by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
On a basic political level, we have to accept that Trump is going to be acquitted by the Senate. He will grow even more brazen between then and the 2020 election. It will not be a free-and-fair election. And, really, the only things that will stop him from going full fascist will be his own criminal incompetence.
But that’s not even really an issue because he just has to get into his second term. Once that’s happened, even if he finally goes batshit insane, whatever young, passionate fascist he picks to replace Pence will establish The Thousand Year Trump and for at least the next 20 to 30 years American Carnage will turn America into the Far Right’s dream. Plutocrats will run the country even more than they already do. ICE Camps will be weaponized and people such as myself will be “disappeared.” Any hope that we have of returning to the America I grew up in will have to wait until the youngest of the Baby Boomers die off and the Browning of America kicks in. Even then, the fascist state could linger for decades until a Nelson Mandela type figure arises that rights the ship of state, at last.
If you see this worst case scenario as your best case scenario, please, on a personal level fuck off. Eat shit. Fuck you and the horse you road in on.
The issue is, everyone has to drop the facade about what’s going no. Republicans are not dealing in good faith in any way. They live in abject terror of Trump’s Twitter feed. There are systemic, structural problems at the heart of our government (and at least one) of our major political parties. These issues are not going to be fixed anytime soon, no matter what happens. It doesn’t help that the press is apparently completely oblivious to what’s going on and continue to believe that Republicans are acting in good faith, when in, fact, it’s quite obvious they aren’t and haven’t been for some time. They crave power for power’s sake. They have an absolute lust for money. There’s no stopping them in this quest for at least the next 20 years. Even if they lose in the short term, they will win in the long term.
Having said all that, it’s rather tragic that the only scenarios I can think of whereby we don’t turn into a Russian-style “managed democracy” the moment after Trump is acquitted in the Senate all involve some pretty batshit insane — and in real terms, unpredictable and unwanted — events.
I mean, I don’t really want Trump to snap mentally in a very public manner. I certainly don’t him to go transactional with his Twitter feed to such an extent that people start to get hurt.
I’m just noting in passing that some combination of those two are the only weaknesses to the 40 year plan on the part of the Republicans to burn our democracy to the ground and turn us into a plutocracy based on a “blood and soil.”
As I’ve said before, I can’t predict the future. Usually, things are far more muddled than one can predict. And the impeachment process may be no different. And, yet, I’ve also long said that whatever the outcome of this clusterfuck, we’ll be in a new era.
