To My Fellow New Lincolnites,
It is a little known fact that the right of revolution is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. I’m a man of peace and of ideas. I hate violence of any sort. And yet these are times that try men’s souls, as Thomas Paine would tell us. It is clear that concentrations camps will be to Trump’s vengeful second term what “the wall” was to his first.
This is of personal interest to me because the same infrastructure used to put “millions” of undocumented people in concentration camps could be used against “vermin” like…me. The thing that gives me a growing sense of frustration is how oblivious the usual suspect nattering nabobs of negativism are to the fact that maybe there are *no* institutions that will step up to save us.
We will have to save ourselves.
The problem we face is there is a certain political momentum to the MAGA Nazi movement that is difficult to defeat using traditional methods. It’s like we’ve all just collectively given up, much like the Roman Empire did in its last few decades. Or, to put a more modern spin on things — freedom loving people are going to appease themselves into a corner.
“What is to be done,” was the question Lenin asked in the years leading up to the Russian Revolution. And I ask that question now, “What is to be done?” I just don’t have a ready answer for you because it seems — as of late 2023 — that it is a historical inevitability that Trump will win a second term and we’re just going to have to sort things out after that.
My fear is that Trump will attempt to use the legal magic pixie dust of the Insurrection Act to knock heads and the U.S. Military will balk at playing the part of some sort of later day SA. There is some sort of “Glorious Revolution” that deposes malignant ding-dong Trump, which, in turn provokes a Secession Crisis as Red States — who want a MAGA Nazi state — get upset and demand a National Divorce.
Before you know it, not only are WMD being used by both sides on U.S. soil, but fucking WW3 has broken out and about 1 billion people die as a number of nuclear-tipped regional conflicts turn hot. If we’re lucky, after a lot of tragic, needless death and destruction “the Good Guys” — people who believe in liberal democracy — win and we have some sort of Second Reconstruction in the context of a complete realignment of the global order — a New World Order, if you will.
But all of that is extremely speculative.
Remember, major historical events are value free while you’re living through them. There is no narrative. I mean, in 1942, your average American had no idea how WW2 was going to end. And, really, all things considered, WW2 ended in a very clean cut way — for the most part — such that The Good Guys won and the Bad Guys lost.
So, predicting what will happen starting in late 2024, early 2025 is impossible. We could very well just punt our problems down the road another four years and all my “hysterical doom shit” will be just that — hysterical doom shit. But I do think we need to think seriously about what the fuck we’re going to do when Trump makes good on his pledge to mass deport people.
And that doesn’t even begin to address what we’re going to do if Trump goes full tyrant and attempts to establish an actual military dictatorship. AND, Trump is fucking old, so it might not even be him who ultimately transitions us from an anocracy into a full Russian-style autocracy.
I dunno. I just dunno.
Keep the faith.
Yours in freedom,
Ender.