by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
We’re all so busy assuming that Reds are going to somehow start a civil war that we continue not to really think about the possibility that it will be Blues who ultimately prompt one. I certainly don’t want Blues to be the ones history blames for a 2024 – 2025 secession crisis, but it’s definitely a prospect we need to take seriously.
I have written about this scenario a great deal for no other reason than I’m a native contrarian and also it just doesn’t make any sense for Reds to demand a National Divorce if they’re politically ascendant. They just have no reason to destroy the country with a National Divorce because they’re on the cusp of transitioning us into an autocracy without firing a shot.
And, ultimately, on paper at least, it just doesn’t seem in collective character of Blues to leave the Union — all the smug liberals who would otherwise lead such a center-Left National Divorce will just flee the country en masse and that will be that. Lulz?
So, I suppose all my “hysterical doom shit” pontificated on over the last few years on this blog will ultimately look rather foolish. Even a radical revenge-driven Trump second term won’t be enough to cause California, then New York then various other Blue states to leave the Union. I really, really don’t want such a thing to happen, but things continue to grow so alarming that I just can’t help myself.
A prime example of my fears about Blue leaving the Union rather than Reds is what’s going on with the expulsion of two Blues from the Tennessee legislature. People in my center-Left echo chamber are freaking the fuck out. To the point that I’m growing alarmed that we may look back upon this as something of a tipping point.
Or, put another way, Blues are ripe to do the very thing we’re so busy thinking Reds will want to do — prompt a civil war by causing a secession crisis.
Maybe not. This could just a moment in time that passes. And yet it could also be that Blues are getting woke to how politically ascendant the forces of autocracy are in American political life on now the state level and ultimately the national level.
If nothing else, the center-Left freak out about the Tennessee Three is definitely an unsettling ping from a potentially dark and violent figure. The very things I keep writing about and worrying about could very well come true as part of the 2024 election cycle.
Stay tuned.
