fair. The devotion to Trump on the part of MAGA is so absolute for macro reasons that, lulz, we’re going to be a political clone of autocratic Hungary before too long.

Of course, there is the very, very small possibility that Blue states and cities will finally have had enough and some sort of civil war or revolution will break out. I have my doubts that that will ever happen, but it is, if nothing else, at least *possible*.

I don’t want that to happen, but it’s something to mull going forward.

The United States Is Tearing Itself Apart

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All the signs are there that we’re all going to have to grab the metaphorical bug out bag and head safety within my lifetime. I don’t know exactly when it will happen or why, but it’s going to happen.

I am well aware that I’ve been pontification about this possibility for a long, long, long time and absolutely nothing happens. And I’m not really saying that “this time is different.”

I’m just saying that the centrifugal political forces are gaining in speed and power and soon there is going to be a revolution and / or a civil war. And probably WMD will be lobbed by either side against each other.

Think of it as a “slow implosion” rather than a “slow civil war.” The two sides are growing more and more extreme, even though it’s really just the MAGA cocksuckers going nuts and then Blues in a half-assed kind of way *trying* to “resist.”

I think the slack in the system will tighten up should Trump run for a third term, or clamp down on freedom of speech in a more direct way than he’s been doing. Besides suing anyone he doesn’t like, Trump really hasn’t in a ham-handed way been a real dictator against the press.

When he goes full dictator against the media, then all bets are off.

Gradually….Then All At Once…Is Still Possible

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have written a lot — A LOT –about the possibility of a civil war or revolution in the United States over the years and all I can say besides, welp, I was wrong, is we were very, very “lucky” that Trump won in 2024.

I say this because all the signs pointed towards a civil war if the winy crybabies of MAGA didn’t get their way in 2024.

But now that Trump is in power again — ugh — a lot of things are going on at the same time. On one hand, there’s a huge amount of slack in the political system when it comes to people attacking Trump. I say this in the context of South Park going after Trump viciously and people not getting upset at all. In fact, a lot of people were quite happy with the situation.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps putting pressure on our Constitutional system to see if he can break it beyond repair. It is inevitable that he defies SCOTUS at some point and or runs for a third term or whatever. His whole historical point is to, in effect destroy the United States as we’ve known it.

The questions that remain is how exactly that is going to happen and what comes after Trump. I still think there is a greater-than-zero chance that Trump finally does something so egregious that the country implodes. To the point that WMD are used domestically and the entire political map of North America is redrawn.

But we are nowhere near that happening at the moment. All I know is Trump is the tip of the spear of a MAGA counter-revolution and the country is going to be fundamentally different once he finally, at some point for some reason, leaves office.