The last few days’ news on the Top Secrets at Mar-a-Lago front definitely indicate that things are coming to an alarming head soon. And we, as a nation, are going to have to confront the very real possibility that either Trump is let off the hook somehow or he’s indicted and he probably starts a civil war in an effort to protect himself personally.
Now, I can’t predict the future. But I do know that a lot of MAGA Republicans, maybe the majority of them, want to own the Libs and the “woke cancel culture mob” so much that they are willing to protect Trump, even if he was literally selling American secrets to the Saudis, Russians or North Koreans. There is going to come a point where they cross the Rubicon when it comes to even being willing to sacrifice their lives in the name of that malignant orange dingus.
And maybe this particular scandal is, unto itself, the thing that causes that to happen. The MAGA faithful do a gut check and they realize that Trump engaging in espionage is really just another thing they have to accept and rationalize away in the name of establishing as white Christian autocratic ethnostate. You know things aren’t going swell for your Republic when you realize that even if you did somehow neutralize Trump, there are a dozen other would be autocrats willing to jump in and finish the job Trump started.
And that, really, is kind of the political quandary we find ourselves in. Trump has accomplished his political and historical duty of being a transitional figure as we slide into autocracy. The problem is, of course, is Trump refuses to get out of the way and, as such, he grows more and more unstable and the country as a whole careens towards a very dark fate.
The reason is — if the Justice Department finds itself absolutely forced to hold Trump accountable and indicts him, I honestly have no idea how bad things could get. To date, Trump has not gone transactional outside of one speech right before the January 6th Insurrection. But if Trump honestly felt there was a real chance he would not only get indicted but booked and ultimately have a court trial he could really go crazy and start insinuating some pretty insane things. Everything from demanding Red States begin the process of leaving the Union to even maybe some sort of deranged demand that a Second Constitutional Convention be called. (Remember, given precedent, it’s very likely that MAGA state legislatures would name the members of any such convention and, by definition, it would go rouge and codify MAGA into any new Constitution.
What makes this particular situation with Trump so unqiue is it’s very, very serious and Trump isn’t POTUS anymore so he can’t hide behind the “only way you can do anything about me is impeachment” defense. Things are so bad that there is even a growing choirs of people who want Biden to pardon Trump over this matter for “the sake of the nation.” As I’ve written before, the only way I would ever support such a thing is if Trump, in exchange, agreed retire from political life.
Anyway, it’s at least possible that the moment of truth when it comes to Trump is upon us. If we ultimately we STILL don’t have the political will to do anything about Trump, then the next fork in the road will be at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. Either Trump and MAGA brazenly steal the 2024 election to the point that Blue States begin to leave the Union, or he wins out right and his second administration agenda is so radical that we definitely might have a 1860 type situation on our hands where Blues, seeing what Reds have in store for the country decide to preemptively bounce, causing a National Divorce and a civil war.
Or, put another way, the United States is so unstable at the moment that Trump getting a very well deserved indictment could be the catalyst that destroys the country. Or, if maybe not “destroys” it, definitely changes it in the sense that the National Divorce that I think Blues will do would be caused early by Reds. America is so bad politically at the moment that I don’t know if it will be Reds or Blues who ultimately demand a National Divorce.
I’m not VOX. I have no idea what to tell you. There are no easy solutions. Get out of the country? Invest in gold? Or maybe just figure out what you’re willing to suffer for and go from there. That’s one thing you’re going to need in the real world going forward, no matter what happens.
Trump is like America’s UTI that is always just about on the cusp of going septic and nearly killing us. The key issue is that Trump is nothing more than a vessel, an avatar for the rage of white Christian (men) about the changing nature of the United States. A lot of it, obviously, has to do with the white Birth Dearth, but that is the subject of a different post.
But it is very clear to me — and others — that the issue at the moment is that one of the two major American parties believes that, by definition, Trump is like the fucking Pope — infallible. What’s more he’s not just infallible, but he’s above the law to the point that by definition any law he breaks is invalid. and subject to attack.
It’s so bad that MAGA, which purports to be all about “law and order” goes after the FBI of all things, just because they are doing their jobs and trying to enforce laws. Of course, as others have mentioned, the issue is MAGA wants order but no law. That’s the crux of autocracy — that laws are applied only when in service of the overall goals of the autocrat.
MAGA is so absolutely devoted to dingus Trump that they are totally prepared to burn the county to the ground in order to protect him. It is difficult, at this point, not to believe that MAGA wants something akin to an Americanized version of Nazi Germany. They want a nation of blood and soil where the Leadership Principle of Der Fuhrer means whatever Trump wants, he gets. I still struggle a great deal to figure out what about Trump is so appealing to MAGA. Reading about Hitler, I can kind of “get” why he was able to take over Germany in the wake of WW1. But Trump, I still don’t understand.
He is so stupid and lazy that it’s difficult to understand why anyone, regardless of education or class would give a shit what he has to say. And, yet, here we are with millions of people — some of whom should know better — who are waiting with baited breath for Trump’s second, far more radical term.
And, in the end, I again have to say that we face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. We’re either going to become something of a political clone of Russia (the DeSantis option) or we have a civil war (the Trump endgame.) There is absolutely no middle ground. It just doesn’t exist. You have to pick a side and if you call yourself a “centrist” at this point, you’re really complicit in the rise of American Nazism (MAGA)
Trump, as a political entity, is an extremely dangerous flaw in our political system. He is so weird and apt to do anything to save his own skin that he could literally, unto himself, cause the end of the United States as we’ve known it for close to 250 years.
I have no solutions. I have no idea what to do. I guess get ready.
When I was growing up, my late mother would often say that I “wasn’t afraid of the devil.” And while I’m not exactly the most courageous person on practical, physical basis, when it comes to standing up to an idea I disagree with I’m a pretty big badass. I have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of what “justice” is.
As such, I find myself growing more and more angry at the intimidation tactics of the frothy MAGA New Right. Just take a look at this:
This is the type of bullshit that people who simply want to live in a traditional liberal democracy have to put up with these days. I have no beef with conservatives, but I do have a beef with fascists. And the MAGA New Right is a bunch of fucking fascists that are either going to turn us into a Russian-style autocracy or are going to ultimately cause the death of more people around the world than the Nazis did.
While I know that sounds pretty hysterical, it’s the truth. And I wish the center-Left wouldn’t allow itself to cower behind “norms” anymore. The MAGA New Right is out for political blood — they say it very outloud these days — and there’s going to come a point when they’re going to attempt to sucker punch the forces of the center-Left.
I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas. But we “Antifa,” (if you will) have gird our loins for what may be about to come — actual, significant political violence against democratic institutions in the United States. And, what’s even worse, there is the other option, of course, which is we just turn into an autocracy without even putting up a struggle.
If that happens, then, of course, wealthy liberals will flee the country at an alarming rate, to the point that instead of freaking out about “caravans” at the border Fox News will scream about “unpatriotic” liberals fleeing the country and demand our autocrat do something about it.
Now, as is always the case whenever we discuss such a clusterfuck, there is the issue of Trump. He is such a fucking chaos agent that he could very well, unto himself, be the reason why we have a catastrophic “National Divorce” that precipitates a Second American Civil War.
He really is that bad.
I think a lot of the reason why I keep writing about this is I learned in Asia that I often do well in chaos. And it definitely seems as though the United States is going to collapse into mass, violent chaos at some point between now and January 2025.
At the moment, I can’t do anything on a practical basis to prepare, so I find myself writing a lot about it because it makes me feel better to turn my very real abstract fears into something a little bit more concrete.
Anyway, I have no idea what we’re going to do. Get ready for the “Fourth Turning” or “Great Reset.”
I hate to talk about the pseudoscience of The Fourth Turning, but it’s an handy way to talk about what I fear will happen between now and January 2025. All systems are go for a significant change in the lives of everyday Americans, we just don’t know if it will be a final descent into autocracy or if it will be something akin to a civil war / WW3.
The chief reason why I believe this to be the case is the absolute fidelity that dingus Trump continues to have over the MAGA base. No good can come of this situation. I say this because it seems as though a lot Twitter liberals, who should know better, continue to assume that just because they “hope” that Something Will Change in regards to Trump should he be indicted, doesn’t mean it will.
Or, put another way, a lot of brand name people on both the Right and the Left seem to think there is some limit whereby Trump will get the hint and step aside for the good of the nation, or, for the good of Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party, if nothing else.
And, welp, I just don’t think that’s the case.
I think Trump, in his own very stupid way, is prepared to literally destroy the United States rather than personally either have to move aside for DeSantis or to go to jail. Have we learned nothing from what happened around January 6th? As such, we are primed and ready as a nation for a historic catastrophe. The likes we haven’t seen domestically since the First American Civil War and internationally since WW2.
There is a real greater-than-zero-sum chance that there really will be a Great Reset. That, in a sense, we’re going to have an End of, maybe not The World, but A World. The World we’ve all assumed we would live in after WW2 ended in 1945. And it could all begin to unravel at pretty much any moment now. All we don’t know is the specifics.
Are we going to peacefully slip into autocracy after the 2024 election and turn into a MAGA-themed Fortress America, or are we going to enter a period of rapid, violent change that will stun us all. And, would you believe, at this point, it all really depends on what ding-dong Trump does?
I continue to struggle with the implications of Trump simply refusing to get out of the way. Everyone really, really wants Trump to get out of the way for Ron DeSantis so he can become America’s Putin. And, yet, Trump is more likely to bolt the Republican Party with his MAGA base than he is to give up on his quest to become POTUS in 2024.
One other thing — the conditions for grave instability in the United States starting at (check’s watch) any fucking moment are right there in front of us. Biden is very old and Harris is young and untested. If something, God forbid, happens to Biden, then we could have a situation where there was no veep and Trump could suddenly find every reason to demand to be named Speaker of the House should Republicans take the House this year.
I just want you, gentle reader, to realize the gravity of the situation we face between now and January 2025. We’re one heartbeat away from a Great Reset. I mean, if Trump goes the Scalia route and simply peacefully shuffles off this mortal coil in his sleep — America’s cities would be burned to the ground by very paranoid, very angry MAGA New Right people.
Trump isn’t going anywhere, though, most likely and we’re all going to have to deal with the consequences of that. It’s going to get very, very messy, very, very quickly. Millions — even billions — of people could die, depending on the specifics of any supposed “Great Reset” or “Fourth Turning.”
We live in very dumb times. When the word “liberal” is now so toxic that you can’t even use the very true phrase “liberal world order” without crazy, frothy nutjobs on the Far Right growing very upset and paranoid, you live in very dumb times.
But the point is — since 1945, humanity has lived with unpreceded peace and prosperity because of, well, the “liberal world order” associated with Pax Americana. And since the fall of Communism, things have only gotten better for everyone involved.
And then MAGA slithered out of its black lagoon.
The thing about the decline of the American Empire is it’s happening in real time before our very eyes and, yet, we can’t process it. The average person is too busy raising their kids and paying their taxes to give the very abstract concepts that are happening all around us much thought.
But there is a very real chance that no matter which direction the United States goes — autocracy or civil war — we will see the end of Pax America and, as such, WW3 will happen. Remember, all that has to happen for WW3 to be declared is more than one major regional war break out at the same time. So, as such, even if what happens is dingus Trump in his second term pulls out of NATO and pulls troops out of ROK, then, there you go, WW3 on a plate. Because what would happen is the US leaving NATO would be a crushing blow to the post-WW2 liberal order.
As Trump “brought the troops home,” China would fill the massive geopolitical vacuum and invade Taiwan just because of, well, YOLO. At the same time, the DPRK would attack the newly undefended ROK. Then maybe Iran attacks Israel. Then maybe India and Pakistan have at it –with nukes!
The point is — we’re past the Event Horizon now. We’re in the danger zone. Something big, really big is probably going to either happen at any moment or no later than January 2025 around certification day. The bolts are popping off the United States at an alarming rate and there’s a good chance that if we don’t become an autocracy, we have a very nasty civil war with WMD used by both sides.
Regardless, not matter if we become an autocracy or have a civil war, there is going to be a Great Reset or Fourth Turning (or whatever the fuck you want to call it) and many, many people are going to die for a very dumb reason. This is it, we’re at the end of the beginning of Pax America.
I fear I, personally, will have to flee my home for political reasons when everything begins to collapse. My politics don’t fit my location. At least I havea passport.
These days, I find myself thinking of how there was once a point, I think during the 2016 campaign, when a rumor began to circulate that there was evidence of Trump using the “N-Word.” There was even a panicked meeting about within the Trump campaign in which one of his African American supporters asked, “Well, how many times did he say it?”
With that in mind, it’s clear that not only is Trump above the law in general, but for some weird reason his followers don’t have any red line at all. He could start to demand the right to sleep with women on their wedding night and his followers would, after about 24 hours of silence, have a ready set of talking points explaining why Trump, as a former president, has that right and why won’t the woke cancel culture mob let him do something so heterosexual? Trump is, in short, something akin to a God to MAGA, leaving us all to wonder if push came to shove and there was some sort of military action between Reds and Blues if we would find ourselves in a German 1945 “Gotterdammerung” type situation where every man, woman and child was willing to fight to the death for their big orange doofus.
All of this leads me to believe that, in the end, the real battle is who will be Trump’s successor. Whomever Trump picks to be 2024 veep is going to be in a prime position to be something akin to America’s Putin. And, given how bonkers Trump is at the moment, he could pretty much pick literally anyone, ranging from Gen. Mike Flynn to Steve Bannon. Anyone! It could get really dark, in fact.
We may all be Antifa in the end.
As an side, to think, at some point in the next 20 to 30 years, some very serious scholar is going to spend a lot of time writing a very serious, weighty tome about dingus Trump that takes him seriously, at last. It may not be an American who writes it because we’ll be an autocracy, but it’s going to happen somewhere. Unless, of course, WW3 happens it’s all moot.
Or, put another way, my prediction that there’s a real possibility that in the end MAGA will cause the death of more people than the Nazis did. If you factor in that a Second American Civil War would cause WW3, then that’s at least 1 to 2 billion dead right there. And I could see between 10 and 20 million American dead if Blue and Red started to lob WMD at each other in the context of a MAGA “revolution” or 2ACW.
Talk about a Great Reset or Fourth Turning!
Anyway, the point is, we live in the lead up to Something Big historically. I just don’t know if it’s autocracy, civil war, revolution, WW3 or some combination of all of those things. A lot of people are going to die because of a fucking dingus moron racist who is nothing more than a vessel, an avatar for white Christian rage.
And there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.
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.
Trump has never, ever really faced any political consequences for anything he’s ever done since becoming a major political figure. Absolutely nothing has stuck to the point that he’s been winded or changed his behavior. In fact, whenever he gets some pushback, he gets worse.
A lot of reasons exist for this. The most obvious reason is he’s nothing more than an avatar for systemic rot in a retreating Republic’s political system. As such, the only people who could stop Trump — well meaning conservatives who ultimately stopped Nixon — lulz the whole thing. They have an expansive permission structure built out by negative polarization.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
But, there’s also another huge reason why Trump breezes past any attempt to control or stop him — he can always simply take his MAGA base and leave the party if things get too hot for him within the Republican Party. Think of it as the Mad Man Theory, only for domestic politics.
The point of all of this is — keep these cold, hard facts in the back of your mind going forward as the possibility that incriminating presidential records from the National Archives may come out. This whole struggle is a construct. It’s Trump’s usual MO where he fights and fights and fights against something to the point that it either become politically moot or when it does come out….nothing happens on a political basis.
Now, if I was writing for VOX, I would lay out what all of this means for you and your family, maybe using a Tik-Tok video with received heavy vocal fry English. But, sadly, I went to the wrong school am no longer cute enough and Twitter liberals think I’m just another Internet crank.
But as I’ve come to believe, I will suggest that what all of this bullshit really means is you need to do a gut check. Figure out what you believe int the real world. What are you willing to suffer for? What are you willing to risk your life and scared honor for?
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
Otherwise, I got nothing.
We continue to careen towards a dark future where no later than January 2025 we face the existential choice of either civil war or autocracy.
Good luck.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
It’s clear to me now that Republicans have figured out how to square the political circle when it comes to sucking from the fetid teet of MAGA while still winning elections.
If you combine how well the Republican Party did overall in 2020 with the results in Virginia, it definitely seems as though all of my hysterical “doom shit” about what might happen in 2024 – 2025 is just that. What is actually going to happen is something far more subtle.
It’s very, very possible that while Trump will cheat simply out of habit, that in the end, there will be no need for him — or the Republican Party — to do so. Republicans are ascendant and now I think they’re going to win fair and square (ish) in 2022 and 2024 and that will be that. We will drift peacefully into autocracy.
When it comes to American democracy, it’s all over but the shouting. Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
All of the dystopian things that I have long predicted will happen, but the whole move to autocracy will be so popular that the vast majority of conservatives won’t even notice or care what’s going on. They will be so pleased that white people, at last, will secure their minority rule that the fact that ICE has been weaponized, that there’s been a Constitutional Convention and the media has been purged will all be a lulz.
Or, to put it another way, people like me will keep pointing out our drift into autocracy and your typical conservative will barely be able to summon the energy to shrug. They will see things strictly from a policy standpoint and the thing didn’t like — Trump’s personality will fade in importance once he shuffles off this mortal coil. The man can’t live forever.
As such, whomever Trump picks as his veep will become America’s Putin. Some 20 or 30, even 40 years from now, President DeStantis or Pompeo or whomever will still both be constantly depicted in the foreign press as about to be overthrown and consolidating power.
Republicans will push through widely unpopular policies, but because the United States is no longer a functioning democracy, it just won’t matter. So, in the end, there will be no need for Trump to cheat because MAGA is, unto itself, popular enough to win fair and square.
Now, having said all of that, it hasn’t happened yet. And Trump is a chaos agent. And if you throw in how bloodthirsty the MAGA New Right has become, it’s within the realm of possibility that they will self-own by forcing into an avoidable, tragic civil war. So, it’s possible that all my dystopian hellscape fears will, in fact, happen.
But we have to prepare ourselves for our 240-odd year democracy ending not with a bang, but with a whimper. We simply elect autocratic fascists in 2022 and 2024 and….that’s it.
At the moment, I don’t think there’s going to be a Second American Civil War. I think we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy after a brief death spasm in the general 2024 – 2025 timeframe. Trump, enabled by the entire Republican Party, will steal the 2024 election in broad daylight.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
Trump will begin the process of changing the Constitution so he can stay in power for as long as he likes, but it will ultimately be his hand picked successor who enjoys this new power. At the moment, it could be anyone from DeSantis to Flynn who becomes America’s first true autocrat and stays in power for decades. But there will be consequences to the MAGA New Right catching the car.
A multitude of center-Left people will leave the country at an alarming rate, to the point that our autocrat is forced to make it nearly impossible to leave the country at some point. The “enemy of the people” media will be purged and ICE will be weaponized so people like me are “re-educated” or worse. The country will grow weaker and poorer, “bringing the boys home” and hiding behind Fortress America. Just as this is happening, China will rise and they will peacefully replace the United States as the most powerful nation in the world. The United States, on a political basis, will become an autocratic clone of Russia.
I can’t predict the future, but that definitely seems as though that’s a pretty good scenario to explain our immediate future history.
And, yet, there remains a lingering greater-than-zero possibility that the MAGA New Right is so bloodthirsty that they could self-own on a pretty massive scale. There is a chance that Trump, unto himself, could be the historical thing that pushes us not into autocracy, but civil war. It could be that Trump’s tendency to “say the quiet part outloud” could so rile up Blue States that we have a civil war, even though otherwise we wouldn’t.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
A modern civil war in the United States would be a catastrophe. The country is awash with various forms of WMD and it’s very easy to imagine that Red States, when confronted with they can’t win a civil war just by being mad all the time, will turn to WMD to make their point. The most powerful nation in the world will promptly bomb itself into the Stone Age.
And while we’re doing that, globally, WW3 will take place and billions will die as a result of various limited nuclear exchanges.
Then the question becomes — what does the world look like when we come out the other side of this clusterfuck? Do we unite because of our common humanity or do we just let ourselves cook?
Of course, there is the other option of some sort of military junta in the United States, but that’s something I suspect only works on paper.
Anyway, it could go either way. Enjoy these last few twilight months of normal life while you can.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
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