by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m beginning to feel like I have a better understanding how it felt to the average person in the waning days of the Roman Empire. It definitely seems as we’ve all collectively just given up. The fascists are ascendant and right now, the only question is do we collapse into civil war or do we slip peacefully into autocracy.
At the moment, all signs point to the latter. Not only is the center-Left more worried about their pronouns than they are how to meaningfully address the rise of American autocracy, the mainstream press is willfully complicit in the transformation of the United States from democracy to anocracy to, finally autocracy.
This happens at the same time that most conservative Traditionalists believe the press is wildly slanted against them.
It’s all very surreal.
A lot of our political problems stem from how muddled everything is. It’s difficult for any sort of anti-fascist narrative to develop when the people who would be central to it — conservative Traditionalists blanch at what the center-Left is currently passionate about. The center-Left continues to shoot itself in the foot by ranting about things that are easily packaged as the “Woke Agenda.” It’s enough to make you fear that we’ve passed the event horizon of some sort of “Fourth Turning” around 2025.
We simply can no longer punt this crisis down the road. I struggle to see how we survive the passions of another presidential election cycle. And all of this is happening in broad daylight. It’s not like it’s a secret. That’s why I think we’ve all collectively given up on democracy in America.
Our faith in democracy will only be renewed via a civil war in which the Blue States win. I definitely do not want that, but that seems our fate. If there’s not a civil war, then we become a Russian-style autocracy and there really will be a “Great Reset,” only not in the way paranoid MAGA people think.
I suppose I could still be wrong — I’m wrong all the time — but something pretty big would have to happen for that to be the case. And, remember, the issue is not so much Trump winning in 2024, it’s who is successor will be. Trump is dangerous, but not as dangerous as a President DeSantis, or Cotton, or Hawley….the list goes on. The entire Republican Party on an existential basis no longer believes in traditional American democracy and once they have power again that’s it.
They will consolidate power to the point that we wake up 20 years from now and talk about Generation DeSantis or Cotton, or Hawley, or whomever. It doesn’t help that the people who would lead any real world resistance to this — Blue Check liberals — will simply leave the country.
This is an eerie calm before the storm. Enjoy this brief respite from tyranny while you still can.
