by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I am extremely reluctant to suggest an actual civil war may happen in the United States over the 2020 election. I’ve long thought it would be more of a situation of rolling political violence than an actual civil war. But, sadly, I’m coming to believe that the results of the 2020 election will be so contested, so up for different interpretations that there will, in fact, be a civil war.
Before we get to that point, let’s look at how a civil war would be the absolute worst case scenario for House Trump. The reason is, House Trump has a lot — AT LOT — of other options at their disposal. They come in phases.
Phase One
This phase involves brazen ratfucking of the democratic process that, on the face of it, will work exceptionally well. It will happen in the lead up to the November election. Trump is already slowing down the mail. And it’s generally assumed that the bullshit Durham investigation is going to indict if not Biden himself, a whole slew of people from the Obama Administration who are so close to Biden as to greatly reduce this chances of winning. As such, it’s very easy to imagine Trump does “win” the election with minimal effort. He loses California by 5 million votes and wins Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida by about the same margin as he did in 2016. Also in this phase would be the Russians hacking directly into our election systems in such a way as to pad Trump’s victory in swing states by just enough to give him the legitimacy he craves.
Phase Two
It is far less likely that Trump will even have to get to this phase, but it’s possible. Phase Two would only happen if he obviously loses the Electoral College. In this phase, he sues any and everyone in his path. He demands that the legislatures of swing states not validate the vote. Anything that is an hindrance to his victory he sues into oblivion. In this phase, his goal is to simply cause enough doubt in the eyes of the public that should he lose, he can always claim he really won. This opens up a lot of options as things progress. He knows that SCOTUS probably has his back and, as such, he can make sure that his Electors are certified when the time comes and he “wins.” Remember, the country is both extremely divided, the center-Left is extremely ineffectual and generally everyone is too apathetic to do anything. And, like any autocrat, all Trump cares about is power, so fuck you. He just doesn’t care about anything but power and greed. That’s it. As long he has power, you can complain on social media all you want, it just doesn’t matter.
Phase Three
I really, really don’t expect it to go this far. House Trump simply has too many tricks up its sleeves. And, yet, if somehow Trump STILL faces losing the election, Trump is simply going to throw down the gauntlet. He’s going to break the final taboo — the peaceful transition of power. There are too many variables for me to be able to predict anything specific, but something like Trump directly calls for a popular revolt by MAGA that then prompts the U.S. Military to step in is at least within the realm of possibility. Or it could be the other way — Trump is so extremely ham-handed in his theft of the 2020 Election that it’s the 60% of the electorate that hates his guts that rises up and then the military really faces a conundrum — if Trump is “legally” president, but only through a lack of a free and fair election, what do they do? And that would be how we would have an actual civil war. That’s how the country simply implodes and a lot of people lose their lives unnecessarily. How long this civil war would last would be another issue. I struggle to imagine states leaving the Union like after the election of 1860, but it is possible martial law might be declared and Trump would simply rule by decree.
The issue is, House Trump has the full support of the fascist Republican Party and, as such, it makes a lot of sense that in the end they would be willing to follow Trump into a direct fascist dictatorship. Once they consolidated power, there really wouldn’t be any restraints on House Trump. There might be a lot of happytalk about how there would be elections “later on,” but before that could happen House Trump would call up a Constitutional Convention that would, at last, codify their control over the country.
Then Trump’s dystopian nightmare vision of America would become a reality. Mass arrests. People being pushed out of windows. Trump have Putin-levels of control over the government and society. This, of course, on a macro level is going to happen one way or another very, very soon. But people keep thinking it will be Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo who does it 10 years from now. It could very well be Trump himself, with significant assistance from Interior Minister Bill Barr.
And, as such, unless a lot of people are willing to back up their smack talk on social media in the real world that will involve real world risks, House Trump will be around for decades to come. I’m thinking at least 20, maybe 40 or more. I guess the United States had to end sometime. I just never thought it would end in my lifetime.
