by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m always wrong. Always. But, just for the sake of argument, let’s think about what might happen if Trump was held criminally accountable. Would there be “riots in the streets” as Sen. Lindsey Graham suggests? This is one of three ways that Trump might start a Second American Civil War.
- An Effort to Stop Criminal Accountability
This is the one scenario whereby the MAGA New Right people who keep coming to this Website looking for a sooner-rather-than-later timetable for being able to murder people like me without criminal recourse might happen. If Trump really felt he might, at last, face some criminal accountability, he could very well begin to rant that Red States need to leave the Union because of how unjust it all is. I suppose he might, in general, demand in his usual dog whistle kind of way general political violence, but I doubt it. When you have an entire party — the Republican Party –with a cult-like devotion to you, why go for general violence when you can get entire states to leave the Union at your behest? - A Ploy to Convict Biden / Harris in the Senate
In this scenario, it’s 2023 and Republicans have gone nuts. They have impeached both Biden and Harris out of spite. Now, for Trump to actively be trying to destroy the country, he would, of course, need to have some personal investment in it. So, this one only really works if he is the Speaker of the House and he thinks he can become POTUS again early. So, in a bid to scare the living shit out of the Senate, he, as Speaker, begins to demand Red States leave the Union in order to get what he wants. He says this just as a rhetorical flourish, but MAGA legislatures take him seriously and states, probably beginning with Texas, begin to convene Secessionist Conventions. An away we go. - A 2024 Clusterfuck — MAGA Counter Revolution
This endgame was two parts to it. It could be that at some point in late 2024, after Election Day, it will be obvious to Blue States that the election was stolen and they have no recourse but to begin the process of leaving the Union. By the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, we are in a full fledged Secession Crisis. The other possibility is that Trump wins outright — even though he’ll cheat no matter what — and by late January it becomes clear that Trump’s second term agenda is so fascist and radical that Blue States begin to leave the Union.
Well, I will admit that the country is on edge. And I will admit that there the conditions are there for severe political violence to happen pretty at any moment. But it takes a lot for even the most bonkers fascist MAGA New Right person to risk life and limb to protect a dingus like Trump. Or, put another way, as much as MAGA New Right people have murdering people like me in cold political blood on the brain, they want a civil war to officially start to do it so they won’t be held criminally accountable.
The events of January 6th were very specific to that moment. It helped a lot that Trump went transactional and told the crowd in front of him that they were going to march down the the Capitol together. (Of course, the shock troops of the Proud Boys were already there, waiting for the rest of the mob to arrive)
So, as such, I think ultimately a lot would rest on what Trump did. It wouldn’t be so much that Trump was indicted or otherwise held accountable, it would be that he went transactional and TOLD the MAGA New Right to burn the country to the ground. Or, even more dire, he might demand that MAGA state legislatures to convene Secessionist Conventions for the specific purpose of putting pressure on the Federal government to protect his sorry ass. Then, things might get out of control and the next thing you know, you have an honest-to-God National Divorce on your hands.
Of course, there is the other option that maybe we might have a 1968-type event, like what happened after Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, only with white people. There might be some sort of spasm of violence on the part of MAGA New Right cocksuckers.
I honestly don’t know if there would be riots if Trump was held criminally accountable. But I do know that the prospect of such violence is going to be a talking point we hear a lot — A LOT — from the usual suspects of the MAGA New Right going forward.
