by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Well, this is interesting. There seems to be a growing chorus within the Far Right that suggest that Trump is a washed up hasbeen. Now, we all know what this really means — Trump has served his political purpose. He has paved the way for a far more palatable and “boring” autocrat to swoop in and finish the job he started.
This has long been a concern of mine. That Trump might be knocked out of the running politically and then we would have to worry about someone like DeSantis or Cotton or Pompeo or Hawley or you name it being the person who would ultimately be America’s “Putin.” And, remember, not even Putin built his autocracy in a day. It was a gradual thing. So, it’s easy to imagine President DeSantis being POTUS for eight years, then mysteriously and magically becoming Speaker of the House and running the country that way until he was able to convince people that we need a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.”
That definitely seems to be our lot at this particular moment. Or we have a civil war. But the likelihood of a civil war decreases dramatically if someone, anyone other than Trump is our 2025 autocrat. Trump is such a fucking lazy idiot who always says the quiet part out loud that he, unto himself, could cause a civil war just by being an idiot who is no longer “useful.”
But I would not count Trump out quite yet. Yes, under any normal definition Trump is a washed up political hasbeen that should just shut up and enjoy his political retirement. But Trump always, always, always does the wrong thing and somehow comes up on top. So, it makes total sense that he would simply through sheer force of will become the Republican 2024 nominee and push the United States perilously close to a Second Civil War.
If Trump is the Republican nominee again, I suggest you get a pass port and figure out what you believe in and what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world. Things are going to get lit.
