by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Politically, I’m the red headed step child of my otherwise very conservative family. My family — other than me — is a bedrock traditional Southern conservative family. One thing that really makes me feel a sense of doom is the total unwillingness of my non-MAGA family to make a united front against the rise of MAGA New Right fascism.
In the end, I fear my family may be torn apart like a family might have been during the First American Civil War. The two sides have simply so hardened their positions that things are going to grow really, really existential. Negative polarization is such that I can’t even talk about politics with my family anymore — period.
This, even though generally in the past when we talked about politics we actually agreed more than we disagreed on some pretty basic elements of the national discourse.
But now, that’s over. The two sides have established what they believe and there’s no room for debate or compromise.
I have to prepare myself for some dramatic events happening to me one way or another. Either at some point after we turn into an autocracy around January 2025 I get murdered by an ICE agent, or I have to flee to as a political refugee to a Blue part of the country at the onset of a civil war.
No one is going to help me. No one is going to save me.
I’m going to save myself.
