‘Second Foundation’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m pretty good at strategic thinking and when it comes to traditional American democracy as we’ve known it for 240 years, its goose it cooked. All the talk of indicting this or that Trump goon is tactical and being taken on the edges of the massive clusterfuck that is America’s political system.

I say this because of one thing: our MAGA infection has gone septic.

We need to move away from assuming anyone is going to save us and start thinking about the potent antifascist antibiotics we need to take if we want to save the patient.

As of right now, things are so bad that I start to focus on gaming out what democratic forces will do when we either slip into autocracy or have a civil war. Or, more specifically, have those two scenarios games out as well as possible now so when they happen we won’t get sucker punched.

I remember how before election 2020 there was some gaming out of various catastrophes that might happen. I would suggest something even more ambitious. Something akin to a Foundation, if you will, for democracy that would be made up of Thinkers who would think about what to do between now and January 2025.

The reason is — on a macro level, we’re fucked. There’s no going back. We’re all going to face some deep, existential questions on a personal basis at some point in the next few years. And no amount of “booms” about what Trump may, or may not, have known about January 6th is going to change that.

Something Bad is on the cusp of happening, I just don’t know what.

It should would happen if there was a Foundation of patriots that would think existentially and take the threat of autocracy or civil war seriously. You would probably have to do it in secret because MAGA people would freak the fuck out. But what exactly would this Foundation do?

Well, talk to people in the government in private and ask them to game out how they think the government would respond to this or that existential domestic threat. But the key is to accept that we’re probably going to lose a significant amount of liberty.

So, I hate to say this, but any Foundation as I suggest would probably go from mulling autocracy or civil war and turn into a small group of people who would try to game out how Blue States could win a second civil war. This, I suppose would be closer to a Second Foundation.

Anyway, the point is — no one is going to save us. There will be no magical booms that prevent our decent into civil war or autocracy (or a military junta.) If you have the means and you’re not inclined to stand your ground in the United States, I suggest you get a passport and leave the country the moment things go nuts.

Good luck.