by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
There are an obscene number of AR-15s in the United States at the moment. And the rhetoric on the Right has grown so frothy and detached from reality that it seems as though it’s just a matter of time before some sort of “MAGA Uprising” happens.
I don’t know what form it might take, but it definitely seems inevitable at this point. It will probably happen because Trump is indicted, or he peacefully shuffles off this mortal coil in his sleep. I think the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was just the first step in the process. It’s going to take another event before the bullets start whizzing around.
Here are some reasons why we may have a civil war over and above the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
- 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 we use 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.
It definitely makes you wonder how the American press would react to an outbreak of lingering, widespread political violence across the country. The more I think about it, the more I just don’t see what Barbara F. Walter thinks will happen. That is, some sort of Troubles in the United States. It makes no sense to me, given that the Republican Party is now fascist and autocratic. It seems like if Trump got indicted he would grab the Federal government by the short ones and demand that Red States begin to leave the Union in an effort to end that particular problem for him.
And I still think that we aren’t even going to have a MAGA civil war or revolution or uprising. It’s going to be Blues in 2024 – 2025 that cause a civil war when they leave the Union after the 2024 election is brazenly stolen by Reds.
So, we have a few years to prepare. And if we don’t have a civil war, we’re just going to become an autocracy, probably with DeSantis becoming America’s Putin. Ugh.
