by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
All the conditions are there for either a civil war or revolution starting in late 2024, early 2025. And, yet, there is one remaining unknown that I simply can’t game out — have we reached the point where severe political violence might actually break out?
This is something I think a lot about because the case could be made that for all the bolts popping off the country at the moment, people on either the Left or the Right just aren’t prepared to risk their lives for what they believe in. It could very well be that when the time comes we’ll either slip into autocracy or we’ll manage to punt that shift down the road for another four years peacefully. Either one of those options is a viable possibility at this point.
And, yet, I worry.
I worry not so much that there might be another January 6th-type incident if Trump loses so much as, on a more systemic basis, state-level Republican Parties might begin to pull states out of the Union if it happens. This is how we might have a civil war. Even though on a individual basis MAGA people may not be willing to die for the cause, institutions controlled by Republicans are willing to initiate a National Divorce because they’re fucking snowflake crybabies.
Now, the other option is Trump wins in 2024 and his incoming agenda is so radical that the Left, rather than demanding a National Divorce, will do something more along the lines of a revolution. This would involve powerful officials across the country balking at Trump becoming president again and that, unto itself, will prompt political violence.
There is the risk, of course, that any such attempt at a “Glorious Revolution” will fail and only allow Trump to consolidate power quicker. Something like this happened in Turkey a few years ago, leaving it an autocracy.
At the moment, it definitely seems as though Trump is going to win in 2024, we peacefully slip into autocracy and that’s that. I just don’t see smug Twitter liberals having the guts to risk their lives and sacred honor in the real world to do anything about Trump’s second term — no matter how radical it may be.
Trump wins and at some point after 2025 he demands a Constitutional Convention to codify MAGA into law and that, as they say, will be that. We’ll drift towards a Russian-style autocracy and we’ll wake up in about 20 years wondering why we’re invading Canada.
We’ll pull out of NATO, with draw the tripwire from South Korea and maybe even align with Russia, Turkey and Hungary. This is a very real possibility if Trump wins in 2024. And, at the moment, Trump is 60,000 votes in five swing states away from that very victory.
What’s more, Biden is old and fuck and that also adds a distressing level of uncertainty to what happens between now and Certification Day 2025. I worry about that particular situation a lot more than you might think.
I think, at the moment, that Trump is going to win in 2024. On a macro level, at least, that seems our fate. Good luck.
