by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I hate to sound so dark and dystopian. I wish I could give you “hope” that somehow, some way House Trump will be defeated in the fall and we can go back to “normal.” Sadly, there’s no metric I can point to that suggests that. Everything points to a spectrum of autocratic rule.
On one end, House Trump “wins” reasonably easily. If that’s the case, then we will continue or gradual drift towards an autocratic managed democracy. We’ll look back, rightly, at Trump’s acquittal by the Senate as the end of the First Republic. On the other end of the spectrum there’s a civil war of some sort. The more difficult it is for House Trump and its enablers to maintain power, the more radical they will become for no other reason than they’ll be desperate and won’t care what they have to break to keep power.
I continue to talk to liberals who are completely delusional about all of this. They scoff that Trump has it in him to do anything so drastic. What they miss is while Trump is a criminally incompetent autocrat, he’s still an autocrat that has a personality cult to back him up and absolutely no institution with the power to check his craven need to protect his own hide.
We have to begin to think about some pretty basic concepts about what it means to be American. Just like how the Roman Empire gradually declined and then fell really, really fast, so, too, will the First Republic go. Americans are simply too divided and / or apathetic to do anything, in real terms, about House Trump. The logic necessary for House Trump and MAGA to run roughshod over the Constitution in an effort to stay in power is already there.
As such, there’s going to come a point when the milquetoast “resistance” on social media is going to be faced with some very real world decisions. I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas, but I’m absolutely never fucking shutting up about the tyranny of House Trump. If that means I get snatched off the street or pushed out a window by ICE or Little Green Men, so be it.
The cold, hard reality that America is now nothing more than a fascist state does give one pause for thought. The simple act of not shutting up, no matter what, about House Trump’s tyranny will soon enough be a radical act. The whole thing is rather unexpectedly existential. I mean, all I want to do is exercise my 1st Amendment right to free speech.
Once House Trump purges the media of all the “fake news,” then lulz, I’m going to be in serious, serious trouble. How is anyone going to know that people are being pushed out of windows if there’s no press to report it?
I keep thinking about the original “V” miniseries about lizard people aliens taking over the world. There was an old woman who fought back in her own personal way as it became clear who the “visitors” really were. And, I guess that’s my fate if the worst happens. I’ll figure out some way to do my part to help whatever meager “resistance” there may be to the tyranny of House Trump in the coming years.
It will definitely be interesting to see how, exactly, things shake out. I guess in the end there will be some sort of alliance with Russia as the United States pulls out of NATO. That will be interesting.
But, if anything, I’m a survivor.
