Tag: The Fourth Turning

Trump’s Tyranny Won’t Happen In A Vacuum

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is still a chance that Trump won’t be re-elected in 2024. I can’t predict the future, no one can. And it’s very, very possible that some sort of unexpected 2020-like “Third Way” will pop out of nowhere at some point in 2024 that allows us to avoid either MAGA autocracy or revolution / civil war in 2025.

But.

All signs as of late 2023 point to Trump being re-elected. And Trump has some pretty tyrannical things planned once he’s back in office. The key thing for me is Americans will still have agency. It’s not like Blues will just shrug and let Trump rule over them like a Red King.

I long thought it possible that it would be BLUES not REDS who started a civil war. Now I realize that’s just not what Blues would do. They are far more likely to essentially start some sort of “revolution” than pull states out of the Union in defiance of Tyrant Trump. (Of course, if that Glorious Revolution is successful that, unto itself, could cause a civil war because Red States would start to leave the Union.)

I have no idea how things would work out, but I do know that Trump is such a dingus that in all his tyrannical thrashing around in 2025, he would probably so piss Blues off that Something Would Happen In Response. It might be a General Strike. It might be that the U.S. Military would balk at being Red King Trump’s goons in Blue parts of the country — invoking the Insurrection Act is not some sort of magic fascist pixie dust.

All in all, if Trump is re-elected things will get…bumpy. And, in the end, it could be that any attempt to depose Trump will fail and we’ll endup like Hungary, Turkey and Russia. (I’m not advocating anything! I’m just musing about potential futures.)

Make sure you have a passport.

Contemplating A 2020-Like ‘Third Way’ For 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

No one in late 2019 could have predicted that a combination of a global pandemic and Joe Biden being the Democratic nominee would be enough to fell Trump. Also, people like me in late 2019 totally overestimated Trump’s willingness to use some pretty basic autocratic measures to steal the 2020 election.

Trump is so fucking lazy that he waited until the very, very, very last moment to try to steal the election, rather than, say, indict Joe Biden in the summer of 2020.

Anyway. All of this leads me to wonder if there is a similar “Third Way” possible in 2024 that doesn’t involve a transition into MAGA autocracy or some sort of descent into civil war / revolution.

Whatever the thing that evokes a “Third Way” is, it’s going to be stunning. It is going to have to be VERY BIG and totally unpredictable. There are two main scenarios I can think of.

The first one is that Trump loses and despite all his ranting about the need for National Divorce, no one listens to him and he, in fits and starts, drifts into political obscurity. Then we all wait another four years for MAGA fascists to try AGAIN to turn us into a white Christian ethnostate.

The other, far darker possible set of scenarios is Something Bad happens to either Biden or Trump which totally throws all of our basic assumptions about the 20204 race out the window. I don’t even like to think about what that Something Bad scenario might be, but both men are old as fuck and Trump, in particular, is a fat fuck.

Any type of dark scenario like that would so change the basic assumptions we have about the 2024 race that all my dystopian hellscapes for 2024 – 2025 would be very moot.

All I want is to live in a traditional liberal democracy. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Future Headlines: Blue Meanies & The Taking Of Trump Tower, Day 20

March, 2025
NEW YORK CITY — A radical resistance group calling themselves “the Blue Meanies” continued their occupation of Trump Tower, with no end in sight. The group’s long-term seizure of the NYC landmark was made possible in large part by the support of not just of the population of the city, but the city government.

There continue to be rumblings at City Hall that if the Trump Administration attempted to recapture the tower that a “free state” would be declared. These events happen as the Trump Administration’s long-term viability continues to be questioned.

The U.S. Military has all but halted its operations in major Blue portions of the nation as a Women’s Strike called 48 hours ago has now expanded into a General Strike. Millions of Blues across the United States have simply not gone into work, causing a brutal slowdown in national economic activity.

“This is far worse than what happened briefly during COVID,” Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner said. “We risk a long-term global depression if this continues just a few more days. The economic pressure on the part of the Blue Meanies to do something about the Trump Administration is real.”

All indications point to the Blue Meanies leader Jon Stewart — who has been repeatedly photographed in various comic poses within what was once Donald Trump’s inner sanctum — is at the center of the growing national opposition to the Trump Administration.

“I think we need to take a long, hard look at the 14 Amendment,” Stewart said in a late night press conference deep inside Trump Tower. “It is clear that Trump isn’t even legally president and, as such, can legally be removed from office. In fact, I believe the office of POTUS to be vacant.”

Stewart denied rumors that he expected to be installed as acting president by the U.S. Military if Trump was forcibly removed from office.

“We, and everyone else, just want the Constitutional process to be followed,” Stewart said.

Meanwhile, the president has made it clear that the seizure of his beloved Trump Tower “will not stand.” Given the reluctance of the U.S. Military to follow his orders, he has put out a call for “MAGA shocktroops” to flood Blue areas of the country which are currently resisting his rule.

The governors of several major Red States have called a conference to co-ordinate what their response might be if the goals of the Blue Meanies are met and Trump is deposed.

“Secession is not off the table,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted.

The chaos in the United States has not gone unnoticed by the outside world (see related stories). All evidence suggests that the DPRK may invade South Korea at any moment. The rumors that Trump may be using his “special relationship” with Kim Jung Un to start a distraction on the Korean peninsula were vehemently denied by a White House spokesman.

The Most Powerful Nation In The World May Be Felled By ‘Vibes’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about modern America is, ostensibly, the country is doing quite well. The economy is doing great. People are taking home more money. In general, we’ve had something akin to peace an prosperity for decades now.

But.

For a lot of people — especially on the Right — the vibes are “off.”

That’s it, they just in general don’t like the vibes. They don’t really have any specific thing that bothers them, other than a general sense that the evil liberals who make the “media narrative” are out to get them. That’s it. That’s all that is bothering them.

In short, a lot of Republicans feel like Blues are mean to them.

As such, they’re willing to latch on to the fascist movement that is MAGA because they want to “make America great again.” And, in general, they can’t event explain that that even means. You try to pin them down as to *when* they want America to go back to and they just stare at you in silence.

The reason this is is they know if they say, well, “X year” then people like me can point to specifically how that year sucked compared to what we have now. So, all they can say is nothing combined with a handwave about how mean liberals won’t let them go off on gay people, or whatever. Pick your scape goat.

It is that sense of the “vibes being off” that is pushing people who should know better into the arms of fascism. These Traditionalists conservatives often cite things like the 2020 COVID lockdowns, and people being “canceled” for being conservative or the “gay agenda,” but in reality, the just don’t like the vibes the country is giving off at the moment.

And it grows more complicated when you factor in how different Red and Blue sees the country. Blues are upset with the corruption and ignorance of Red America, while Red America just, in general, has a spiritual sand wedgie. I suppose you could say that the “bad vibes” that Reds feel come from the general macro trends of the browning of America and women’s increased sexual and economic agency.

Reds want dudes to be on top, butts in church pews and the nuclear family back where everyone gay has the good sense to be in the closet. Some of this, of course, is caused by social media speeding up social change. Some of it is caused by the “bowling alone” trend in American personal life.

But the fact remains — Traditional conservatives feel at a loss about modern America to the point that they would rather give up their democratic birthright to a fascist ding-dong than join forces with the center-Left to stop his tyrannical rule.

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. We have about a year to find out one way or another what is going to happen.

Future Headlines: ‘Saturday Night Dead’

February, 2025:
NEW YORK CITY — A so-called “glorious revolution” began last night when ICE agents interrupted the live broadcast of Saturday Night Live to arrest the show’s executive producer Lorne Michaels for “crimes against the people.” A stunned nation watched in horror as Michaels was cuffed and frog walked out of 30 Rock by armed ICE agents.

“Viva the glorious revolution” Michaels screamed as he left the studio.

Within moments of this scene, a large crowd of New Yorkers assembled in front Fox News studios, The Wall Street Journal and Trump Tower. Things grew violent when ICE agents repeatedly fired upon the crowd. The sheer size of the crowd grew too large for the ICE agents, however and the so-called “Taking of Trump Tower” began (See Sidebar.)

The rest of last night saw unpreceded violence across the nation. Cities ranging from NYC, to LA to Chicago descended into chaos. Reports that the U.S. Military — called into these cities last month upon the invocation of the Insurrection Act by the president — were refusing to fire on protesters or, in some cases, were joining them.

These events take place as the America has been on edge since the Second Trump Administration began last month.

“It was only a matter of time before something happened,” one political analyst told the press early this morning.

All eyes now look towards the U.S. Military. While the general consensus is that the enlisted will support Trump’s efforts to crush Blues, a question lingers over the officer corp.

The Two Ways The US Might Have A Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have given this way too much thought and it seems as though there are two main scenarios that would lead to the US having a civil war of some sort.

  1. Trump Loses
    In this scenario, Trump loses fair and square and he’s so afraid of going to jail for the rest of his life that he starts to scream at the top of his lungs about the need for a “National Divorce.” States like Texas take him up on it and, there you go, civil war.
  2. Trump Wins
    In this scenario, Trump wins and goes full tyrant starting on January 20th. At some point Blues have had enough and there’s some sort of coordinated resistance to the Red King to the point that the U.S. Military deposes him. This, in turn, causes the Red States — who love the Red King — to freak the fuck out and the call up secessionist conventions.

    So, it seems our best bet is either Trump loses and he manages to just sling peacefully into political oblivion, or he wins and he somehow manages to transition the US into a MAGA-themed autocracy without pissing Blues off so much that there’s a revolution

    We have about a year to find out.

The Struggle Is Real

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going really well with this novel but for one thing — word count. I have a nice beginning that lends itself to a symmetrical ending. And, in general, I understand the story now to the point that things should move at quite a nice clip.

But I continue to worry about how enormous my first act is. And, yet, the story is a real page turner. There’s lot of sex and drama that would make people want to keep reading. It’s just on a structural basis, I’m alarmed at how big the first act is shaping up to be.

It’s going to be equal to the entire second act.

And, yet, that’s just scene count, not word count.

But there is an added complication — everything has changed so much in the first act that I have to re-imagine the rest of the novel to accommodate these changes. That is going to slow me down some.

Meanwhile, it is becoming more and more clear that I have to work on a backup novel in case this novel balloons to 160,000 words. That’s just too fucking long for a first novel by an unknown author. I keep thinking about splitting the novel in two if that is the case, but the thing is, I’m struggling to figure out the new structure of the first novel in the two part story if I do that.

So. I dunno.

My only hope at this point is either the novel isn’t nearly as long as I fear it will be or I can get over myself and spend some of my time working on a backup scifi novel to pitch. If that novel is good enough, then I can say, “Oh, by the way, I have another novel I’ve been working on…”

Of course, all of this is happening in the context of the looming Fourth Turning, Petite Singularity starting in late 2024, early 2025. UGH.

A Civil War / Revolution Because of Ding-Dong Red King Trump Would S U C K

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue about any sort of civil war or revolution because of ding-dong Trump thrashing around history is how much it would suck, suck, suck. It would be not sexy or fun. It would be a horrible tragedy.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that we could very well be on the cusp of nothing short of the most powerful nation in the world bombing itself into the stone age because of…vibes. Once you start things like revolution and civil war, it is very, very difficult to stop it.

So, it’s very possible that we could have a solid decade of death and destruction starting in late 2024. Now that really sounds hysterical, but there is an air of inevitability when it comes to Trump coming to power again that is very eerie. It’s like we’ve just decided that we all have to “go through some things” to get it all out of our system.

And remember none of this catastrophic tragedy would happen in a geopolitical vacuum. If the United States is imploding, that will mean that the greater world is exploding into WW3. At least a billion people could die specifically and directly because of ding-dong Trump because he will have caused the US to implode into civil war / revolution.

I know how hysterical that all sounds, but we have to start taking shit like that seriously. We have to sit up and take notice about where things are heading. And part of that is taking seriously how bad this new, war-torn America would be for the everyday person.

The chief thing is how any form of communication would probably be a premium. Command and control would be the first thing each side of any war in the United States would try to knock out and, as such, there’s a good chance that once the ball started rolling most of us would have no idea what the fuck was going on outside of our immediate neighborhood.

And if the absolute worst happens, we’ll all be so busy struggling to eat and avoid various explosions that we just won’t have time to worry about what our pronouns are any other form of identity politics — it’s hard to be “woke” when everything is very, very existential on a daily basis.

But only time will tell. It could be I’m overthinking all of this and we’ll either drift peacefully into a MAGA themed autocracy or Trump will lose and he’ll just slink away into the political darkness.

We have about a year to find out.

The Political Rhetoric On The Right In The United States As We Enter The 2024 Election Cycle Is Beyond Bonkers

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some of the political rhetoric spewing out of the MAGA Republican right these days is so insane that it’s hard not to see how all of this ends in civil war / revolution or some sort of Pol Pot American Killing Fields. I mean, it is a tenant of faith at the moment in most Republican circles that Democrats personally kill a baby at least once a day.

And it continues to get worse. Trump keeps cribbing off of Nazi ideas in his speeches in a way to telegraph exactly what he plans to do. Now, there is something interesting to think about.

If Trump is re-elected, I assume he’ll go after undocumented people by dramatically building out the existing ICE infrastructure. But it definitely seems as though once things get going that MAGA is coming for gay people in a big way. But it won’t stop there — because form follows function, the Jews will inevitable be put in the camps along with the undocumented, the gay, and the mentally ill.

But, of course, none of this is going to happen in a political vacuum. And never forget that Trump doesn’t have an American SA to knock heads. He doesn’t have a nation-wide paramilitary group of a few million men to swoop in after he’s re-elected and bash the heads in of Blues to “persuade” them to keep their head down while Trump establishes Trumplandia.

The United States is just too diverse and decentralized for anyone — much less ding-dong Trump — to establish a military dictatorship without the assistance of an SA-like paramilitary group. So, even if 1 million smug Twitter liberals flee the country starting in late 2024, there will still be PLENTY of Blues who refuse to kowtow to Tyrant Trump.

What that will mean in real terms for the future of the country, I just don’t know. But we can all point to the bonkers Right wing rhetoric that’s being pumped out at the moment, a year before, as a sign of things to come.

We’re Careening Towards A Dark Future With Our Eyes Wide Shut

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jesus Christ. The thing about having to deal with macro trends on a personal basis is a lot of times events just make no fucking sense. But, here we are — because of a number of long-term macro trends, America is face to face with fascism for the first time in its history.

And if we don’t transition into a fucking fascist state, we’re going to collapse into either a civil war or a revolution. While we’re on the subject of shit like a civil war — we don’t need a big budget action movie about a civil war called Civil War, we need a Threads-like movie that depicts how much a civil war or revolution would s u c k.

My big complaint about the Civil War trailer is there is a basic assumption about communication that is just wrong. If a civil war / revolution really broke out in the US communication would be at a premium because that would be the first thing that each side tried to knock out. If the general population has no clue as to what is going on, then they’re a lot easier to attack.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the potential use of WMD by both sides if things REALLY got bad. AND, you have to address that outside the United States, about 1 billion people could die because, lulz, the US just won’t be able to make sure nations like India and Pakistan don’t use nukes on each other. It really could get that bad.

And, what’s more — there are no assurances that “the good guys” (IE, people I like) would win a revolution / civil war. And there are no assurances that the war would end in such a way that the country was put back together. In fact, our best bet is some sort of United States of North America is formed after whatever history gets done sorting out the massive clusterfuck that may be heading towards us.