by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
A whole lot of people continue to put the entire fate of the most powerful nation in the world in the hands of fate by assuming that their “hope” will get them out of the current Trump-induced crisis.
But what we have to accept is Trump could very well become very, very toxic politically…and yet become POTUS again. And if he feels he might get indicted and booked, he could very well begin to demand Red states to leave the Union in an effort to intimidate the Federal government into letting him off.
The thing that isn’t going to happen, at least without a lot of difficulty, is any sort of pivot towards any of the other would-be autocrats who want to be Trump’s successor. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to lead the Trump without Trump version of MAGA and, yet, Trump is in the game again and if anything he’s growing more powerful by the moment.
And, yet.
I want to make clear that we’re not only past the Event Horizon when it comes an existential choice of autocracy or civil war, we’re now in a danger zone of political upheaval that will come to a head in late 2024, early 2025. One thing I fear is going to begin to happen at an alarming rate is stochastic terrorism against groups like the FBI, trans people and anyone else the MAGA New Right hates for various reasons.
There is a real that Trump, who is demonstrably losing his mind, will grow so absolutely politically toxic — and yet refuse to go away — that he, unto himself, is the single reason why the country collapses into something along the lines of a civil war.
But it hasn’t happened yet.
Maybe it won’t. But with Trump, we just don’t know. There are just too many elements to all of this that I can’t game out. I do believe, however, that we’ll have a lot better understanding of things the moment we learn how well the Democrats did with the 2022 midterms.
If Republicans gain control of the House again, then things will grow very unstable very quickly. They will impeach both Biden and Harris repeatedly. They will impeached any number of other people they don’t like. In fact, I would suggest that for the years 2023 – 2024 that’s all the Senate will do — be in session to consider this or that person’s impeachment.
And there is, of course, the idea that Trump could demand to be Speaker. Why he doesn’t talk about doing that more, I don’t know. That seem so on-brand for him as a quasi-autocrat. Anyway. What do I know.
