Tag: Stochastic Terrorism

We Have To Take Trump’s Continued Stochastic Terrorism Seriously

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is a curious historic figure because he’s so stupid that he can’t even put enough brain cells together to do the most basic of sneaky tyrannical things when given his first opportunity, while at the same time is wily enough to destroy everything whenever he gets a second chance.


So the latest thing that Trump has done is to yet again dip into the stochastic terrorism well. We have to take this seriously because he knows exactly what he’s doing — putting the idea of a “bloodbath” into the mind of his supporters if he doesn’t win later this year.

This is something I have been talking and writing about over and over and over again. We have to worry about Trump causing a civil war if he wins OR if he loses. He’s such a weird, divisive figure in our political history that just by existing — and acting as the avatar for the MAGA fascist movement that he is very, very destabilizing.

It all boils down to one issue — if we’re pushed to the bring, are we going to stop yelling at each other and start to…shoot at each other? I really don’t want any political violence of any sort, but I am very, very worried.

My Bad — We May Be About To Have A MAGA ‘Popular Revolt’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are beginning to move fast now. So fast, in fact, that I’m beginning to worry that my otherwise well thought out and logical belief that if we have a Second American Civil War that it will happen in 2024 -2025 when Blue States leave the Union after the theft of the 2024 presidential election.

And, yet, here we are in 2022 and the specter of Reds starting a civil war (or “popular” revolt?) is growing more and more real.

I’m just about to believe I was wrong. But something happened that I could never have predicted — the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. If there is the kind of right-wing “Troubles” type civil war that people like Barbara F. Walter have written about it will happen because Trump, feeling trapped, goes transactional and demands his followers begin to blow shit up.

Then there could be a significant rise in political violence in the United States, especially stochastic terrorism. There would be a reason for all that violence that didn’t exist before, when I thought it wouldn’t happen — an concerted effort to intemidate the Federal government in an effort to protect Trump from criminal accountability.

That’s what I couldn’t predict when I came up with all my 2024, 2025 Blue States start a civil war predictions — Trump, on a personal basis, would finally be held accountable and that would give the very well armed MAGA New Right an excuse to initiate significant political violence well ahead of the 2024 election cycle.

But it hasn’t happened yet. And it may never.

And, yet, all that would have to happen is Trump feel so cornered that he went transactional. He’s already done it one, to some extent with January 6th and we’re already beginning to see signs that we’re lurching in that direction now. But it hasn’t happened yet.

And hopefully, it won’t.

American Anocracy In The Prelude To Stochastic Terrorism

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I fear that our anocracy has officially entered its “Stochastic Terrorism” phase. Such violence is when a powerful group in your society goes after another group so much and so publicly that it’s inevitable that someone, somewhere is going to hurt them. Think violence against Jews right before the Nazis actually had the levers of state at their disposal.

So, it seems pretty clear to me that at any moment we’re going to have a significant uptick in political violence. But not just general political violence, violence directed at trans people. Or Jews. Or pick a group that the MAGA New Right doesn’t like. And it could be that they go after FBI agents and judges.

But the point is — our anocracy is growing ever more unstable. And as I keep saying, it’s all going to come to a head in late 2024, early 2025. We’re either going to have a civil war at that point, or we’re going to become an autocracy. At the moment, I honestly don’t know which direction we’re going to go.

Stay tuned.