Month: January 2022

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I believe the United States, the most powerful country in the world is careening towards destroying itself. And if that doesn’t happen, then we will become illiberal democracy on a par with modern day Hungry if we’re lucky and Russia if we’re not. In other words, the United States between now and January 2025 is either going to implode (illiberal democracy) or explode (civil war.)

I believe this because by all macro metrics the United States’ Second Republic is running on fumes. The system can not and will not work. Trumplandia is above the law, just like the Nazis were above the law in 1920s Germany. I continue to read a huge tome on the rise of the Nazis in the Weimar Republic and the similarities are chilling.

I keep talking about 2024 – 2025, when in fact we may not have to wait that long. Several events could force the issue and bring the United States to its knees sooner than expected. If either Trump shuffled off this mortal coil peacefully, that might be enough for the conspiracy crackpots of the MAGA New Right to agitate for State Secessionist Conventions. I’m not joking. That’s really possible.

Meanwhile, if it was BIDEN who shuffled off this mortal coil peacefully, then you can sure as hell bet that Speaker Trump becomes a far more likely reality and THAT would definitely probably push us into civil war because Speaker Trump would then be one heartbeat away from being POTUS again I could totally see Trump being so stupid as to go transactional at last and demand MAGA bring the country to its knees to force the Senate to convict President Harris.

And, if you really wanted to get dark about it — if there was any type of major domestic terror attack between now and January 2025, we’re all fucked. There would be a civil war, or severe, rolling political violence of some sort. Everyone is primed and ready to go at it with guns and shit because they hate everybody for political reasons.

But, as I keep saying, it’s possible that we’ll just slip peacefully into illiberal democracy, to autocracy. If that happens, then initially, nothing will change. White Christian Traditionalists will continue to chuckle about how people like me are “hysterical” because their Red Line is strictly personal. They will be quite content that we’re not longer a democracy because they will finally get what they want –white minority rule.

It won’t be until their loud mouth crank family member — that would be me — gets drunk and won’t shut up about how President Pompeo is a fat fuck no matter how skinny he gets and ICE swoops in to take me away will they finally, finally, FINALLY want to do something about our transition from democracy to autocracy.

Of course, for me, at least, by that point it will be way too late.

The point is — we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked. Gird your loins for a bumpy, dark few years ahead of us.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw a headline somewhere — I think it was Politico– which implied that the current cold civil war America is going through is about “nothing.” I totally disagree.

The reason Americans hate each other, at it’s core, is about a dearth of white babies. (I hope that doesn’t come across as racist. I just find it midly amusing to say “white babies” in this context. Also, do think that at its core, the reason Americans hate each other is Traditionalists, on a systemic basis, are afraid of losing power to POC.) America is a nation of immigrants and, as such, wave after wave of new types of people have refreshed the idea of what it means to be American over the years. Remember, Italians were not considered “white” until some point around the end of WW2.

Anyway, back to the white babies thing.

The writing on the wall is clear — white people are going to be in the minority within a few decades and that is freaking white Christian Traditionalists the fuck out. Throw in the huge, gaping differences in social views between urban and rural areas and the United States is ripe for collapse.

But the thing that is putting huge pressure on our political system is white Christian Traditionalists feeling a huge amount of insecurity about their place in American society. Ezra Klein’s book, “Why We’re Polarized” was a real eye opener about the origins of the current clusterfuck we find ourselves in.

So, far from being about “nothing” our cold civil war is definitely about something — power. This struggle over who has power in American politics because of the systemic racism of white Christian Traditionalists is bending our politics to a breaking point.

And, really, the Second American Republic is imploding so fast politically at the moment that I sometimes wonder if we’re going to even make it to the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. I believe America is an idea, not the autocratic concept of blood and soil. Yet people I know who should know better take it as gospel that the United States is not a democracy, but a “Constitutional Republic,” and, as such, fuck you lib.

Should Peter Navarro’s non-violent coup work in 2024, that really will be the moment our cold civil war may turn hot. When half the electorate thinks the United States is a democracy and half thinks its a Constitutional Republic and Trump becomes president via some of the more obscure elements of the Constitution, that’s a recipe for a hot civil war.

Or not. It could be that we slip peacefully into autocracy and that will be that. People like me will, inevitably, cross the autocrat and simply vanish. THEN the white Christian Traditionalists in my family will sit up and take notice because things will be personal for them.

But, by then, it will be too late for me.