by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The key issue facing us is there are macro, structural issues swirling around us that we have no control over. Everything looks like it’s going to come to a head in late 2024, early 2025. I say this because the last time we had significant political violence, it was sparked by the presidential election of 1860. So, at the moment, at least, it definitely seems as though the election of 2024 Could Be It.
Or not.
I continue to struggle with the idea that we’ve crossed the Rubicon to the point that the two sides hate each other in the real world to the point that they would take up arms to prove their point. But the key issue for me is not just how radical Trump’s second term agenda is, but how unlikely he is to accept defeat should that happen to occur.
It’s one of those things where you just can’t predict things one way or another. All the conditions are there for revolution or civil war, and, yet, either one of those outcomes for the 2024 election seems rather fantastical at the moment. It just doesn’t seem possible that an otherwise stable hyperpower like the United States would suddenly and abruptly — and wilfully — go tits up because of “vibes.”
And, yet, here we are.
You really could make a case either way. It could be that all of this is just more of my usual “hysterical doom shit” and it could be that I’m being rather prescient. At the moment, even I think we’re either going to punt our problems down the road another four years or we’re just going to slide peacefully into autocracy.
But there is a greater-than-zero sum chance that all hell will break loose. I think this because on a structural basis, the Republican Party has begun to believe its own bullshit to the point that they are prepared to start a civil war if Trump doesn’t manage to win in 2024. The only unknown is if they’re actually prepared to pull the trigger on a “National Divorce” in the real world and not just their usual online mental masturbation.
At the moment, now in the summer of 2023, it really could go either way. I just don’t know. They say you go bankrupt gradually then all at once for a reason. So, for the time being, we’re just going to wait and see, I guess.
