by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I’ve said before, I enjoy watching the History Matters channel on YouTube and it definitely seems as though I’ve seen this video before when it comes to what’s going on with American politics at the moment. American politics is a dumpster fire which both sides calling the other Nazis and there being an ever-growing risk of stochastic terrorism.
At this point, the question is how long can we hold out? Do we start murdering each other for political reasons because Trump goes transactional or do we somehow make it to 2024 -2025 when Blues begin to call secessionist conventions for a National Divorce and we have a civil war that way? I honestly don’t know, it could go either way.
But I can tell you that it definitely seems as though we’ve given up. That it’s now a foregone conclusion that we either have some sort of civil war or we gradually turn into something akin to a political clone of Russia once a MAGA person becomes POTUS.
I honestly don’t know which direction we’re going to go. But whatever direction we go, a lot of people who have tuned out of politics are in for a rude awaking. The lives of every day Americans will begin to change rather dramatically, no matter which option we choose.
We are in the twilight of the America that we have all assumed we will always live in. The one of peace and prosperity that came about as a result of the Allied victory against the Axis in 1945. We’re totally fucked no matter what happens. The one thing that will not happen is we continue to drift through history. I suppose there is an argument that something might happen that might punt this particular problem down the road one more presidential election cycle, but I doubt it.
The Republican Party is now so radicalized and fascist that all the need to is win one election and that’s all she wrote.
One thing to keep an eye on — if stochastic terrorism really begins to be a big problem in the United States, you could very well see a huge amount of domestic political refugees begin to pop up. Blues in Red States and Reds in Blue States won’t feel safe anymore and they will flee to a state that better fits their political views.
We are beginning to see a little bit of this, in a general way, because of COVID restrictions and, now, the Dobbs decision. But if we really do, as civil wars expert Barbra F. Walter suggests, begin to see Troubles-like violence in the United States, then this process will accelerate dramatically. I’m still not quite prepared to believe we’re going to have a Troubles-like civil war when MAGA is ascendant and they are getting everything they want politically without the need for violence.
But I will admit that the Far Right has lost its fucking mind since the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. All this talk of “civil war” on MAGA’s part is really about MAGA people wanting to know when the rules of war, rather than crime apply and they can begin to murder people like me in cold political blood without facing any prison time.
Anyway, the point is, enjoy these last few months (days?) of peace in the twilight of Pax Americana. This could change rather dramatically at any moment.
