by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
All the Traditionalist conservatives in my family want autocracy. They don’t come out and say this, probably because they don’t really think in those terms, but that’s what they want. They want a white Christian ethnostate so they can relax, knowing at last, that they don’t risk being “canceled” by the “woke cancel culture mob.” If they can stop libtards from “grooming” children and demanding everyone be gay, all the better.
The interesting thing about all of this is they stress that they “just want to be left” alone while also saying how much they support the marketplace. There is the marketplace of ideas, you know, and that’s where things get interesting in regards to all this abstract fear about the “woke cancel culture mob” ruining their lives simply because they’re conservative.
A lot is being conflated about “wokeness” because it serves the purposes of Fox News and all those myriad of Right wing podcasts that breathlessly give their listens the latest talking points to “own” libs like me. What is “wokeness” but the marketplace of ideas working quite effectively to decide what is, and isn’t acceptable behavior?
But that’s now how my Traditionalist relatives see things. They conflate the growing hard power of MAGA Republicans with the nebulous soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob.” They are so overcome with the abstract fear that they will be “persecuted” simply because their views don’t follow the conventional wisdom media narrative that they are gleefully willing to give up that most basic of American rights — democracy. They don’t like how things are changing and they want to go back to when there was no doubt that white Christians were on top.
They don’t know exactly what the problem is, but they do know that they are enraged by the “crisis at The Border,” how powerful the “gay agenda” is and how it seems no one plays by the rules anymore and everyone expects a handout, to boot.
All of this is very, very murky because there are a lot of moving parts to all of this. Not only have there been a lot of people who have been justifiably “canceled” for doing some pretty shitty things — especially to women — but there have been other, Hollywood types, who have been “canceled” simply because they have been outspoken conservatives.
I think the thing that really bothers one of my Traditionalist conservative relatives is the corporate “sensitivity training” that they apparently have to undergo on occasion. They blame Biden for how much they hate this, even though, lulz, sensitivity training is the free market doing it’s thing. A private company decided that it was in its best fiscal interests to make sure its employees were aware of the changing sensitivities of the modern age.
If we are honest with each other as a nation, I think we would all come to the painful conclusion that we need a National Divorce. I don’t want one, and definitely don’t want a civil war that would result, but I also know I don’t want to live in a fascist MAGA Republican autocracy. As such, should the time come that Blues face a choice of autocracy or National Divorce, I don’t think the latter should be entirely off the table. It’s definitely something to think about seriously in late 2024, early 2025 when it becomes clear that Republicans are going to strangle what’s left of American democracy with a gleeful, deranged look in their collective eyes.
I do not think it will come to that, however. I don’t think there will ever be a moment — even if it’s absolutely clear that MAGA is going to turn us into a Russian-style autocracy — when Blues will be willing to put on their big boy pants and honestly think about secession. We just don’t have it in us. We don’t have any leadership and what the moment it’s clear as to what’s going to happen in the United States in 2025, the liberal intelligentsia is going to be the first out the door for Canada and beyond.
It happened when the Nazis took over Germany and it’s going to happen with the United States.
The only reason why it’s not a foregone conclusion is it hasn’t happened yet. There are too many variables that I can’t game out. A lot of unexpected things could happen that may change the context — or even punt the problem down the road a little bit. We were very, very lucky in 2020 because of a combination of the political consequences of the pandemic and Trump being a lazy moron who was too stupid to pull basic autocrat plays.
So, I suppose, it’s possible we might be lucky again.
But I doubt it. I can’t predict the future — no one can — but my mind keeps coming back to how all the macro metrics point to something pretty dramatic happening in the United States in late 2024, early 2025. What that might be — autocracy, civil war or military junta — I just don’t know at the moment.
Regardless, the point is — a lot of what is considered “wokeness” is simply a concrete manifestation of how Blue states and Red states interpret the American experience so differently as to be two different nations, at least in their minds.
The great irony is, of course, that the process of having a National Divorce — civil war — would be so horrific that it would burn off “wokeness” by the time it was all over. People on both the Right and the Left would probably appreciate what’s really important in life and neither side would have to fear being “canceled.”
A few million people might have done in order for us to gain that “freedom,” but lulz.
Now, before I end this rant, let me be absolutely clear — I’m probably a prime candidate to be “canceled” if my dream of selling my first novel becomes a reality and it’s as big a success as I hope. I’m a very flawed person who has done things that probably wouldn’t pass muster with the “woke cancel culture mob.” Despite that, I sure would rather live in a free Blue Union and the white Christian ethnostate of Trumplandia.
