by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Barring some spectacular and unforeseen event between now and January, Trump is going to steal the 2020 election in a rather brazen fashion. It will be so brazen, in fact, that the press simply won’t know how to process it. They will “both sides” the whole thing to such an extent that their actual coverage will be meaningless.
All that will matter is Trump gets a second term and that’s that.
The truly tragic thing about this clusterfuck is we’re going into it with our eyes wide open. I know way too many fucking MAGA fascists and they all look forward eagerly for what I would consider a nightmare. And, really, I suspect they’re going to be quite content when Trump turns the United States into an autocratic one party state.
That is, of course, until it gets personal. That’s when they’re going to whine and whine about whatever happened. Or maybe they won’t. Maybe by that point they will have such a vested interest in Trump’s tyranny they’ll simply be Trump’s Willing Executioners.
The point of all of this is liberal democracy in the United States died when Trump was acquitted by the Senate. Yes, Trump’s astonishingly horrific handling of the COVID19 pandemic for a moment put his political fate in doubt, but that’s long over. Not only have his poll numbers stabilized, but he’s actively working to make it as difficult to vote during this pandemic as possible.
It’s because of this that Trump “winning” a second term is a foregone conclusion at this point. Just like we were deluding ourselves to think there was a chance he would be convicted by the Senate, so, too, are we deluding ourselves to think Trump isn’t going to get a second term, one way or another.
I’m trying to personally come to grips with how bad Trump’s second term is going to be. Once you slice the seal on tyranny, there’s no way to put it back in the bottle. In 2021, Trump is going to purge all TV of anyone he disagrees with and then begin to rant about how badly we need a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.”
Once the Constitutional Convention is convened — because it is made up of mostly MAGA people selected by state legislatures — it will go rogue (with a lot of egging from Trump) and pass a slew of American Enabling Acts that will make the United States little more than Trumplandia.
I have to begin to come to grips with the cold, hard truth that no one is going to save us. No scandal is going to “bring down” House Trump. And, really, the only thing that might causes a little bit of a hiccup for Trump’s final consolidation of power is, well, Trump himself. He’s not only an insane moron, he’s also criminally incompetent. And a well-known self-own artist.
So, anything is possible.
But I have to begin to accept that at some point in Trump’s second term things are going to get really personal for me. Like, REALLY PERSONAL. I’m either goig to be snatched off the street and crammed into a ICE camp, or I’m simply going to be pushed out a window.
I have to come to grips with that fate.
