by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Using all metrics but one, the United States is about as stable a nation as they come. We have no history of significant political violence. We generally are rather complacent, even under duress. All in all, but for one metric, we’re in pretty good shape.
But then there’s the rot associate with our political system.
Our political system has pretty much ground to a halt. Republicans have embraced minority rule. The center-Left, meanwhile, while extremely divided, has become united for the moment around Joe Biden. With truely dumb speed-confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, Republicans definitely give one the impression of finally casing aside any concerns about liberal democracy.
So, under such conditions, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where even if Biden wins in a landslide, TrumpBarr simply refuses to acknowledge it. They challenge every possible aspect of it, knowing they will always win at SCOTUS. Or, they could concede defeat, only to be such massive dickheads because they don’t have any accountability that that, in itself, causes the country to implode.
It’s easy to imagine a situation where Trump, fearing his own possible indictment after he leaves office, fires the current head of the FBI and names Rudy on an interim basis. Rudy frogwalks Biden and TrumpBarr uses it as a negotiating tactic to escape any accountability after he is physically removed from office by Federal marshalls.
I could also imagine a situation where he rather dramatically begins to saber rattle with the DPRK or Iran. Something, anything, that would give him the cover necessary to take “total control” and either not leave office or only leave office with some pretty significant concessions.
Now, as I keep saying, the about Trump is he’s so unstable that you just don’t know. You look at his past behavior — and his repeated statements in the last few days — and you very well come up with a pretty dark scenario. So dark, in fact, that not even a demostrable Biden landslide would be enough to prevent him from causing a civil war.
But is it even within the realm of possibility that an actual “civil war” would take place?
I honestly don’t know. It pretty much boils down to Trump himself. The entire fate of the United States at this point rests on Trump’s personal decision. He could very well lose and be such a monster on his way out that there’s massive political violence, which he uses to take “total control” and that’s how he stays in power.
That, in itself, would escalate the whole clusterfuck and the Russians get the Second American Civil War they want so badly. I keep thinking about any type of second civil war or second revolution and for the moment I have a lot of difficulty imagining how such worse case scenarios would occur.
But let me be clear — The Big Ugly, as I call such things — would not be “cool” it would not be “fun.” It would really, really suck. It would be a tragedy and we would all regret that it happened.
Let’s hope it doesn’t.
