by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I hate to break it to you guys, but because the United States is tearing itself apart at the moment, we’re probably the weakest we’ve been in a long, long time. It has noting to do with Biden and everything to do with tectonic, long-term macro forces that are all coming to a head around late 2024, early 2025.
In short, American politics is very, very strange right now. To be a Republican in good standing is to be a bomb throwing fascist who wants to burn everything to the ground. Meanwhile, to be a Democrat is to stand for traditional democratic norms, traditions and institutions.
Things are so partisan at the moment that Republicans have whole heartedly embraced the autocratic thug Putin in Russia and see not America, but the Russian Fatherland as a “shining city on a hill” that the world should attempt to emulate. It’s all very surreal.
So, this brings us to what the domestic political reaction would be to a war between China and Taiwan.
The natural inclination of Republicans would be to oppose any help for Taiwan just to be dicks. But the dynamic is a lot different between China and Russia. A lot of this is — duh — a matter of race. Republicans are fucking racists and see the “white” Russia as something to emulate while the “none-white” communist China is not.
But there is the broader issue of MAGA being extremely isolationist. So, there’s every reason to believe that if there was a war between China and Taiwan that MAGA would oppose any help to Taiwan, while at the same time screaming at the top of their lungs that Biden was “weak” on China.
Now, there are some meta elements to all of this that would need to be taken into consideration. There is a good chance that the American press would call two regional wars happening at the same time “WW3.” It’s inevitable that the American press talking constantly about WW3 happening would eventually break through into the average person’s brain and they would sit up and take notice. This would, in turn, change the political dynamic in the US going into the 2022 midterms.
Additionally, if there was a massive war between China and Taiwan, this would destabilize the entire world a great deal. Any number of other smoldering conflicts around the world would probably erupt into open warfare. I mean, who’s to say that the DPRK wouldn’t attack ROK if a Sino-Taiwanese war erupted? They might think that the US would be so distracted with two major regional wars that this might be their last time to attack the South Koreans. (But, admittedly, the DPRK is such a black box that anything is possible.)
If there was a war between the Koreas while China was attacking Taiwan and Russia, Ukraine then we really would be going to the show. It really would be WW3 and there would suddenly be a lot of talk about the for the Draft to come back in the US. Now, THAT would end the “woke era” once and for all. It’s tough being woke at 18 when you’re worried about dying in defense of freedom in a far away land.
As an aside, the issue of if young women should be drafted would probably definitely come up if WW3 started and we again eyed the draft. I think they should be, but, apparently, that is a radical idea to some. So, it’s unlikely.
The point of all of this is — if WW3 arrives, the US is so divided that I can’t promise you that we’d rise to the occasion like we did in WW2. And, what’s worse, if WW3 lasted until the 2024 – 2025 timeframe, there’s a good chance that we would play the role of the Russian Empire in WW1 and pull out to take care of our own domestic crisis.
