by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Someone like Trump was going to happen. Something about Obama’s second term cracked the noggin of the American Right. It went septic and insane. And it just so happened that dingas Trump had enough credibility because of his birther nonsense that when the voice of fate called his name, he answered.
I love alternative history and it’s very easy to sketch out a situation where Trump wasn’t picked on by Seth Meyers WHCD and, as such, Trump decided to play president in a Sharknado movie. The person who could have filled Trump’s spot in our history is James Woods. He’s a really intense, really conservative motherfucker who had he been nudged by Fortuna, might have run instead of Trump — and won.
That points out something about California — it’s actually odd that Trump from New York and not someone like Woods in California became our fascist nightmare. It politically makes a lot more sense for a really progressive state like California to pop out popular conservative figure (e.g Reagan) than the more moderate New York State. Though, I guess you could say that NYC is kind of a state unto itself and, as such, had the same dynamic as a fascist coming from California.
But I have the idea of a Second American Civil War on the brain a lot (as do, apparently, a lot of MAGA New Right cocksuckers) and, as such, I think a lot about what California would do if that tragedy happened. In the beginning stages of any such conflict, there would likely be a lot of wavering on the part of California leadership as if they even wanted to get involved. A civil war might be their only chance to bounce from the Union peacefully.
And, yet, I would like to think that they would rise to the occasion and throw their lot in with the Blue Army. California of the 2020s is the New York State of the 1860s. And, as such, its easy to imagine if the Good Guys win a Second American Civil War that a lot of dead progressive measures would be enacted to fix a lot of long-term, structural problems with the United States at the moment. Just as the we renewed the Union’s covenant of states in 1865, if we had a second civil war, we might do it again with the ideals of California as its basis.
At the same time, I think a lot about how fucked up California is right now. It seems like the place is over run with homeless people and that civil order is beginning to fall apart. It’s all very curious. I guess the case could be made that a civil war might be just the swift kick in the ass California collectively needs to stop thinking about their chakras and start to get down to the hard business of keeping the state’s bolts tight.
What do I know, though. Absolutely no one listens to me.
