I’m looking forward to this month’s primetime January 6th hearings, but I have very ambivalent expectations. On one hand, I fully expect them to be compelling. On the other hand — meh. So what.
The United States is now not a democracy, but an anocracy and as such, lulz. Either we’re going to become a bull-blown autocracy or we’re going to have a civil war. The rot at the center of our political system is just too extensive. Epic, tectonic macro trends are at work and it will ultimately be up in the air which direction we go until the around the middle of late 2024.
I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do.
But the fact remains — we’re going to, as a nation, get a lot closer to understanding what happened on January 6th. Then collectively shrug and go back to hating each other.
For the time being, Republicans continue to be ascendant and there’s no reason to not think that the GQP will simply barrel over the center-Left and establish an American-flavored autocracy starting around 2025.
But, I suppose, there is small chance we’ll have a civil war. I don’t want one, and seeing’s believing that the American center-Left has it in it to start one.
I have written about this before, but the continued trickle to this otherwise obscure site from people interested in the prospect of a Second American Civil War encourages me to write from every angle possible. Again, if necessary.
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.
Ok, here’s where we have to make some assumptions. One assumption I’m going to make is that history will flip the script and it will be Blues, not Reds who want to leave the Union. The Reds are ascendant and should they start a civil war it would be one of the dumbest political screw ups in macro American history.
So, if a Second Civil War came to the United States, it would be started by Blues, not Reds, probably at some point in the 2024 – 2025 timeframe. The war aim of the Blues would most likely be the “National Divorce” that the Reds keep salivating over.
But, because history loves, loves, loves irony, it will be Reds — probably forced by the U.S. Military — that will attack Blues when they try to leave the Union on the State level. Or, it could be that as Blue leave the Union, that the U.S. Military gets hollowed out as people within it leave for their home states and the US of Canada military, or whatever.
It could be that Reds demand Blues stay in the Union and we fight it out to see if Blues can start their own, new, Union or not. Or the fight is over “messy” states like Virginia and Texas that might implode because they don’t fit the easy definitions of “Blue” and “Red.”
This type of speculation is very difficult to do because there are so many factors that I simply can’t figure out. One is, will, for macro reasons, leadership that the center-Left definitely doesn’t have at the moment, rise to the occasion? I have my doubts, which is why I have my doubts about there being a civil war in the first place.
At the moment, we’re just going to slip peacefully into autocracy and that will be that. America will become another autocracy like Russia, Hungary or Turkey. In fact, that might be the biggest re-alignment of the 21st Century — the US ditching democracy altogether to join a new alliance of autocratic nations. Who knows, at this point, anything is possible.
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.
Or, put another way, we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked one way or another. Either we turn into an autocracy or Red and Blue begin to murder each other in cold political blood. The usual outcome of all this bullshit that we have come to expect — simply muddling along until we come to some solution one way or another — is not longer a valid option.
Once you go through a clusterfuck like Trump as president, it can make you a little twitchy. So, we have to take seriously the idea that someone as bonkers as Rep. Louie Gohmert might run — and win — the White House if something happened to Trump. (What that might be, I don’t know.)
Or, to put it another way, we might really have something to cry about if it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee in 2024.
The thing about Gohmert is he really does know how the government works and if he, God forbid — became POTUS — he could really rise to the occasion in a bad, bad way.
Or, maybe I’m looking at it wrong.
What might happen would be Trump is the nominee in 2024 as expected and he picks Gohmert as his Veep and THAT is how Gohmert becomes POTUS. Or, put another way — keep a real close eye on who Trump picks to be his second term Veep.
And a lot of very smart, extremely ambitious men and women in Republican ranks know that too — the question is, of course, will DeSantis bend a knee to get to be Trump’s veep or will they have a political death match?
So, now that I’ve split the first novel in this series into two AGAIN, I now have six novels that made up to thematically connected trilogies. I constantly struggle with the idea of working on a “second track” novel or screenplay and just can’t — to date — manage to get myself to do it.
I have the whole universe thought out rather extensively, why go through the trouble of thinking up a whole new universe with characters when I can just bounce around six novels in development as need be?
If I had a wife or a girlfriend, then, of course, this would be a lot simpler. She would help me organize what I’m doing to the point that I could, indeed, separate my attention on something else.
Sadly, I’m alone.
So, I’m going to throw myself into these six novels (really just the first three and really, even more so, just the first novel). I’ve got to get a second draft of something done SOON. I’m nervous that I’m going to slip into the fall 2023 querying season with no assurance I’ll ever get published traditionally even if I do get an agent.
I’m just nervous that we’re going to have a civil war — or I’m going to drop dead of windowmaker heart attack like Stieg Larsson — before I get any of these novels published.
A series of things are set to happen in the United States in June and July. Most of them have to do with SCOTUS rulings. A series of huge SCOTUS rulings will come out in June. As I understand it, besides Roe being overturned, we’ll also see a ruling on Affirmative Action.
But something just as big — in its own way — could be the televised January 6th hearings.
It’s possible that all of this could rile people up. And we haven’t even gotten to the point where we have to deal with the curse that it is August as a whole. But who knows. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward.
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