I have a very, very, VERY active imagination. As such, I often spin tales using very little information that often, or should I say, almost always, turn out to be total bullshit.
But I will note something interesting.
Last night, I talked to someone on the phone about the novels I’m working on. What’s of note about this is we went back and forth between me talking to her about the novels and my lingering existential dread about the United States having a civil war or slipping peacefully into autocracy at some point between now at 2025.
I looked at my Webstats this morning and…someone from D.C. seemed to have searched for something to do with my novel? I don’t know what they were searching for, but they landed on a specific link on this site where I talked at length about my vision for the novels I’m working on.
At first, I didn’t think much about it. But, gradually, over the course of the day, I began to imagine a scenario where, I don’t know, the fucking NSA or something, noticed my use of certain watchlist keywords and they started to listen directly to the conversation.
Then…they found what I was saying about the novels interesting enough that they — or someone they talked to — later decided to check me out on their home PC.
Like I said, I have a very active imagination. But it is an interesting little fairy tale.
Once upon a time, the idea of “gender essentialism” being a critique of an audience favorite like Aliens would have enraged me. Not that it isn’t a legitimate criticism, but because, as a storyteller, it would be yet ANOTHER nit-picky thing I would have to weigh in my mind.
But, thankfully, I’ve mellowed out enough that after being annoyed with the idea that Ana Marie Cox would suggest such a thing about the beloved Aliens, I’ve moved on.
And, yet, it is an interesting thing to address given that the first novel in the four thriller series I’m working on is awash in this so-called idea of “gender essentialism.” In fact, the basic motivation of the first book’s protagonist is, pretty much the gender essentialist concept of a mother’s love — or, the gender essentialist idea of the Ur mother who loves another woman’s child as her own.
The idea that someone might deduct points from an otherwise beloved movie like Aliens because….a woman loves a young child and wants to protect her? That’s somehow bad? I would admit that instead of using the fancy point-headed term “gender essentialism,” you might use the far more pedestrian term “shmaltzy.” But that would be used if that particular plot point was poorly implemented.
But if you get too wrapped up in all the Leftist attacks on traditional heteronormative storytelling you give up and just stare at the celling in a dark room because you’re male and white and CIS and, therefore, impossible for you to tell any story at all because you’re a member of the patriarchy and why don’t you just drop dead?
So, fuck that. I just going to tell the story I want to tell and let the chips fall where they may.
The victory of Glenn Youngkin in Virginia has made it clear to me that Republicans now have a winning formula. At the moment, all macro trends indicate that Republicans will sweep the 2022 midterms and, later, the 2024 presidential cycle.
And they won’t even have to cheat.
Not that they won’t cheat anyway, but if they do could be a huge self-own.
When it comes to American democracy, it’s all over but the shouting. Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
At some point after January 2025, because form follows function, the same things that have happened to democracies across the globe will begin to happen to the United States. Allies of the GOP will buy up the media, to the point that mysteriously, Trump and his ilk will no longer see them as “the enemy of the people.” Once that happens, then the existing ICE infrastructure is weaponized and people like me either are “re-educated” or are simply killed in cold blood as being “against the Fatherland.”
In fits and starts, America will begin to recede, hiding behind “Fortress America.” This will happen just as China is growing more and more ascendant, so lulz.
America will suffer a huge brain drain as millions of wealthy center-Left people begin to “vote with their feet” and just leave the country. This will stop, of course, when our American Autocrat makes it nearly impossible to leave the country.
This is America’s future at the moment. No need for political violence. No need for a civil war. That’s it. And for far, far longer than you might imagine, a lot of “Good Germans” in America will simply shrug all of these developments because liberals will, at last, finally be owned. They don’t see themselves as supporting America’s drift into autocracy, so obviously, that’s not the case. It won’t be until things get specific and personal to them that they might sit up and take notice.
But, by that point, it will be so late that they will have no way to act on their new found political displeasure, other than griping about it to their wife or husband late at night before going to sleep. Meanwhile, I’m dead in a ditch somewhere with a bullet to the head.
I honestly believe at this moment that is our future. And, yet, I would be remiss if I didn’t note two things — one, Trump is such lazy, stupid chaos agent that it’s at least possible that he will self-own on such a massive scale that we are pushed into a civil war that could otherwise easily be avoided. And, two, there is a growing bloodthirsty element to it that they might start a needless civil war simply because they want a civil war, not that it will help them any in getting what they want — an autocracy.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
But I can’t predict the future. I guess it’s at least possible that when the United States becomes an autocracy that it will be so subtle, at least at first, that there won’t be any specific thing that people like me can point to and say, “But I thought we weren’t going to become an autocracy.”
Until all that changes and we’re fucked.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
It’s clear to me now that Republicans have figured out how to square the political circle when it comes to sucking from the fetid teet of MAGA while still winning elections.
If you combine how well the Republican Party did overall in 2020 with the results in Virginia, it definitely seems as though all of my hysterical “doom shit” about what might happen in 2024 – 2025 is just that. What is actually going to happen is something far more subtle.
It’s very, very possible that while Trump will cheat simply out of habit, that in the end, there will be no need for him — or the Republican Party — to do so. Republicans are ascendant and now I think they’re going to win fair and square (ish) in 2022 and 2024 and that will be that. We will drift peacefully into autocracy.
When it comes to American democracy, it’s all over but the shouting. Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
All of the dystopian things that I have long predicted will happen, but the whole move to autocracy will be so popular that the vast majority of conservatives won’t even notice or care what’s going on. They will be so pleased that white people, at last, will secure their minority rule that the fact that ICE has been weaponized, that there’s been a Constitutional Convention and the media has been purged will all be a lulz.
Or, to put it another way, people like me will keep pointing out our drift into autocracy and your typical conservative will barely be able to summon the energy to shrug. They will see things strictly from a policy standpoint and the thing didn’t like — Trump’s personality will fade in importance once he shuffles off this mortal coil. The man can’t live forever.
As such, whomever Trump picks as his veep will become America’s Putin. Some 20 or 30, even 40 years from now, President DeStantis or Pompeo or whomever will still both be constantly depicted in the foreign press as about to be overthrown and consolidating power.
Republicans will push through widely unpopular policies, but because the United States is no longer a functioning democracy, it just won’t matter. So, in the end, there will be no need for Trump to cheat because MAGA is, unto itself, popular enough to win fair and square.
Now, having said all of that, it hasn’t happened yet. And Trump is a chaos agent. And if you throw in how bloodthirsty the MAGA New Right has become, it’s within the realm of possibility that they will self-own by forcing into an avoidable, tragic civil war. So, it’s possible that all my dystopian hellscape fears will, in fact, happen.
But we have to prepare ourselves for our 240-odd year democracy ending not with a bang, but with a whimper. We simply elect autocratic fascists in 2022 and 2024 and….that’s it.
The crux of the public’s fascination with Pete Davidson’s love life is everyone wonders how someone like him keeps pulling some of the most powerful, talent and beautiful women in the world.
The rumored happy couple / photo source — the Internet
The answer is, of course, he has a huge cock.
But he’s also funny, which helps. I remember when he was dating — then engaged — to Ariana Grande. At the time, it felt like the whole country was thinking the same thing as to why this particular romance was happening — lust. We all knew it wasn’t going to last and it was as if the whole nation was in on the joke but the two people who were actually involved in the romance itself.
So, let’s talk about Davidson’s latest potential conquest, Kim Kardashian.
What the what?
It’s pretty amazing the huge spectrum of reactions to this development on Tik-Tok. Half the people think it’s all a PR stunt and the other half think it’s true love and will last for years to come.
I honestly neither know nor care what the ultimate outcome of this relationship will be. But it is interesting. It’s interesting how far a guy can get by being funny, having a huge cock and being a cast member on SNL. Who knew?
Davidson is still young. If he doesn’t crash and burn, he could very well linger as a star for many years to come.
I’ve spent so much time brooding on the possibility of civil war or some sort of grand, brazen theft of the 2024 presidential election, that I totally missed the most obvious endgame.
It may be that in the end, Trump, MAGA and autocracy are so popular that they win fair and square. The likelihood that we will slip peacefully into autocracy when Republicans win the 2024 election with a minimal amount of shenanigans increases greatly if Trump decides not to run, but even with him as the GOP candidate this is a very real possibility.
Given the recent results in Virginia, it seems to me very possible that both sides will gird their loins for an epic political battle and…it just doesn’t materialize. Trump (or DeSantis, etc) cruise into an easy, traditional political victory and that will be that. If that did happen, then our final transition into autocracy really would be so subtle that only the most hysterical amongst us — like me — would even get mad.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
If Republicans won fair and square, without having to nullify a Democratic win, then at first the autocracy would likely be very “lite touch.” It would only be gradually that Republicans began to follow the traditional autocratic path that would slowly turn the United States, on a political basis, into a Russia clone. If Trump ran and won fair and square, then what happened next would greatly depend on who his veep was.
Being Trump’s successor is kind of the be-all and end-all of Republican high stakes power politics at the moment because a lot of extremely ambitious people know that American democracy is dead and if they can only be in a position to be Trump’s successor, they will have access to unprecedented power and wealth.
There are a few caveats to this very real possibility. Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
One is, Republicans are notorious for self-owning and they could do everything in their power to steal an election that they could otherwise win without doing so. That opens up a lot of instability and unpredictability. Also, there is a definite bloodthirsty element to the MAGA New Right. It’s definitely possible that Republicans could be well on their way to getting everything they want peacefully and then they blow it by somehow aggravating Blue States out of the Union specifically because they want an excuse to “own the libs” once and for all.
As such, it’s very possible that all of my hysterical predictions about a potential civil war will be all very silly in hindsight. For the first few years of our autocracy, things will only change on the edges. It won’t be until the inevitable Constitutional Convention that the average person will notice that things are beginning to change.
By that point, however, President DeSantis (or whomever) will be seen as a good enough president that most Americans will become Good Germans. Elections will still happen, but it will become clear soon enough that Republicans are now our ruling minority party and that will be that. Depending on quirks of whomever ends up being our American Putin, the media will or less be left alone because, lulz, their powerless, anyway.
But there will come a point when my darker fears will be realized and wealthy liberals will vote with their feet by leaving the country altogether.
At the moment, it definitely seems far from having any sort of civil war to settle the issue of which vision of America is the right one, Americans will peacefully give up their democratic birthright and most people won’t even realize it’s missing until it becomes personal on an individual basis.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
I’ve finally gotten into the part of the first novel of this four novel series that is called the “fun and games” part of the story. It’s the beginning of the second act and it’s the reason why you buy the book in the first place. Everything is going well — and the actual writing of the novel is speeding up greatly — but for one thing: I’m having some existential angst about word count.
The rule of thumb about first novels is the sweet spot is in the 80,000 – 110,000 word range for various reasons. The biggest reason is far more practical than you might realize — if you’re a new, untested author, for the publisher to be willing to physically print anything beyond that is something of a risk.
I’ve been using Stieg Larsson’s work as a guide, but it’s beginning to dawn on me that there were specific things relative to his books that aren’t applicable to what I’m up against. One, it’s my understanding he was an established journalist in Sweden at the time he got four longish books published. And the books were originally for the Swedish market nearly 20 years ago, so that also may have given him the ability to write longer as a first-time novelist.
But I’ve gotten this far with this first book — pretty much all I have to do is just follow my outline at this point — that I’m just going to just that. This is just the first draft and no one is going to read it. I do find it annoying that I’ve spent all this time laying out an outline with a certain length, only for it to occur to me this late in the process that I’ve probably designed outlines of novels, on an existential basis, that are just too long.
And, yet, given that I’m writing four novels at once, I think I can probably be ok if I shorten the first two novels some and keep the last two novels about the same length as they’ve always been. I’m completely clueless of the dynamic associated with trying to sell four novels as a first-time novelist instead of just one, so I’m hoping that this will be ok.
I still have a lot of work to do. But it will be nice, for my ego, if nothing else, when I complete a longish first draft of the first book. Then I can take a deep breath and start to work on the second book’s first draft.
While the origins of the Nazis and MAGA are very different, I’m growing ever more concerned that in the end MAGA will be seen in hindsight as equal to, or worse than, the Nazis.
Nazism was caused by an aggrieved nation, while MAGA is the product of a nation in decline whose demographics are changing too fast for conservative white people to process. So, rather than trying to take over the world, MAGA’s dream is to “bring the boys home” and hide behind Fortress America that would be seen as a nation of “blood and soil.”
And, yet, as I keep saying, form follows function. And it’s very possible to imagine MAGA radicalizing into something akin to the Nazis either direction we should happen to go in the 2024 -2025 timeframe. While it might take longer, if America becomes a MAGA autocracy there’s just as much risk of a catastrophic holocaust as there is if we go the other route and bomb ourselves into oblivion.
I know — I know — this sounds like just more of my “hysterical doom shit” and I was wrong about Trump the first time, so I sound like the boy who cried wolf when I propose a dystopian hellscape in the future. But things have changed a great deal since Trump first obtained power.
Not only has Trump shown how weak or nonexistent our democratic norms and institutions are, the Republican Party has radicalized to the point that even Trump could finally get some of my darker predictions to come true.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
I talk to some of my conservative relatives about my fears on this front and, in general, I get two reactions. Either they get really, really upset and say “it hasn’t happened yet” or they simply stare and me and tell me it’s not going to happen, with no explanation to back up their reasoning.
The issue for me is this is not an abstract to me. I’m a loudmouth kook and all my life to date I’ve had the luxury of living in a free nation where I can rant all I like — within reason — and no one blinks an eye. If that changes, I’m in deep, deep trouble. And its the total unwillingness of my conservative relatives to take my concerns seriously and to form some sort of united front against the rise of MAGA New Right fascism that concerns me a great deal.
There are a few scenarios I can think of that might delay the rise of MAGA-as-American-Nazism, but there are none I can think of that would prevent it from happening altogether. There are macro trends at work and the United States is way, way beyond the fascist event horizon at the moment.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
We’re an autocracy without an autocrat. Autocracy is very, very popular in the United States, hence the rise of Trump in the first place. People want an autocrat. How else can you explain how millions of Americans are on a hair trigger to move from FOX News to OANN or NewsMax if they aren’t fed the lies they expect?
At the moment, I will admit that I probably do sound really hysterical. But I also know that by the time my worst fears finally become reality, it will be way too late for anyone to save me — least of all my well meaning conservative relatives.
As such, I know I’m on my own. No one is going to save me. Either I’m going to have to elude a weaponized ICE should we become an autocracy, or I’m going to become one of millions of domestic political refugees should we have a civil war.
There is going to come a time when, much like the First Civil War, politics will pit brother against brother because there will be no middle ground. What you believe politically will be an existential decision, one you’re going to have to risk your life and scared honor for one way or another.
The more I think about it, the more it seems a pretty safe bet that the United States is going to slip peacefully into autocracy. The only way this doesn’t happen is if a combination of Trump saying “the quiet part out loud” combined with the general bloodthirstiness of the MAGA New Right pushes into a civil war when Blue States attempt to leave the Union.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
So much political discourse at the moment is way, way behind the times. So many people are oblivious to how the Republican Party is now a anti-democratic, fascist party and it sees democracy only as a means to an end. As such, if it ever gets power again, it’s debatable if it will ever let it go peacefully.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
Because the center-Left is so weak and ineffectual, it definitely seems as though Steve K. Bannon’s “spiritual shock troops” will succeed in their administrative coup and if Democrats get past that hurdle, then Republicans will use the more archaic, obscure aspects of the Constitution to nullify any Democratic win.
And remember, autocracy is popular enough that Republicans could, in the end, win fair and square in 2024, without the need to cheat at all. (Not that they won’t cheat anyway.)
As such, the United States will drift peacefully into autocracy. Trump will demand and Constitutional Convention and his hand picked successor will be our first autocrat. So much so, that whomever that may be, will still be in power 20 to 40 years from now. Given that form follows function, all the hysterical predictions that people like me have be ranting about since Trump came on the scene will happen — just about five years later than we expected.
At the moment, I just don’t see us escaping this fate.
In fact, the only doubt I have in my mind of this at this point is it hasn’t happened yet, and, as such, we may pick the other option before us: civil war. But for that to happen, a lot — and I mean A LOT — of unexpected things would have to happen. A lot of Blue leaders would have to bubble to the surface in dramatic, unexpected ways.
But for the time being, I think it’s safe to say we’re going to gradually — after a brief death spasm — morph into a political clone of Russia.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
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