What does it mean? Anything? It’s one of those things that might go either way. Trump is such a loudmouth dingus that he could very well be admitting to a very, very serious crime…or not. And, lulz, what would it matter, anyway. He’s above the law to the point that he can admit to any crime and nothing would come of it.
For the time being, I think Trump is just making shit up to prove a point — vote for him, not the upstart DeSantis. But time will tell, I guess.
There are two possible outcomes to what’s going on between lazy dingus Trump and would-be American autocrat DeSantis.
Trump Politically Cockblocks DeSantis In this scenario, there is a huge battle royale between the two men for the soul of the Republican Party and, ultimately, Trump wins. In the end, DeSantis has to settle for being Trump’s 2024 veep and that’s that. We all wait until fat tub of lard Trump shuffles off this mortal coil and DeSantis becomes our first autocrat that way.
The Bull Moose Endgame In this scenario, Trump gets fed up with the struggle of trying to get the nomination and he takes his marbles to the Patriot Party. Then we have the very real possibility that the Republican vote is split and we manage to punt our existential problems down the road at least one more presidential cycle.
But remember, there is the Independent Legislature doctrine to be decided by SCOTUS, which might lead to the end of American democracy no matter how fucked up Republican politics might become otherwise. Or, to put it another way — macro trends as such that the United States is fucked, fucked, fucked. Something truly amazing would have to happen between now and Election Day 2024 for me not to feel pretty confident that all my hysterical, doom-and-gloom predictions for late 2024, early 2025 are spot on.
And, yet, I’m always wrong, so only time will tell.
Whenever I talk politics these days with my far more conservative relatives — who I love dearly — inevitably the subject of abortion comes up and inevitably I come away at a loss.
There are so many contradictions and poorly thought out things connected to cause and effect that it’s difficult to process. The most glaring paradox is, of course, is that “pro-life” advocates got so fucking worked up for 50 years about how “every life is precious” then when COVID hit the country they were fully prepared to sacrifice Elders to the grim reaper. Unless, of course, they were related to them, then that was different.
Meanwhile, it seems as though MAGA is offended that abortion is mentioned at all in the public square. They take ANY mention of it, even in the effort to keep women safe, as gratuitous and taboo. They get all worked up about how states like California tell women they can still get abortions there, as if the state is advocating they have abortions instead of carry their fetus to term.
So, for a lot of conservatives, all abortions must be illegal because, by definition, abortion is only used for birth control. But wait, there’s more — these very same people have used all sorts of birth control themselves and they lulz the idea that MAGA is coming after legal birth control next, even for married people.
Abortion was always a legal firebreak for birth control in general and now that it’s gone, all of the passion behind ending Roe is now going after overturning the legal framework that has kept any form of birth control legal.
This all points out the central tenant of MAGA — they have a very poor grasp of how they keep hurting their self interests with some of their much sought after policies. They’re oblivious to it until, of course, it gets personal, then they secretly pay for an abortion or whatever. They don’t mind being hypocrites. In fact, that’s kind of their thing.
Now, obviously, there is another Red Line that I’m very concerned about — once the United States is an autocracy, the clock will be ticking for when I cross the autocrat and an ICE agent shoots me in the back of the head. I’ve had the luxury of being a loud mouth crank in a liberal democracy and once that’s no longer the case, my goose is cooked.
I’m probably going to be one of the first victims of the autocrat simply because I’m never, ever going to fucking shut up — even if my far more conservative relatives beg me to “for the sake of the family.”
Free speech is part of my American birthright and I plan to exercise it to the very end.
I have long mulled the idea that someone like Ivanka or Lara Trump might somehow find themselves as POTUS, only to be a figure head for their deranged, autocratic veep like Mike Pompeo or Josh Hawley. This would be par for the course for an autocracy because it would give the autocrat the ability to consolidate power and serve, in real terms, a minimum of around 16 years before they had to either become Speaker or change the Constitution to serve longer.
So I sat up and took notice when I learned that everyone’s deranged, power hungry MAGA idiot, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is growing in esteem in Trump’s eyes to the point that he’s even thinking of naming her his veep. This, of course, would put her in the driver’s seat to become POTUS.
I honestly don’t know enough about MTG to know if she would be nothing more of a figure head as she would be in the Velvet Fist scenario or if she has the wearwithal actually be an autocrat unto herself. It’s very curious. In one way, MTG is very Trump-like and would probably not be centered enough to consolidate power like a true autocrat, but at the same time, from what I can tell, she wants to be a power player and so she might be able to pull it off.
The idea of MTG being America’s first Very American Autocrat is loony, but I guess in it’s own way it’s better than having an autocrat named JOSH of all things. But there remains the issue of how politically blood thirsty the fight to be Trump’s autocratic successor is going to be when that moment comes. I just don’t know if MTG is up to that type of fight.
The simple explanation for why MAGA Republicans are so adamant that the United State is a constitutional republic rather a democracy is it’s a form of debate nullification. It gets MAGA Republicans, who are fucking fascists, a retort against liberal-progressives who talk about how MAGA Republicans are a “threat to our democracy.”
MAGA Republicans hear this so much that they have come up with, “Oh yeah? Well fuck you, the United States isn’t a democracy in the first place, it’s a constitutional republic!” Then it becomes obvious that the two people talking can’t even agree on the terms they’re using and the conversation trails off to something else.
There is so much wrong with the growing insistence by MAGA Republicans that we can’t defend democracy because, lulz, the United States isn’t even one to begin with. They have a number of talking points thought out about all of this, everything from “Are you going to challenge the wisdom of the Founding Fathers?” to a garbled, misinterpretation of Alexis de Tocqueville.
That this is even an issue, is also something of a tell as to the agenda of MAGA Republicans. That they get so wrapped up in this dumb conflation about the nature of our Constitution tells us that they don’t believe in democracy and they want to establish a white Christian ethnostate. Or, more specifically, rather than work within the bounds of our democracy and change their policy agenda to win elections fair and square, they’re so fucking racist that they want to play lesser democratic elements of the Constitution like a xylophone so they can establish an autocracy and that will be that.
The point is — another reason why this is a tell is the idea that the United States is a “constitutional republic” is not mutually exclusive with it being a democracy. It’s both and has been, to varying degrees, since its conception. It’s only now, when MAGA Republicans are looking for some retort to evil libtards that the two equally true concepts have been muddled by MAGA Republicans’ partisan needs.
I would note that “What form of government does the United States have?” is following the same path as any number of other hot button issues where the two sides are so far as apart that they can’t agree on the basics. If you bring it up MAGA Republicans laugh at you, use a joke they heard on some fetid MAGA podcast and then you spend all your time not talking about the issue, but wading through bullshit designed to make it impossible to even debate the topic at hand in the first place.
It’s happened with gun control. It’s happened with the Green New Deal. It’s happened to a variety of topics and it’s happening with the very basic idea of the Untied States being a democracy. If that’s not a sign that at some point between now and spring 2025 we’re going to have a civil war, turn into a MAGA autocracy or have a military junta, I don’t know what is.
This is where I have to bring up the great irony of this bullshit. I have people in my family to believe “the United States isn’t a democracy.” I love them dearly, even if I’ve actively given up debating politics with them because of shit like this. The irony is that given that I’ve made it very clear that I’m not going to ever stop ranting about how much I fucking hate the MAGA Republican movement, should the United States turn into an autocracy, it’s inevitable that I’m probably going to be sent to a camp.
THEN, of course, my Traditionalist conservative relatives will sit up and take notice and have to figure out how to get me out of my concentration camp. Once things get personal — their only red line other than violence in the streets — then they will start to get upset about America no longer being a democracy. Then, of course, it will be fucking too late. This is not an abstract to me. I’m never going to be a “Good German” and any shift on the part of the United States into autocracy poses real risks for me, personally.
But my Traditionalist relatives scoff at these fears or just don’t want to talk about it. They hate the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob” SO MUCH that they willing to give up their American birth right of democracy so they can live in a white Christian ethnostate, even if it puts my life in real danger.
I write a lot about the possibility of autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025. And, yet, there is a third option that I’ve written about some, too: military junta.
How exactly what that happen? Well, it’s still too far to game out, but one possibility would be that Blue States begin the process of leaving the Union and the military finally steps in to kind of cool things down until, maybe, a Constitutional Convention can be called.
The other scenario is, of course, is the U.S. Military is forced to step in because, well, lulz, we have no idea who POTUS is — or, at least, can’t agree using political means who should be POTUS.
I think we have to give the idea of a military junta serious thought because history has shown us that that is often the route that modern democracies go when they finally fail. It happened with the French in the 1960s and it could happen here in a few years.
In my fevered imagination, I could see someone like James Mattis being named “acting POTUS” for a few months while we sort out exactly what we’re going to do about a National Divorce / secession crisis / certification crisis. The U.S. Military is the only remaining institution in America that would have the means to keep the country together if there was a severe political crisis.
And it would make sense, given how respected the U. S. Military is across the political spectrum for them to control the country through some sort of bi-partisan military junta made up of military and political leaders. A military junta might, in the end, be the only thing that stops either civil war or autocracy from happening.
But. And this is a big but — it could be that not even the American military would be able to avoid buckling should the time come. Generally, the officer corp still believes in democracy, while the enlisted are far more likely to support MAGA.
Which reminds me of the coup attempt that Turkey had a few years ago that ultimately did nothing more than allow their autocrat to consolidate power. So, again, I think in the end, America is just going to become an autocracy. Or, to make ourselves feel better, we’re going to pretend we’re a traditional Western democracy when, in fact, everyone and I mean EVERYONE will know that we’re simply another illiberal democracy like Hungary or Turkey.
The only question I have, of course, is — will I cross ICE and endup in a Trump branded concentration camp?
Let me be clear — any Republican who becomes POTUS in 2025 will be our first autocrat. There are a at least a dozen would-be MAGA Republican autocrats waiting for Trump to just get the fuck out of the way. He’s served his political and historical purpose, so if he would just retire our inevitable decline into autocracy could happen unabated.
The person who is very, very, very popular with my Traditionalist is Ron DeSantis. And, really, he fits the bill of the person who would be America’s first autocrat. He will become president and we’ll all wake up in 20 years and wonder why he’s still POTUS. Trump has shown DeSantis — and other leading Republicans — how weak the center-Left is and how easy it will be to establish an autocracy based on minority rule. They just need the opportunity and the rest will take care of itself.
By definition, DeSantis as POTUS means the end of 240-odd years of American democracy. It probably won’t happen immediately, but it will happen. And as it does, millions of wealthy liberals will leave the country. This scenario, at least in my mind, is a forgone conclusion. The only thing stopping it from happening is it hasn’t happened yet.
And, yet, there is Donald Trump.
Ron DeSantis
Trump simply will not get out of the way. He’s so lazy and stupid that baring something I can’t predict, even if he wins the 2024 election outright he could still start a civil war just by being himself. Trump is a massive quirk in American political history. Anyone else in his position — ANYONE — would have never have lost the 2020 election and he or she would not be slowly strangling American democracy in their second term.
Maybe something will happen that will force Trump to get out of the way. If that happens, then America will be full of Good Germans who are thankful that the “woke cancel culture mob” has finally be vanquished and America will, at last be “great” again. Whatever the fuck that means.
It will only be when the policies of our new autocratic government become personal that any of America’s Good Germans will feel a red line has been crossed. Of course, by that point it will be too late for people like me who will probably be in an ICE camp somewhere. Wish me luck.
Nowhere is it more obvious that we face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war at some point between now and January 2025 than when it comes to Biden, during the 2020 campaign, promising to be a “uniter.” I have traditionalist relatives and they often get really mad that he said this, given that he hasn’t done what they feel would “unite” the country.
Dark Brandon
This is a very murky issue because there is a lot to unpack.
First, if you say that Biden lied when he said that, then you have to address the fact that Trump said 30,000 lies while in office. Then, of course, your MAGA interlocutor will throw up their hands and say this is “bogus” because the “fake news” Washington Post is who collected that figure. Or, they’ll say most of those lies weren’t all that big and, besides, Biden lied when he said he would be a “uniter” and, as such, he needs to be impeached. Or some similar bullshit.
Another element to all of this is probably what was going on when Biden said he would be a “uniter” is he was trying to convey to those 100,000 independent swing voters in 5 purple states that are crucial to winning a presidential election that he would be a more traditional president, one who would governor everyone equally, not demand a quid pro quo for any and every action.
But that’s difficult for MAGA people to process because they’re so consumed with grievance and a fear that of losing status in the context of the browning of America that they’re too blinded with rage to be willing to process any sort of nuance like that.
The key thing to remember, though, is — but for Trump, I would say we’re going to lose our American democratic birthright in plain sight and there won’t be much struggle. If Trump would just get out of the way, after having served his political and historical purpose, then Ron DeSantis could become president and turn us into A Very American Autocracy.
Trump is a political monster, however, and he won’t retire. And because he’s such a fucking chaos agent there is a good chance that he, unto himself, could start a civil war in the United States. It’s not a big chance, but it does exist.
An Effort to Stop Criminal Accountability This is the one scenario whereby the MAGA New Right people who keep coming to this Website looking for a sooner-rather-than-later timetable for being able to murder people like me without criminal recourse might happen. If Trump really felt he might, at last, face some criminal accountability, he could very well begin to rant that Red States need to leave the Union because of how unjust it all is. I suppose he might, in general, demand in his usual dog whistle kind of way general political violence, but I doubt it. When you have an entire party — the Republican Party –with a cult-like devotion to you, why go for general violence when you can get entire states to leave the Union at your behest?
A Ploy to Convict Biden / Harris in the Senate In this scenario, it’s 2023 and Republicans have gone nuts. They have impeached both Biden and Harris out of spite. Now, for Trump to actively be trying to destroy the country, he would, of course, need to have some personal investment in it. So, this one only really works if he is the Speaker of the House and he thinks he can become POTUS again early. So, in a bid to scare the living shit out of the Senate, he, as Speaker, begins to demand Red States leave the Union in order to get what he wants. He says this just as a rhetorical flourish, but MAGA legislatures take him seriously and states, probably beginning with Texas, begin to convene Secessionist Conventions. An away we go.
A 2024 Clusterfuck — MAGA Counter Revolution This endgame was two parts to it. It could be that at some point in late 2024, after Election Day, it will be obvious to Blue States that the election was stolen and they have no recourse but to begin the process of leaving the Union. By the time Certification Day 2025 rolls around, we are in a full fledged Secession Crisis. The other possibility is that Trump wins outright — even though he’ll cheat no matter what — and by late January it becomes clear that Trump’s second term agenda is so fascist and radical that Blue States begin to leave the Union.
So, once Trump or DeSantis is POTUS in 2025, what’s going on with CNN right now is going to happen to all American media. The shift will happen subtly, behind the scenes and under the rubric of “objectivity.” But will happen. And what’s probably going to tip the average person of that something has changed will be a mistake or overreach on the part of the autocrat.
The most obvious place for this to happen would be late night TV. While CNN is lurching towards MAGA via “objectivity” late night hosts could just be purged in a rather abrupt manner — probably because the autocrat threatens the broadcast licenses of their networks.
But the issue is — because form follows function there is going to be a point in the near future when the only way Americans can get any news that the autocrat doesn’t want them to know about will be to watch the BBC. The only way this isn’t going to happen, of course, is if there’s a civil war. Then that’s a whole different set of changes.
And, yet, again, the point is — America is careening towards autocracy at an alarming rate. We really are an anocracy and we’re far less stable than people would like to admit.
It will be shenanigans like what’s happening with CNN that is how freedom of speech will initially be curtailed — it will be plutocrats working within the system who chill free speech, not the government doing it. Though, obviously, that will come soon enough once the MAGA SCOTUS overturns New York Times V. Sullivan.
Trump is not only growing more deranged of late, he’s also growing more and more angry and radical. And he’s not going anywhere. The FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago has caused the entire MAGA movement to lurch into a frothy radicalism that sometimes doesn’t seem to make any sense.
And, yet, at the moment, the center-Left in the United States is so weak that we have to take even this new, bonkers version of MAGA seriously as a political force.
My fear is that by late 2024, early 2025, MAGA’s agenda for the United States will have grown so radical that once they steal the 2024 election and begin the process of consolidating power that what they want to do will shock even Traditionalists and away we go. There really is something akin to a revolution, and a group I call “Radical Moderates” will pop up as they usually do in times of political distress in the United States.
Radical Moderates are people who are usually pretty laid back, but because of the crisis that the country is in, they sudden are willing to entertain concepts that were once considered radical. The most notable example of this was when Lincoln freed the slaves and, suddenly “everyone was an Abolitionist.” The same thing could happen if MAGA flips out and ties to, overnight, turn us into Fortress America.
Blue States will begin to leave the Union as the MAGA counter-revolution begins to happen in Trumplandia. There could be a race war in the Deep South and we might find the United States in a situation comparable to Revolutionary Russia as the Russian Empire began to implode.
This makes me want to read a book about the Russian Revolution.
Anyway. There is a greater-than-zero sum chance of mass chaos and unprecedented political upheaval in the United States starting in late 2024, early 2025. But I’m always wrong. Always. I mean, I can’t predict the future. So, it might ultimately get punted down the road a presidential cycle. Or DeSantis becomes president and our decent into autocracy is far more gradual that might happen with Trump.
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