Tag: The Fourth Turning

Second American Civil War: A State By State Breakdown


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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.

A Lazy Review Of ‘The Fourth Turning’ In The Context Of The Impending 2024 Catastrophe


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Enjoy this bit of quiet we have in America right now. All signs point towards “the fourth turning” happening “no later than 2025.” That’s what I think and that’s what the 90s book, “The Fourth Turning” suggests as well.

I bought the book because Business Insider said it was Steve Bannon’s favorite (or some such) and I was curious to see what that greasy motherfucker would like it so much.

Having read the book, my chief take away is they padded a third of it by doing a “We Didn’t Start The Fire” listing of every major historical event of each “turning.” I suppose they think that was suppose to support their thesis, but I just found it boring and gratuitous. I knew everything they listed and did not need a refresher on them. Instead of going through every major historical event of the last 80s years they could have give me more analysis about their over arching conceit.

The other take away I got was the book reads way too much like the other “male astrology” of evolutionary psychology. It seemed a little too spot on at times and there was one event that they couldn’t fit into their “reveled truth” of “turnings” — the civil war.

But I will give them this — they definitely are on track to predicting the 2024 catastrophe that I have come to believe is now inevitable. So, to that extent, the book is kind of spooky. That a book written in the late 90s could get a disaster in 2024 so right is pretty good. And they said 2005 would be a big year. What they didn’t know what it wasn’t 2005 it was 2008 and the election of Obama that would set things off.

So, again, that’s pretty good.

One thing I want to make clear — history has already decided that we can no longer keep punting the political crisis the United States is in right now down the road forever. We just got VERY LUCKY in 2020 for a number of historical reasons that no one could have predicted.

We won’t be as lucky again.

Georgia As Setup For America’s 2024 Catastrophe


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s growing clear that our choice in 2024 will be quite stark. The move to restrict voting rights in Georgia indicates that the setup is being established for Republicans to finally, finally get their macro wish — to make it so difficult to vote that people finally give up and let them run roughshod over our undead liberal democracy.

This is where you never can tell.

On one hand, it’s possible that now that the passions of the Trump Era are easing that voters will get sucker punched in 2024 and they will either lulz it and let Republicans rape our republic or they will grow enraged and, well..dun dun dun there’s a civil war.

This setup will grow even more obvious the moment Republicans take control of Congress again. It’s going to suck so bad. The one-two punch of severe voter restrictions and a Congress controlled by fascists pretty much means the end of our liberal democracy is here…unless there’s a civil war and solve our systemic problems that way.

And, don’t forget, either way — autocracy or civil war — there’s a good chance that the entire world order will be re-arranged. No matter how much fucking MAGA cocksuckers may want us to think otherwise — America is the indispensable nation and we’re the glue that keeps the world together. Take us out of the equation and…oh boy. I would estimate within a year of us “bringing the boys home” nearly half a billion people could be vaporized. Indian and Pakistan are always one misstep away from blowing each other to hell. Take the US out of world affairs and that particular disaster is almost a foregone conclusion.

As I keep saying, the issue is — enjoy this quiet before the storm. These two years before Congress flips may be the most quiet we get for the rest of the decade.

The Second American Civil War & Race


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue of race is the crux of what good old boys drinking a Michelob Light at a bar someone in the South getting a boner about a Second Civil War are oblivious to. Once you leave the realm of politics and enter the realm of war, then the dynamics change significantly.

It’s easy for a Southern state legislature to screw over African American voting rights and to increase their power. It’s not so easy for a would-be secessionist Southern state to deal with the entire African American community fucking shit up because they don’t want to leave the Union.

Let that sink in for a moment.

This is why I struggle to understand why the idea of a Second American Civil War is so fucking appealing to fucking redneck racist cucksuckers. They just aren’t thinking the abstract of this particular situation through very well. So, yeah, it’s really easy to see the lily-white states of Montana, North and South Dakota, etc, getting pretty far with any ideas of leaving the Union so they can avoid being canceled.

But the place where this new CSA would get its actual population, where it would get its ability to be a viable nation — the South — would descend into a race war extremely quickly the moment any secessionist crisis began in earnest. So, you would have a situation where a number of states in the Mountain area would “leave” the Union only to be crushed and the South that would be, uhhh, “indisposed” as African Americans burned it to the ground because they refuse to be slaves again.

The African American community in the South is just too big and too big a portion of the overall population for it to be ignored in any serious attempt at secession on the part of Southern states. I can even tell you how the US government could “incentivize” that community to fuck shit up — tell them they will get reoperations for slavery if they do so and the Union successfully wins the war.

This is not to say there aren’t plenty of scenarios where this particular issue can be at least mitigated, but it has to be factored in no matter what. As such, any real Second American Civil War would likely be far messier and bloody than the Good Old Boys whistling Dixie may think. If you throw in stolen WMD along with an honest-to-God race war in the South then it grows more and more obvious that maybe we shouldn’t have a civil war.

And, what’s more, all fucking cocksucker rednecks in the South have to do is just fucking be patient and they get what they want — a white Christian ethno state. If they just play by the rules and be patient, then they can crush what remains of our liberal democracy peacefully and I get pushed out a window by an ICE agent some time post 2025 because I will not, can not shut up.

The only thing I can compare modern America to is Europe right before World War I when everyone lulzed the idea of a major war. In fact, everyone wanted such a war for various reasons.

So, in the end, if we don’t turn into an autocracy, we’re probably going to nuke ourselves out of existence because…cancel culture?

‘The Fourth Turning’ Predicts A Major Political Crisis ‘Before 2025’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The spooky thing about the book The Fourth Turning is there is a specific prediction that aligns perfectly with my own thoughts on America’s fate — we’re going to have a severe political crisis of some sort in late 2024 after the presidential election.

Or, put another way, we will have a severe political crisis (second civil war) if the would-be autocrat that Republicans nominate isn’t able to cleanly steal the election and turn us into an autocracy that lasts at least 50 or more years. That specific prediction is enough for me to think the guys involved know what they’re talking about.

One key take away from the big so far right now is the cycle of human history is somewhere between 80 to 130 years. I’ve been toying with a similar idea — that we’ve reached an era where the last people to remember WW2 are dying off and, as such, the idea of the United States as the “essential nation” is being lost as the primary driver of American foreign policy.

As such, we see the rise of MAGA and the idea of Fortress America. If you twin that with the idea that the choice in 2024 is between civil war or autocracy, then The Fourth Turning‘s prediction that “before 2025” all hell is going to break loose jibes up pretty well with that.

We have to begin to prepare for a cataclysmic break with the past in the winter of 2024-2025. If we become an autocracy that pulls all out all our troops from around the world, then I could see WW3 happening at any point after 2025. For me, the issue is the next autocrat is probably going to be a lot less incompetent than Trump and, well, should we not have a civil war, our decent into autocracy will be swift and breathtaking.

All my dystopian hellscape nightmares that I imagined for the Trump Era will just happen four years later.