December 2020 – Page 7 – The Trumplandia Report

Let’s Talk ‘#Texit’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I know it’s “fun” for Red States to talk secession, it all seems rather dumb to me. Not only are Blue States better positioned to win a Second Civil war because they have bigger populations in smaller areas, have bigger economies and better educated people, the whole issue of race makes secession pretty difficult to imagine.

But right now, it’s “Texit” that seems to have caught the popular imagination among some ding-dongs. Let’s look at it.

For me, Texit isn’t viable for a whole slew of reasons. One is, if you wanted to pass it via a popular vote, there are too many patriots and moderates (and liberals!) in Texas for it to come anywhere near passing. And, as I mentioned, the issue of race makes Texit a pipe dream. I just can’t see black people rolling over and letting a fundamentally racist endeavor take place.

So, for Texit to happen, it would have to happen in the context of a broader secession crisis. Some sort of “political 9/11” would have to happen to so enrage Red State governments that they don’t have a popular vote, but rather snap Secession Conventions. There’s a huge swath of states in the middle of the lower 48 that could easily leave the Union under such conditions. And there best bet would be some sort of negotiated, peaceful departure.

Sadly, for them, I just don’t see that happening.

I just can’t imagine the Biden Administration lulzing 17 states or so leaving the Union. There will be blood, as they say. And the states in question are generally so small in population that the U.S. Military would make swift work of them.

And here’s where Texit comes into play.

As a member of the old CSA, a lot of good old boy Texans would go nuts in the passion of the crisis and demand Texas join its “wayward sisters.” It seems to me that rather than leaving the Union, Texas, itself, would implode. It would have its OWN civil war as the Red and Blue communities within it went at it.

So, in the end, Texas wouldn’t be much good to any new Trumplanian Republic because it would be too busy having its own civil war to join in.

And, let me stress this again — I’m from the South and the “Lost Cause” mythos is everywhere here. But the African American community simply isn’t going to allow a new CSA to be born. If MAGA cocksuckers in the old CSA tried to link up with the lily white Trumplandia states in the center of the country, there would likely be a race war.

Or, at least it would get very, very messy.

States like Virginia, Florida…and Texas would implode because of their internal political divisions.

The issue right now is, America is very fragile politically. If there is no catalyst, then it’s possible we’ll just drift in neutral for two years until Republicans win the House and turn around and impeach Biden for Hunter Biden’s laptop or something.

Something pretty big would have to happen at this point to change that future. Hopefully, nothing will.

Second American Civil War: A Secession Crisis Scenario

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love scenarios. In fact, that’s pretty much how I spend all my mental free time — thinking up elaborate scenarios and then playing them through in my mind. So, let’s think about what a secession crisis in modern America would look like. Hopefully, we’ll never have to find out how close I get.

The reason why this scenario is so difficult to game out right now is I can’t figure out if it will be Blue States leaving or Red States leaving. It really depends on Trump at this point.

He pretty much has the fate of not just the United States, but all of humanity in his tiny, tiny hands — without even really realizing it. The moment he decides to take “total control” or he takes up the cause of Red States leaving the Union as we grow closer to January 20th, the closer we grow to a secession crisis that would cause the country to implode.

If the United States imploded at this point — 2020 would be up there with 1453, 1789 and 1940 as seminal turning points in human history. But, let’s run the scenario with the assumption that it’s Red states, not Blue states that decide to leave the Union.

First, there would have to be some sort of catalyst. It could be anything. From Trump “joking” on Twitter that Red states should leave the Union to a major Red (or Blue) state figure being murdered or even just some sort of abrupt, sudden and unexpected event that causes Red States to decide they can’t abide by liberal-progressive cancel culture anymore. (Ugh.)

If there was a secession crisis, it would happen really fast. Like, all at once. at least 17 Red States would likely leave the Union in one fell swoop in snap Conventions. That would create a lot of momentum for other Red states to pick a side.

Now, here’s where things get tricky for would be Neo-Confederates. While it’s pretty easy for the lily white central Red states to bounce, when, say South Carolina, or Alabama, or Tennessee — or, even, for that matter Texas — get it in their head to leave the Union the African American community in these states will flip the fuck out.

So, it would likely go something like this — a huge swath of states in the sparsely populated central part of the lower 48 would leave cleanly. This would prompt the good old boys in the South to get REALLY EXCITED and see visions of the South “rising again.” And then…they hit a political brick wall: black people.

As such, the South would be the first place where the passions of a modern day secession crisis would explode into massive violence — maybe even a race war. Some states, like Florida and Virginia (and maybe even Texas) wouldn’t survive. (At least in my opinion.) They would implode. Virginia into Red rural counties and Blue urban areas, Florida into the panhandle, the middle peninsula and the south and Texas would probably just have its own internal civil war as communities with mixed Red and Blue exploded into violence.

Around this same time, the domestic political refugees would begin to bounce around the imploding Union at an alarming rate. There’s even a possibility that the U.S. Military itself would implode into Red and Blue at this point. And passions would get so whipped up that some pretty astonishing things would happen, like New York City declare itself a free state or something.

This would all happen really, really fast. No more than two weeks total. Here’s another point where I just can’t figure out things — would all of this happen in, say, early January when Trump finally snaps at the prospect of going to prison in New York State, or does it happen closer to January 20th?

Or does it not happen at all?

As I’ve written before, while all the conditions for all of this exist, Trump, to date, has proven himself all talk. It’s gotten to the point where it’s somewhat eerie. I hate the idea of any type of violence at all, and even I am astonished Trump hasn’t taken the final steps necessary to destroy the country.

There are some pretty huge wildcards. One, is suddenly strike by Iran either against Israel or somewhere domestically in the United States (or both.) Or the DPRK might rattle its saber just enough to give Trump an excuse to start a major regional war so he can simply use that as a distraction to stay in power. (Though I doubt that gambit would work.)

But remember, if the United States implodes, the entire post-WW2 liberal order implodes, too, and well, World War 3 starts as a number of regional wars break out. If you throw in a series of limited nuclear exchanges, as many as 1 billion people might die because white working class men in Red States can’t afford to get married and have kids.

I’m wrong all the time. I hope I’m wrong this time, too.

The Phony Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are very surreal right now. The reason — what should have happened after the election, hasn’t happened yet. What SHOULD have happened, given the metrics of the moment is a Second American Civil War.

Trump SHOULD have struck in some way before the race was called, Blue States SHOULD have reacted violently, Trump SHOULD have used the Insurrection Act and then the United States SHOULD have imploded into a full blown civil war.

But, thankfully, that’s not at all what happened.

It feels like everyone has put their affairs in order for a civil war….and nothing has happened. So, in a sense, many of us are kind of looking around in a daze, wondering why we still have lights and ready access to food. Everything is there, right now, for a violent civil war in the United States and yet the country continues to miraculously run on fumes.

So, in a sense, America is extremely lucky — to date — because the specific person who would otherwise destroy the United States, Donald John Fucking Trunp — is such a lazy opportunist that he just hasn’t done what many, many, many people in the Republican Party are begging him to do — take “total control.”

It’s a very surreal situation.

So, either something unexpected happens pretty quick, or we simply punt this problem down the road a few years. The traitors who hate America — the Republican Party — will continue to be a cancer on our politics, but not enough to start any violence. Until, of course, something changes and what SHOULD have happened in the Winter of 2020 finally happens.

But we’re not out of the woods yet.

America is on edge and pretty much all it will take is something, anything that puts a little bit of extra pressure on our political system and the rolling political violence that would be the first stage of the country’s implosion will happen.

But it could be the fall and winter of 2024 that that happens.

Just be thankful we apparently have managed to escape our destruction for the time being.

Second American Civil War: Could Trump Start It from Mar-a-Lago?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s talk that Trump will leave the White House for Christmas at Mar-a-Lago and…just never come back. This makes you wonder if he’s drifting towards stumbling into some sort of effort to destroy the United States by actively taking up arms against its government…while he’s still the government.

Can’t go to prison in NYS if it’s a foreign country.

I could see ding-dong wanting to hunker down in Mar-a-Lago because he would have a lot more ability to cause trouble there than at the White House. If he really wanted to destroy the USA — which I think he does — then once the Electors vote and his options at staying in power grow even more limited, he could go transactional on Twitter from Mar-a-Lago.

He could declare himself the president of Trumplandia — or whatever — and begin to rant that “real” America needs to leave the Union: all while still president of the USA. The more I think about it, the more this scenario makes a huge amount of sense, especially if you think that it would be done in the context of Trump both going insane and having an intense desire not to go to jail in NYS.

Can’t go to prison in NYS if NYS is no longer in the same country you are.

So, at the behest of Trump on Twitter, I could see Red States begin to leave the Union beginning between when the Electors vote and Jan. 20th. Trump would, at last, be number 1 in something — at being the worst president in US history.

But, let me be clear — to date, Trump has proven to be a very lazy opportunist. It’s a testament to what a ding-dong he is that I keep thinking up all these different ways he could fuck things up…and he doesn’t do anything. He hasn’t even, to date, fired Bill Barr.

Which, if he was some sort of autocrat, he would have done a long time ago. He might very well still do it, but every day he doesn’t Trump’s ability to fuck things up thankfully dwindles.

We’ll know soon enough, I guess. Time is running out for House Trump.

Debunking The ‘God Old Boy Revolution’ Narrative

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I get the sense that across much of “Red America” — especially the South — there’s a lot of talk of a conservative revolution against liberal-progressive woke cancel culture. They get all worked up then search for talk of a Second American Revolution and end up at this blog.

Let’s break this down.

First, I can’t think of one conservative revolution. The closest I can think of is the South seceding from the Union in 1860-1861. But that was a counter-revolution (in a sense) and more of a semi-nationalist movement formed from slave power hating Lincoln.

I suppose the thinking is — we have all these guns, why not use them to prevent Biden from taking office? Or something. There are so many problems with this line of thought. One, such a Good Old Boy Revolution would need a catalyst and would likely be more done in the context of a general secession crisis than any sort of real “revolution.”

Or, put another way, the Good Old Boy Revolution would come in the form of some sort of Trumplandia draft in preperation for war against the USA than an actual “revolution.”

Also — the person who would be the leader of the Good Old Boy Revolution is Trump and he’s just an empty suit. A ding-dong. A useful idiot for the Russians. You would need sort of a Good Old Boy Man on a Horse for any revolution to begin, much less be successful.

But, I guess, in real terms, all the talk of a Good Old Boy Revolution is more frustration that Trump hasn’t taken “total control” yet. They want Trump to do something, anything, to stay in power and, to date, he really hasn’t done much in real terms other than shoot his mouth off on Twitter.

And, so, it’s possible that we’ll just drift the next few years politically until something happens that pushes the country over the edge into a hot civil war. Maybe it’ll, thankfully, never come. But we need to be aware it’s at least possible.

America’s Surreal, Pre-Second Civil War Politics

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep writing, all things being equal, rolling political violence should begin any moment now in the United States. Red people in Blue states and Blue people in Red states should flee their homes in search of safety. This would cause the two sides to grow more radical and their state governments to harden their views of states with opposing political views.

And, yet, to date, there is no real sign that this is going to happen. Not that it won’t, but there would have to be a catalyst. What’s more it would have to be something that caused people who obviously want a revolution or civil war — like all the people from South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama who keep looking at this blog — to take the next step and to actually start hurting people they disagree with politically.

It appears there’s a reason why, to date, we’ve escaped such a civil war — Trump is such an lazy opportunist that he simply doesn’t have the leadership skill to force the issue. That, and how the court system surprised us all by not playing along with MAGA’s attempted coup there.

But we’re not out of the woods yet, I’m afraid.

Between now and around April 2021, any number of random events could occur that would push us into civil war. Sorry Neo-Confederates, I just don’t see there being a right wing revolution. You might secede, but an actual Right Wing revolution based on a hatred of woke liberal-progressive cancel culture….just doesn’t seem within your ability to pull things off. You can have all the fucking guns you want, but you’re too busy sucking Trump’s cock to actually use them on anyone.

But I will give you the possibility of a secession crisis in the near future. And, yet, you would need leadership to pull that off. And the Dear Leader just isn’t up to it. If Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton was president right now, yes, but they’re not. We got a ding-dong as president who if he does manage to start a secession crisis it will be out of a weird mixture of spite and simple blundering into the situation by accident.

While the Proud Boys are scary, they’re not as organize or as popular as, say, the Brown or Black Shirts of the 1930s were. This could change extremely quickly, but, still, Trump is very lazy and very incompetent. He has autocratic impulses, but, to date, he just can’t follow through.

And thus we have this surreal situation where we all know a civil war may happen at any moment — like a real, honest-to-God shitshow civil war with millions dying — but because the one person who has the means, motive and opportunity to actually start it — Trump — is a lazy idiot…it’s not happening.

So, either gradually over the next few years some Man on a Horse bubbles up to the political surface and pushes us into civil war, or, well, we just kind of drift in neutral until something happens I can’t predict.

It could be that it won’t even be MAGA at all that pushes us into political violence, but it’s successor. My guess it will be some sort of radical neo-Ludditism caused by Elon Musk burning the trucking industry to the ground virtually over night.

The point is — the United States is extremely unstable right now. And it’s only going to get worse. So, it’s possible Trump leaves office peacefully and the actual civil war happens officially on Biden’s watch because something totally unexpected happens.

Why A Second American Civil War Hasn’t Started (Yet)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All things being equal, the United States is on the cusp of a hot civil war after a decade of a cold civil war. And, yet, to date, while it definitely feels like a civil war is about to happen, it has not, in fact happened. How come?

For a civil war to happen, Trump would have to finally bump up against in stark terms how Americans perceive themselves. To date, he’s simply been too much of a lazy opportunist to do something so brazen as to cause the country to implode.

And, yet, he is such a ding-dong that it’s easy to imagine a situation where as he grows more desperate to stay in office, he sort of stumbles to an act that people who voted for Biden simply can’t brook. But remember, we’re entering the Upside Down of American politics right now — if Trump doesn’t act pretty quick, he simply won’t be able to have any thin veneer of legality to lean on when he wants to use the Insurrection Act on people who oppose him.

Or, put another way, it’s growing close enough to January 20th that the U.S. Military might simply slow-walk any effort on Trump’s to take “total control.” In fact, he Trump doesn’t act by Monday when the Electors vote, the window of opportunity for him to do anything too brazen may, in fact, be closed. The American Military could easily simply ignore Trump if he went nuts on the grounds that now that the Electors have voted, they are even MORE reluctant to follow an order that might be seen, in hindsight as illegal, or at least bending the rules.

So, one could argue that if we’re going to have a Second American Civil War NOW, rather than, say, at some point in the next four years, it will happen because something really random and extraordinary happens. And, what’s more, Trump will be in the position of leading a rebellion. The moment Trump takes up arms against the Republic, then, well, that’s a pretty easy moral situation for the U.S. Military. MAGA Rebels –> BAD.

One thing that might happen is Trump and Pompeo finally manage to box Iran into a war with Israel, then they use THAT as an excuse for Trump to take “total control” while we’re all distracted. But even that is fraught with problems — the American Military, unlike the American public, can walk and chew gum and if Trump simply ignored the Constitution because we were fighting a major regional war against Iran (and maybe the DPRK, too?) they would simply depose him while it was going on.

Another reason why we haven’t had a hot civil war yet is while there has been plenty of hot air on the part of MAGA, they haven’t — to date — been willing to back it up. They would have to start blowing shit up pretty quick for it to make a difference. Though I could see, maybe, Biden’s first 100 days having significant political violence. And, yet, thankfully, MAGA-Qanon-Proud Boys have proven themselves to be just loud mouth punks.

That may change, it may not. Who knows.

It’s very possible that we’ll just drift in the Biden Administration peacefully with a sizable chunk of the Republican Party having a wait-and-see approach to if they want to destroy the United States or not.

The Dead Hand Of History: ‘A Do The Right Thing’ Ending For America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m often wrong. Like, all the time. But it definitely seems as though the Dead Hand of History is about to strike the United States at some point between now and, say, March 2021. The black goo of destruction is there, waiting to be used. All the conditions for a civil war or a revolution exist in the United States right now and it’s just a matter of some hot head somewhere flipping the switch.

Or, to put it another way — as I understand it, at the end of the movie Do The Right Thing, Mookie simply out of the blue throws a trashcan through a window, starting a riot. The same with the United States right now — something random could happen out of the blue and cause the United States to buckle in a rather spectacular fashion.

It will be a quantum leap beyond what happened with 9/11 because the center will not hold, as they say. Whatever it is, will cause political violence to roll across the country. Red people in Blue states and Blue people in Red states won’t feel safe anymore and they will flee their home. The two sides will, in turn, not only hard their political views, but grow more radical.

I could see Trump Tower — and FOX News — being seized and gutted in New York City and maybe even a Free State of NYC being established. Or something. Something whereby you have to risk your life and sacred honor specific on your political views — do you support Trump or Biden? You could die if you don’t answer correctly at the right time.

And, really, either the U.S. Military at last has to step in or even they won’t be able to do anything about it because the officers go Blue and the enlisted go Red, or even more dramatic than that with the entire U.S. Military imploding much like it did during the original Civil War.

Regardless, the point is — if we manage to punt this crisis down the road, the corrosive conditions that created this crisis aren’t going anywhere. We will simply kind of be a zombie Republic until Trump comes back in 2024 and finishes the job he started. Or it will be Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo. Or whomever.

Or, put another way — either we address the existential problems we face now, or we face the later. But there’s no escaping them.

My Personal Bill Barr Theory

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A shit ton of MAGA cocksuckers are foaming at the mouth about how Bill Barr went dark the last few months and probably pretty much saved American democracy. Given what Barr did with the Mueller Report, what happened?

My theory is 20 years from now, we’ll learn a lot more about how close Barr and Mueller were. Mueller was imbued by liberals with qualities he obviously didn’t have — he was actually rather timid about the most important aspects of his charge.

So, my theory is — the moment Barr was in charge, he had a chat with his old friend Mueller –wrap things up NOW for the sake of the country. Then Barr strangled the report in its crib, as it were. And the moment Trump felt in the clear, he turned around and got himself impeached.

But that was the extent of Barr’s desire to facilitate Trump’s more sinister instincts. There were abuses here and there on Barrs part, but the election wasn’t it close enough for it to be an issue, so Barr was able to protect what’s left of our democracy simply through inaction.

And, really, the wild part about all of this is every day Barr sits on his hands, the better positioned Biden is. So, if we can just get Barr at least into the end of December, that gives Trump only 20 days to go nuts and wreak havoc.

American Tribulation

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing a lot of Twitter Liberals are oblivious about is how dire things are right now. They keep pontificating about the rise of fascism in the United States as if it’s a process that hasn’t happened yet — get woke, we are a fascist state NOW.

Or, more specifically, we WOULD be a fascist state but for what a ding-dong our autocrat is. For me, all of this is very surreal because it’s like everything is there, waiting for Trump to go full autocrat….and he’s doing nothing. I can still think of a half a dozen ways he could seize “total control” RIGHT NOW…and…yet it appears as if he’s going to let Electors vote on Monday without even trying to get the Proud Boys to scare the shit out of them — or worse.

So, we lurch close and closer to a Biden getting sworn in and about half the electorate thinking he’s illegitimate. I will note something — the moment the Texas case came out of nowhere, I knew the Dead Hand of History was doing its thing. I have repeatedly said we’ve boxed ourselves into a civil war mindset and the Texas case is a prime example of that. Someone, somewhere with the ability to hand Trump his coup stepped up to the plate for no other reason than that’s where the momentum is right now.

And, yet, again, Trump hasn’t done squat in real terms to attempt to seize “total control” even though many, many MAGA cocksuckers are begging him to do just that. I can only begin to believe that either Trump is going to allow a very surreal transfer of power actually happen, he’s going to go completely insane in some way, or, in the end, he’s going to finally go transactional and willfully destroy the United States after the point when we think we’ve managed to dodge a bullet.

Trump is so unpredictable, I can’t figure out what he’s going to do. In no small measure that comes from how difficult it is to figure out his motives at this point. Is it all about fundraising? Is it all about just not going to jail in NYS? If I could pin down is actual motives, then I could figure out his next course of action.

It seems more likely than not someone, or something is going to happen in a rather dramatic fashion between now and Jan. 20th….or a little bit afterwards. Let’s say Biden’s first 100 days. If we can actually get past, say, the Ides of March 2021, then things will have claimed down enough that we can all sigh a huge sigh of relief.

It just doesn’t seem like history is on our side right now. Electors could still get doxed, or murdered, or whatever. Trump could still get his Reichstag Fire with the help of the Proud Boys. Or Iran or the DPRK could give him cover to try to pull a Constitutional fast one on us while we’re distracted.

Let me make this clear — as a student of history, by every metric the United States is on the cusp of a historic and shocking implosion. I’m talking France 1940 or France 1789 type of shock. That the otherwise most stable, most powerful and arguably wealthiest nation in the world turn in on itself because of, what, white men without a college degree can’t get laid, is going to be one of the biggest shocks of the last 500 years.

I’m wrong all the time. Hopefully, I’ll be wrong this time, too.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: