So, out of the blue, the newly-married Ariana Grande came out with a set of pictures of herself without any makeup on or her hair extensions in. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was, “She’s trying to get pregnant.”
The future mom?
I’m not so bold as to believe I have any particular special insight into the female mind — trust me, I don’t — but it doesn’t take an empath to believe that she’s feeling “broody” and, as such, felt like going back to basics. She wants to be a mom and, as such, she’s preparing herself psychologically for the changes such an event would have on her life.
The fact that she’s young and just got married definitely plays into this belief. But I’m always — always — wrong. So, lulz, what do I know.
As I often mention, they say you go bankrupt gradually then all at once. As such, the “all at once” part of any Second American Civil War will be when there’s a sudden surge of domestic political refugees as Blues in Red states and Reds in Blue states flee for their personal safety.
If that happens, we’re going to the show — we’re going to have, at a minimum a National Divorce and probably a 2ACW. Of course, this would happen in the context of most of your wealthy liberals simply fleeing the country altogether. It’s already happening, to some extent — wealthy liberals are getting second passports if they can.
So, if the final collapse into civil war happens, you’re going to see a huge amount of wealthy liberals simply leave the rest of the country to its own devices. Meanwhile, those who have the means will simply flee to a state that better suits their political beliefs. This would probably be happening in the context not only of a shit ton of political violence, but either Red or Blue states actively beginning the process of secession. I would also keep an eye on the major conservative media outlets in New York City — and Trump Tower. IF things were really getting really bad, there’s a good chance that there would be a popular revolt in NYC to the point that Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post might be physically attacked — as would Trump Tower. That would be a clear sign that the shit was hitting the fan.
The big issue is when all of this will happen. Will it happen sooner — when Trump goes transactional to avoid criminal accountability — or will it happen later when Blue states realize they are faced with either bending a knee to MAGA fascism, or bouncing.
But, as of right now, I still don’t think we’re going to have a civil war. Something rather dramatic will have to happen, some sort of catalyst for either side to seriously being the process of a National Divorce. What that might be, I have no idea. But I do know its possible.
In general, however, I think we’re just going to slouch into autocracy with the only wildcard being malignant dingus Trump.
Here I am, fleshing out the latest version of the first draft of my first novel, feeling great that things — at the moment at least — are going well. Then, I find myself looking into the future and contemplating what happens when I finally finish the novel.
Is it possible that my digital footprint is so kooky that whenever a literary agent does the inevitable “due diligence” on me that they will dismiss me a crank, no matter how good the actual novel is? This is something that really weighs on my mind because these days I can’t even pay people to help me work on this project.
They either do due diligence on me — I can see them in my Webstats looking — and think I’m a crank, or I pay them for a chat and then they won’t let me have a “second date” for some reason.
It’s very disheartening. I can’t help who I am. I can’t help that I’ve always been a square peg in a round hole. And I refuse to change who I am. I either publish these novels in the traditional manner or I fail and self publish. My only hope is that — despite doing all of this in a vacuum — that the final product I produce will be good enough that I might have a chance overcoming this very annoying obstacle.
In the end, you just have to believe, I suppose. No one else will.
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.
There is a lot of talk about a civil war in the United States these days, but I think that says more about how the country is on edge than any real prospect of such a violent event. Whenever a country is veering towards a significant change in its political system, there is talk of civil war. And, by definition, that’s sort of what an “anocracy” — which is what the United States is now — is: we’re transitioning away from democracy into an autocracy.
According to Barbara F. Walter, that’s one of the causes of a civil war — if a country in between democracy and autocracy the country is so unstable that if things go wrong, it descends into political violence up to and including an actual civil war.
But, for the moment, I just don’t see the United States have a civil war. There will be a huge amount of chatter from both political extremes about there possibly being one, but, in the end, the American center-Left is just to weak willed. In the end, Blue States will bend a knee to MAGA fascists. Hordes of wealthy American liberals will flee the country to the point that Fox News will replace scary brown caravans at the border with the “brain drain.” So many wealthy American liberals may flee the newly autocratic States that it transforms global culture in a way not seen since the fall of Constantinople. The globe will be awash in American culture and ideals in an unprecedented manner.
All of this, of course, may be happening in the context of the final collapse of the post-WW2 liberal global order. If the United States pulls itself out of NATO and various other places around the world, then a number of regional wars will break out to the point that it will be marketed as WW3. America could align itself with a series of other autocratic states. I could see, maybe, the US, Hungary, Turkey and Russia starting their own NATO-like alliance. Meanwhile, of course, China could do a smash and grab operation against Taiwan.
But the key issue is — we just don’t know what is going to happen. At the moment, the idea of political violence in the United States is totally bonkers. As such, something pretty big would have to change for the type of civil war that I imagine might happen, to happen. I will admit, of course, that the conditions are there for a civil war.
And, yet, I don’t know. Given that it’s probably going to be Blues who start a civil war if there is one, I just don’t see it happening. There is, of course, the issue of Trump. He’s such a malignant dignus that he could, unto himself, start a 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.
In the ever consolidating media world, it seems to me that just as Disney bought Fox’s entertainment properties, NBCUniversal is going to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery. And, yet, that opens up a very important question — who will buy CNN?
The most obvious answer is Amazon. Jeff Bezos owning both the Washington Post and CNN would make a lot of sense. And, yet, I think it was malignant goober Josh Hawley who said, “Nope!” Some of CNN’s fate would be determined by if we were an autocracy or not when it was being shopped around.
If it’s President DeSantis we’re talking about, then I could see some wealthy MAGA dickhead swooping in and buying it so they can turn CNN into more of Fox News clone than it already is. I suppose if magically we managed not to either have a civil war or turn into an autocracy that maybe Laurene Powell Jobs might get into the act.
The thing about it is, I don’t think any of us realize how things we taken for granted might be either be paused or thrown up in the air between now and January 2025. We have to start factoring in what a fucking shit show late 2024, early 2025 is likely to be. Everything could change to the point that “Who is going to own CNN?” will seem rather quaint.
I’m not getting any younger. I really need to focus on just the first novel in this projected six novel project. And, yet, I can’t help myself. I find myself mulling the arc of these six novels that depict events that occur over a generation of time.
The core of the story is one woman’s love for a dead woman’s baby. The first three novels we see the ebb and flow of that relationship. The second three novels is that baby as an adult and her struggle to revenge the brutal murder of her mother. So, in a sense, the first three novels are very much like Mare of Easttown, while the second trilogy is a lot more Stieg Larsson influenced.
I just hate how much of a late bloomer I am on this front. I have to worry about not only dropping dead of a very middle aged man type heart attack before I finish any of these novels, I also have to worry about something akin to a Fourth Turning happening in the United States in the general 2024 – 2025 timeframe.
One key issue you have to remember is the origin of this whole project to begin with — my white hot rage towards the Trumplandia experiment. That was what ultimately caused me to have not only something to say, but the energy to say it. It wasn’t until dingus Trump wasn’t able to steal the 2020 election that I decided to pivot to telling the backstory of what was meant to be an allegory for Trumplandia.
Jesus, I can’t believe it’s been two years since I made that decision. Jesus Christ, do I need to set some deadlines! I’ll be 60 years old and still struggling to finish the first novel, the way things are going. And, I think, the looming prospect of turning 50 without having published a novel is really beginning to weigh on my mind.
I think, however, that my writing and storytelling abilities have improved significantly since I started this process. I just think I need to start taking all of this more seriously. I just can’t keep drifting towards my goal. I need to formalize things, or something.
While all wealthy Blue Check liberals this summer were banging anonymous people on Ibiza and Mikonos while high on shrooms, we poor people have noticed that there is a low-grade crisis afoot at the Ukrainian Zaporozhye Nuclear plant. It is, as I understand it, the third largest such plant in the world and the biggest in Europe.
What might happen at Zaporozhye.
There is a greater-than-zero sum chance that some sort of nuclear catastrophe, on a par with Chernobyl could happen there, pretty much at any moment. There has been some shelling there and the Russians, as I understand it, have been holding the planet’s staff hostage and generally terrorizing them.
But what would be the significance of there actually being another major nuclear tragedy in Ukraine? Let me be clear — I’m not an expert, but this is just off the top of my head speculation.
Let’s say whatever it is that might happen at Zaporozhye is Big. Big enough that it’s one of the — if not the biggest –news events of the year, maybe even the decade. And, let’s say whatever it is that happens, happens before the American 2022 midterms.
Probably what would happen is the entire world would, for a few days at least, come to a grinding halt as we all struggled to process what was going on. All the people in the affected areas would have to be evacuated and, that, unto itself, would be a huge news event because it would make concrete the abstract nature of what was going on.
I suspect the unintended consequence of such a tragedy happening is both the Ukrainians and the Russians would grow more radical. Ukrainians would have yet another grievance to rile them up, while the domestic Russian population might grow even more restless. All of this is very speculative. I have no idea what might happen.
But a nuclear disaster at Zaporozhye would for sure make an already unstable world even more so. The post-WW2 global liberal order is barely hanging on and a few million people being displaced in Ukraine would not exactly help the situation.
Trump is a very unique historical and political figure. He’s so unique because almost anyone else in his position would not have lost the 2020 election. Anyone with a modicum of abstract thought and gumption would have sealed the deal at some point no later than, say, August 2020.
It’s a testament to how stupid and lazy and Trump is that he waited until the very, very, very last part of the process to try to stay in power. And, what’s more, his entire plot rested on one man — Mike Pence — doing his bidding. He didn’t really have much of a backup plan.
Anyway, the reason why I bring all this up is I — and a lot of other people — are notorious for overestimating Trump’s ability to actually implement all the tyrannical things he obviously is thinking about all the time. So, take the following with a grain of salt — it’s possible that Trump neither has the power I’m assuming he does nor has the mental facilities necessary to think in such a diabolical manner.
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.
Having said all that, I don’t think we’re going to have any sort of civil war. I think Blue states will ultimately bend a knee and we will become a MAGA autocracy. The only question then, of course, will be if we stop around Hungary politically, or if we endup somewhere closer to be a Russia / Nazi Germany clone.
Only time will tell. Good luck.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
Or, put another way, we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked one way or another. Either we turn into an autocracy or Red and Blue begin to murder each other in cold political blood. The usual outcome of all this bullshit that we have come to expect — simply muddling along until we come to some solution one way or another — is not longer a valid option.
I really love the Fletch series of novels because, as a young man, they were short, amusing easy reads with gratuitous sex in them. One of my favorite Fletch books is “Fletch And The Man Who.”
It’s a murder mystery set during a presidential campaign. It’s meant to evoke the book “The Boys On The Bus.” I could see a modern day version of this concept being a lot of fun if the “Man Who” in question was a Trump-type character. That would be a great way talk about the surreal nature of modern American politics in the context of a comic mystery.
And, yet, they need to hurry up.
They need to greenlight such a movie now — hopefully because “Confess, Fletch” is a success. They could probably get such a movie out in time for the 2024 presidential cycle.
As we know, of course, late 2024, early 2025 might be pretty turbulent. We may have to avoid car bombs to get to the theatre to see the movie.
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