by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
There’s a memorable Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where we learn that Bart Simpson had a “bad twin” that the family kept up in the attic. At the end of the episode, we learn that the wrong twin was put in the attic, so they switch them. At the very end, we learn that living up in the attic has driven the “good twin” bonkers.
I often think about this when it comes to how desperate the Republican Establishment is to move the fuck past Trump. They love, love, love Ron DeSantis. They know, on a basic level, that DeSantis is Trump without Trump and if they can only squeeze that motherfucker past ding-dong Trump that he can become America’s Putin.
Then Republicans can transform the US into an autocratic white Christian ethno state of blood and soil run by minority whites.
We’ll wake up 20 years from now and there will be talk by the BBC about “Generation DeSantis” and America will be poor, inward looking and politically identical to Putin’s Russia of 2022.
But Republicans have to get past Trump first to make this nightmare a reality.
There are plenty — PLENTY — of reasons to believe Trump will somehow not be the Republican nominee in 2024. He is old and growing more and more deranged each and every day.
And, yet, only the good die young. He could very well politically cockblock DeSantis (or the dozen other would-be autocrats, for that matter) simply by refusing to walk into that dark political night. As such, there are two options for Establishment Republicans.
Either there is something of a political death match between Trump and DeSantis or Trump names DeSantis his veep and DeSantis gets to (eventually) play America’s Putin that way.
But if Trump is the nominee around 2024 – 2025 and Bannon’s “administrative coup” works…oh boy. Trump loves to say “the quiet part out loud” so much that he could, single handedly, unto himself, cause a civil war in the United States. He could rile up the base of the Democratic Party so much in Blue States that there is real, significant political violence in the US which leads to ding-dong Trump striking back, which leads to a secession crisis which leads to civil war.
And then you have people like DeSantis having to make a regular Sophie’s Choice of which side they finally, at last, are going to be on. Though, come to think of it, if it’s Blue States that leave, lulz, DeSantis will be right there, comping at the bit for his chance to wreak vengeance on the prodigal Blue States.
