by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
To date, Trump has only gone transactional once — on January 6th. And he ony did so because it was personal and he was desperate. Below are three ways that Trump could start a civil war by going transactional.
- 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.
The question, of course, is how likely is it that malignant dingus Trump would summon the wherewithal to go transactional sooner rather than later, say, to save his sorry ass from facing any criminal accountability. That is a real mystery. What happened on January 6th was such a specific, simple situation on a cognitive level that to think Trump could summon up the mental acuity necessary to bring the country down via some sort of secessionist crisis is kind of pushing it.
I just don’t think he has it in him. He talks a good talk, but unlike, say, Hitler, Trump is just playing himself. He can’t bend history to his will like Hitler did. As such, for the time being, at least, I think we’re fairly safe. There will be a lot of talk about a civil war, but, in the end, we’ll just slip into autocracy. Millions of wealthy liberals will flee the country and the country will circle the autocratic drain.
