Trump is not only growing more deranged of late, he’s also growing more and more angry and radical. And he’s not going anywhere. The FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago has caused the entire MAGA movement to lurch into a frothy radicalism that sometimes doesn’t seem to make any sense.
And, yet, at the moment, the center-Left in the United States is so weak that we have to take even this new, bonkers version of MAGA seriously as a political force.
My fear is that by late 2024, early 2025, MAGA’s agenda for the United States will have grown so radical that once they steal the 2024 election and begin the process of consolidating power that what they want to do will shock even Traditionalists and away we go. There really is something akin to a revolution, and a group I call “Radical Moderates” will pop up as they usually do in times of political distress in the United States.
Radical Moderates are people who are usually pretty laid back, but because of the crisis that the country is in, they sudden are willing to entertain concepts that were once considered radical. The most notable example of this was when Lincoln freed the slaves and, suddenly “everyone was an Abolitionist.” The same thing could happen if MAGA flips out and ties to, overnight, turn us into Fortress America.
Blue States will begin to leave the Union as the MAGA counter-revolution begins to happen in Trumplandia. There could be a race war in the Deep South and we might find the United States in a situation comparable to Revolutionary Russia as the Russian Empire began to implode.
This makes me want to read a book about the Russian Revolution.
Anyway. There is a greater-than-zero sum chance of mass chaos and unprecedented political upheaval in the United States starting in late 2024, early 2025. But I’m always wrong. Always. I mean, I can’t predict the future. So, it might ultimately get punted down the road a presidential cycle. Or DeSantis becomes president and our decent into autocracy is far more gradual that might happen with Trump.
The thing about what’s going on in the United States right now is huge, tectonic forces of history are rushing over us as individuals and it’s difficult for us to process what’s going on. Because what’s going on is so huge, the average person can’t see the big picture.
America’s next top autocrat.
I’m not saying I have any revealed truth, but I am pretty good at abstract thought — and I think about stuff like this all the time — so I like to think I have a better bead on what’s going on than some.
It’s kind of surreal that the most powerful, wealthiest nation on the globe is on the cusp of either turning into an autocracy or having a civil war that will destroy it. But let’s talk about the first option, autocracy.
The conservative Traditionalists in my family have varying degrees of interest in the MAGA New Right. On a personal level, they want MAGA without Trump. They generally agree with the MAGA New Right vision, but they struggle to in good faith to defend the “mean tweets” element of it all. And, truth be told, I would even go so far as to suggest that the only reason why they are all willing to buy into the MAGA New Right’s autocratic fascism is they just don’t see any other viable options.
They’re just traditional conservatives who are deathly afraid of “woke cancel culture” in the sense that they’re on edge that some slip of the tongue in public will be recorded, go viral and ruin their lives.
And the leadership of the Republican party knows this very well, so that’s all they talk about. So much so that most of their public statements sound like gibberish to anyone who doesn’t watch Fox News primetime. Any ambitious Republican worth their salt wants to squeeze in “woke,” “critical race theory” and “cancel culture” into any public statement so it might catch the attention of a Fox News producer.
They know what they’re doing, but the net effect is to make them sound like idiots to anyone who isn’t a MAGA New Right person.
But back to the issue at hand. Autocracy.
The United States is an anocracy at the moment. This means we’re not really a democracy and we’re not really an autocracy. And being in this in between politically is a very, very unstable situation. A nation being an anocracy is one of the necessary conditions for civil war, according to experts like Barbara Walter. At the moment, it seems the United States is going to slip peacefully into autocracy.
Trump will run and win in 2024 and we will find ourselves all sitting around waiting for whomever is his veep to become president and, as such, our first true autocrat.
And my Traditionalist relatives will, at first at least, be extremely blase about this new state of affairs. All they will know is their seething rage over the possibility of being “canceled” by “woke culture” is being validated by the new Republican administration.
They will be quite content with the new autocratic policies that President Pompeo or Hawley or Cotton or DeSantis implements. It’s not affecting them in any personal, direct way and their concerns about “woke” culture are being taken seriously, so what’s the problem?
And then there’s me.
I freely admit that, as the late Annie Shapiro said, I’m a “delugional jerk with a good heart.” In short, I can come across as something of a crank. I don’t know what the rules are and I’ve had the luxury of being a round peg in a square hole within the context of a wealthy Western democracy. (Or wealthy constitutional democratic republic if you want to get all MAGA New Right technical about things.)
And should the United States slide into a new political era were we grow more and more autocratic over the years, I’m in trouble. Deep trouble. I’m a loudmouth and refuse to bend a knee to injustice. As such, maybe not immediately, but eventually there will come a point, say, sometime in the 2030s when I may very well simply vanish.
And THEN that will be when the Traditionalist in my family will take notice. That’s it. That’s their red line — ME. That’s why I’ve given up talking about politics with my relatives. They’re great and I love them, but if they wait until I’m in ICE custody because I got drunk and called President Pompeo a fat fuck, well, lulz, maybe they could have done something different as autocracy was taking over the country?
This is the point where I wonder if this just more of my usual “hysterical doom shit.” I just don’t think so. I don’t think it’s “hysterical doom shit” to take the thought leaders of the MAGA New Right at face value. They crave autocracy. They love Russia and long to turn the United States into an autocratic white Christian ethno state of blood and soil.
I know myself well enough to know that while I hate conflict and violence, I take the abstract very seriously. And fuck if I’m going to shut up in deference to our new autocrat. Fuck that and fuck him.
From what I can tell from talking to my Traditionalist relatives, it would be very, very difficult to pry them away from the GQP. But if I was tasked with doing just that, how would I do it?
It would be extremely difficult.
But, I think, maybe, if you focused on attacking the events of January 6th and how weird and out of character that day was for American politics, you might have a back door of sorts. I know one of my Traditionalist relatives no longer supports Ted Cruz because of his poor performance on that day.
And, yet, Republican Politics is such a shit show that prying conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA away from their current complicit love of MAGA would be extremely, extremely difficult.
In fact, the only wedge you might be able to put between Traditionalists and the GQP is the violence of January 6th. That’s pretty much the only place you can get any votes, I’m afraid. The macro momentum is just too powerful otherwise.
In other words, in every other way, we’re fucked. Totally, completely fucked.
I honestly don’t give a shit about weird MAGA New Right “thought leader” Tim Pool. Whatever, live the fuck on and prosper. But I remember when Tim Pool worked at Vice and was just another one of their asshole Leftist that the old Gawker would make fun of for how needlessly over-the-top they were.
But, at some point, all that changed. Pool became an enfant terrible of the MAGA New Right for some reason. It’s not so much that he “switch sides” that interests me — I mean, people change — but for it happen out of the blue makes me wonder if maybe something personal was involved.
Tim Pool
And I know enough about the human psyche to know it’s very easy to imagine a scenario where some cute Leftist girl — a manic pixie dream girl, if you will — broke that poor boy’s heart and he vowed to get back at her by turning into a rabid New Right person. At least, that makes sense to me.
But I will note that Pool’s conversion proves that the MAGA New Right grift has an exceeding low bar of entry. I mean, it’s so fucking low that if I sold my soul to Trumplandia I could probably be having dinner with Trump himself within six months.
The books I’ve been reading about the macro issues involved in America’s transition to anocracy really are very illuminating about all of this bullshit. A lot of white men feel very insecure about the social changes taking place in America right now and there is a huge demand for articulate people to express that rage.
One last thing. It is within the realm of possibility that I’m related — through marriage — to Pool. He’s apparently from the Hampton Roads area and I have a cousin there married to a Pool. I have nothing personal against the guy. It would be interesting to have dinner with him and ask, “What was her name?”
Well, this is interesting. There seems to be a growing chorus within the Far Right that suggest that Trump is a washed up hasbeen. Now, we all know what this really means — Trump has served his political purpose. He has paved the way for a far more palatable and “boring” autocrat to swoop in and finish the job he started.
This has long been a concern of mine. That Trump might be knocked out of the running politically and then we would have to worry about someone like DeSantis or Cotton or Pompeo or Hawley or you name it being the person who would ultimately be America’s “Putin.” And, remember, not even Putin built his autocracy in a day. It was a gradual thing. So, it’s easy to imagine President DeSantis being POTUS for eight years, then mysteriously and magically becoming Speaker of the House and running the country that way until he was able to convince people that we need a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.”
That definitely seems to be our lot at this particular moment. Or we have a civil war. But the likelihood of a civil war decreases dramatically if someone, anyone other than Trump is our 2025 autocrat. Trump is such a fucking lazy idiot who always says the quiet part out loud that he, unto himself, could cause a civil war just by being an idiot who is no longer “useful.”
But I would not count Trump out quite yet. Yes, under any normal definition Trump is a washed up political hasbeen that should just shut up and enjoy his political retirement. But Trump always, always, always does the wrong thing and somehow comes up on top. So, it makes total sense that he would simply through sheer force of will become the Republican 2024 nominee and push the United States perilously close to a Second Civil War.
If Trump is the Republican nominee again, I suggest you get a pass port and figure out what you believe in and what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world. Things are going to get lit.
I really enjoyed Barbara F. Walter’s “How Civil Wars Start…And How To Stop Them.” I recommend it. It’s extremely well written and thought out. But, sad to say, it’s severely flawed as well. Not that you shouldn’t buy it, you should, but you should go into it knowing that it’s fighting battles that either don’t exist or are impossible to solve.
The first problem is her exclusive focus on the notion that the MAGA New Right will not only be the origin of any second civil war in the United States, but that any such civil war won’t be a “civil war” in the traditional sense, but rather something akin closer to The Troubles of Northern Ireland. I take issue with this because, lulz, the MAGA New Right is running around, yelling at the top of its lungs how it plans to seize control of the United States without firing a shot. They are ascendant, they have no reason to start any hot civil war.
But you know who will in 2024 – 2025?
Blue States, starting probably with California. The Bear State Republic attempting to leave the Union would cause a cascading series of events which would leave us with a pitched battle between Blue America and Trumplandia. Either the U.S. Military collapses as Blues leave it to establish the armed forces of Blue America, or we endup with some sort of military junta that tries to put the country back together long enough for, say, a Constitutional Convention to be held.
The other severe flaw with the book is the solutions she proposes. All of them are bullshit. Not one of them will ever be implemented. We’re not South Africa. We don’t have any leadership with the ability to put the needs of the nation first. And, besides, we have a winner-take-all system of government and Senate. The MAGA New Right will never, ever for any reason allow any of the reforms she suggests will help us avoid a civil war.
There are only two possible solutions to the massive clusterfuck we find ourselves in — civil war or autocracy. And if we do have a civil war, we will bomb ourselves into the Stone Age in the context of WW3 taking place. The globe will be wracked with a conflagration far worse than WW2.
We are completely, totally fucked in the extreme. Lincoln’s Second American Republic is fucking doomed one way or another. The thing that Traditionalists believe will happen — that they will get all the goodies of white Christian minority rule without the downside of autocracy — simply isn’t going to happen.
In the end, loudmouth cranks like me are going to have our heads bashed in by ICE at the direction of the autocrat or we’re going to become one of millions of domestic political refugees who find succor in a Blue State or in, I dunno, Canada.
You have until about 2024 to get your affairs in order. I suggest you do so.
While I’m really digging Barbara F Walter’s book, “How Civil War’s Start,” there are two major assessments on her part that I disagree with. One is she focuses on the MAGA New Right and it’s radicalization as the source of a potential civil war. She’s really invested in the idea that it will be the MAGA New Right that starts some sort of rolling political violence in the coming years.
Sorry, lady, but I have to call bullshit on that.
The MAGA New Right is ascendant in the United States. They have no reason to start a civil war. Yes, they’re full of rage and feel politically disenfranchised, but they’re going to win both the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election (even if they have to brazenly steal it), so it makes no sense for it to the MAGA New Right that starts a civil war.
But it WOULD make a lot of sense for, say, California to get fed up with the MAGA New Right bullshit in 2024 – 2025 and attempt to leave Union. And it’s within the realm of possibility that this could cause the U.S. Military to buckle as well as other Blue States follow California out the door.
So, it’s the center-Left we have to worry about when thinking about a Second American Civil War, not the MAGA New Right. But I don’t know things will get that far. The American center-Left is so weak, so fractious that it’s possible that we’ll slip peacefully into a MAGA New Right autocracy at some point in 2025 and that will be that.
Instead of a civil war, hundreds of thousands of center-Left Americans will vote with their feet and flee for Canada and beyond. This, at the moment, seems far more likely than any type of civil war. I tell my Traditionalists relatives about this scenario and they just get mad that I suggest that the MAGA New Right isn’t as economically productive as the center-Left, totally ignoring how this process might hurt the nation in general.
I don’t feel like walking across the house to look up the exact definition in Barbara F. Walter’s book about how civil wars start, but it is clear to me that the United States meets yet another metric of a country heading towards a civil war: a superfaction exists.
And it’s the MAGA New Right.
What makes the MAGA New Right as superfaction so dangerous it’s also a fascist party. But remember, the MAGA New Right superfaction is ascendant. The path is clear for it to take power first later this year as part of the 2022 midterms and then even more so in 2024. It has such momentum that it could win both elections fair and square.
But the MAGA New Right hates democracy so much that they could very well lie and cheat to win, which would, unto itself, cause a revolt on the part of the center-Left at the state level. And that would start a massive civil war.
And, yet, everything remains up in the air. It really could go either way. We could have a civil war or we could simply transition peacefully into an autocracy. But what won’t happen is we continue to muddle along like we have been. The moment of decision is fast upon us.
The decision will be existential and devastating, no matter which option we pick. Everyone will have to make a decision on a personal level and pick a side. There will be no one to tell you if you’ve picked the right side and no narrative or value around to help you.
All you’re going to have is what you believe in and what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world.
Reading Barbara F. Walter’s book about how civil wars start, it definitely seems as though she’s convinced that if the United States has a civil war it will be the center-Right that starts it.
She hasn’t come out and said it so far, but from everything about the wink-wink nature of the book indicates that she’s pointing a finger at white Christian Traditionalists.
I have to politely disagree with this assessment.
She’s being short-sighted. I say this because I believe any civil war that may happen in the United States will happen for tactical reasons in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. It will be the center-Left that is pushed to the breaking point around then, not the center-Right. The center-Right is ascendant and well on its way to sucker punching the center-Left to the point that any civil war that happens in the United States will focused around not race, or economics but the more abstract notion of, “Is the United States a democracy or a Constitutional Republic?”
I say this because that’s the sticking point that ends political debate between myself and my Traditionalists relatives. So, when the time comes in 2024 – 2025, the lines will be drawn between people who think Republicans have stymied the will of the people and those who think “the system worked” and, fuck you lib.
Not that I don’t think that the MAGA New Right might not start a civil war. But if they did, it would be at some point between now and 2024. The most obvious reason such a civil war would start would be some unexpected pressure on our already fragile political system — probably Trump shuffling off this mortal coil for some reason. The MAGA New Right so so primed to assume that the Deep State has it out for Trump that his untimely demise would be, unto itself, enough for them to take up arms and start a civil war like Ms. Walter believes may happen.
Otherwise, however, it is that existential issue of ‘What is the United States?” that will ultimately be the demise of the Second American Republic. The GQP already rants about how they want a “National Divorce,” not thinking about how messy it would be and inevitable lead to violence that would include WMD.
So, should Republicans brazenly steal the 2024 either through Steve Bannon’s “administrative coup” or by playing the Constitution itself like xylophone, the two sides will both believe they have a legitimate claim to the presidency, which will cause Blue States to begin to leave the Union.
If the brazen theft of the 2024 election doesn’t cause Blue States to leave the Union, then we transition peacefully from an anocracy to an autocracy. Though, I believe there is a really good chance that in the biggest irony of all, Republicans could win the 2024 election fair and square, only to blow it all because they cheat.
So, we would be in a position where a civil war starts because the Republicans cheat, even though in hindsight it’s obvious they would have won anyway.
I’ve come to believe that because of a lack of Blue leadership, the United States is going to peacefully transition from anocracy into a full-fledged autocratic white Christian minority rule of blood and soil. Traditionalists’ only red line is personal, so lulz, that’s it.
And, yet, as I keep saying, I do find myself vacillating widely between believing autocracy is our most obvious endgame to believe civil war is. But, for the moment, autocracy seems the most logical outcome because there just isn’t enough Blue leadership to organize any serious political opposition against the rise of autocracy in the United States.
But I also keep saying that the ultimate endgame of the American Second Republic will probably be decided by tactical events in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. Things I can’t predict.
And the key thing I can’t predict is California’s reaction to the United States becoming an autocracy. The Bear State Republic is the one Blue State with the means, motive and opportunity to bounce out of the Union at some point in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. If they just shrug, then we peacefully become an autocracy.
If, however, they bounce, then we have a civil war. I guess it’s possible that the autocrat will be so happy to get rid of the liberal-progressives of California that they will let “wayward sister, part in peace.” But California has a huge economy and it’s just as possible that the new autocrat in Washington D.C. will try to rope them back into the Union.
That, in turn, could cause states from New York to Illinois to step up and leave the Union as well. This is the point when things get murky. This is the point where there is no obvious endgame this far out from the actual events. Does the whole country just collapse, or do the two sides start to bomb each other into the Stone Age with seized WMD?
This is something I just don’t know. So, we have something of a spectrum, ranging from peaceful transition into autocracy on one end to bombing ourselves into the Stone Age on the other.
Where things will actually fall remains something of a mystery for the next few years. Good luck.
You must be logged in to post a comment.