There are rumors that Mike Pence is seriously considering talking to the January 6th Committee. Before we all get too Mueller, She Wrote level of excited about this, we need to put some context to what we might be able to expect from such a historic event.
The thing that Pence SHOULD do, which is the John Dean of the MAGA movement, is just not going to happen. I say he should do this because the only way that man is ever going to be POTUS is as part of a Unity Ticket of some sort. He doesn’t have to become Democrat, he just has to become a MAGA apostate to the point that he inflicts serious political damage to the movement.
Or, put another way, Pence would have to “change the question” when it came to what he was supposed to do. Instead of the question in his mind being, “How do I become president?” the question needs to be, “How do I change the political equation I face so dramatically that being president is even a possibility?”
Because, as it stands — Pence is never going to be a MAGA Republican President. I seem to recall MAGA wanted to hang him, at some point in the immediate past. So, if Pence really wants to be POTUS at this point, he has to burn everything to the ground. He has to flip the circuit breaker do a hard reboot of the American political system.
In the carnage that results from him destroying the Republican Party, he could very well end up on top. Liberals would be so grateful for what Pence had done that they would vote for him at least for one presidential cycle, even if they hate everything else about his politics. This is not hard. The easiest endgame for Pence is also the most painful — but it would work.
At the moment, I just don’t think Pence has it in him. He would pray about it a lot and God would tell him to give the January 6th Committee just enough information that he could still feel as though he might have a chance to be a MAGA POTUS.
Because, just from my casual conversations with my Traditionalist relatives, they hate Democrats and liberal-progressive with such a white hot rage that they can’t even imagine a situation where someone like Pence would do country over party and for the specific purpose of saving the Republic, align himself with people he didn’t agree with politically. They’re so busy thinking of the center-Left as Satanic groomers that they’re completely blinded to even considering the idea of saving America’s democratic birthright.
So, at the moment, I have very low expectations for Pence should he testify.
These days, I find myself thinking of how there was once a point, I think during the 2016 campaign, when a rumor began to circulate that there was evidence of Trump using the “N-Word.” There was even a panicked meeting about within the Trump campaign in which one of his African American supporters asked, “Well, how many times did he say it?”
With that in mind, it’s clear that not only is Trump above the law in general, but for some weird reason his followers don’t have any red line at all. He could start to demand the right to sleep with women on their wedding night and his followers would, after about 24 hours of silence, have a ready set of talking points explaining why Trump, as a former president, has that right and why won’t the woke cancel culture mob let him do something so heterosexual? Trump is, in short, something akin to a God to MAGA, leaving us all to wonder if push came to shove and there was some sort of military action between Reds and Blues if we would find ourselves in a German 1945 “Gotterdammerung” type situation where every man, woman and child was willing to fight to the death for their big orange doofus.
All of this leads me to believe that, in the end, the real battle is who will be Trump’s successor. Whomever Trump picks to be 2024 veep is going to be in a prime position to be something akin to America’s Putin. And, given how bonkers Trump is at the moment, he could pretty much pick literally anyone, ranging from Gen. Mike Flynn to Steve Bannon. Anyone! It could get really dark, in fact.
We may all be Antifa in the end.
As an side, to think, at some point in the next 20 to 30 years, some very serious scholar is going to spend a lot of time writing a very serious, weighty tome about dingus Trump that takes him seriously, at last. It may not be an American who writes it because we’ll be an autocracy, but it’s going to happen somewhere. Unless, of course, WW3 happens it’s all moot.
Or, put another way, my prediction that there’s a real possibility that in the end MAGA will cause the death of more people than the Nazis did. If you factor in that a Second American Civil War would cause WW3, then that’s at least 1 to 2 billion dead right there. And I could see between 10 and 20 million American dead if Blue and Red started to lob WMD at each other in the context of a MAGA “revolution” or 2ACW.
Talk about a Great Reset or Fourth Turning!
Anyway, the point is, we live in the lead up to Something Big historically. I just don’t know if it’s autocracy, civil war, revolution, WW3 or some combination of all of those things. A lot of people are going to die because of a fucking dingus moron racist who is nothing more than a vessel, an avatar for white Christian rage.
And there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it.
While I am well known for my abstract hysterics about how bad things are in the United States at the moment as MAGA continues to be ascendant, occasionally, there is a concrete thing I can point to and say — “That’s bad!”
U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivers an opening statement during the opening hearing of the U.S. House (Select) Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on July 27, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. During its first hearing the committee, currently made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, will hear testimony from law enforcement officers about their experiences while defending the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob on January 6. (Photo by Jim Bourg-Pool/Getty Images)
And that’s how I feel about Liz Cheney losing her primary. Even though on policy, I pretty much disagree with her 100%, when it comes to her willing to sacrifice politically in the name of defending democracy I back her just as much. In fact, I’m so desperate for principled leadership and an elected leader who at least believes that the United States IS a democracy that I’m willing to entertain the idea of voting for Cheney. I say this especially in the context of her potentially being a part of a Unity Ticket.
Anyway, the Republican Party is very autocratic and growing ever more so by the moment. It is inevitable that they will gain power again and when they do, I’m not totally sure that they’re going to ever give it up peacefully. And autocracy is so popular, that there’s a decent chance that Trump could win outright in 2024, no cheating required.
He will cheat anyway, of course, because that’s his nature.
We have to prepare for the United States being faced with the deeply existential choice of autocracy or civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025. If Trump is the Republican nominee, this choice is going to be very, very extreme and severe. There won’t be any middle ground.
And, of course, there is the very real possibility that something akin to The Troubles of Northern Ireland might happen in the United States before then. MAGA is already chomping at the bit to murder people like me in cold blood for political reasons — they sure do come to this Website a lot looking for my dystopian hellscape scenarios.
Too bad my nightmare is their dream. What I fear, they want.
Or, to reiterate, we’re past the Event Horizon for civil war or autocracy and we’re in the danger zone of severe political violence erupting at any moment. It could start because Democrats have an upset win in November. It could happen because Trump is indicted. It could be that Trump pulls a Scalia on us and dies peacefully in his sleep. It could happen for you name it. Anything and everything might be the final straw for MAGA and they grab their AR-15s to murder people like me in cold blood. It’s already all they talk about!
Anyway. I’ve already begun to feel the same sense of rage I felt when Trump was president. I hope to channel that rage into six novels and hopefully finish them before I drop dead. But I have to accept the very real possibility that at some point between now and around 2025 I may become a domestic political refugee and will have to find succor somewhere outside of my current abode because all my MAGA neighbors want to murder me for my political views.
We all may be Antifa before it’s over with.
But, back to Cheney. I really respect her principles. And I still believe that if we do have a National Divorce that she could, ironically, become a Blue State America leader. It would be surreal, but when such tectonic historic forces are a play virtually anything is possible.
We may be in for some pretty fucking strange events between now and January 2025.
America, the most powerful and ostensibly stable nation in the world finds itself in a somewhat surreal situation at the moment. It seems — if my Webstats are any indication — that a pretty big subset of the electorate believes that something akin to a “MAGA Revolution” is all but inevitable in the immediate future.
Something about the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago made concrete the lingering, paranoid fears of the MAGA New Right about why they feel they need to take up arms against the Federal government. Now, obviously, this is bonkers logic for more than one reason — chief amongst them being that the Right is extremely ascendant in the United States and is getting everything it wants peacefully via politics and the courts.
But, as we all know, history loves to be ironic so, if Trump went transactional in a bid to prevent himself from going to jail, yes, the “MAGA Revolution” that so many fucking cocksucker MAGA people seem to believe is going to happen, will, in fact, happen. Yet, as I’ve written before, this is a very complex situation whereby a number of macro trends are all converging at the same time. You can call it The Fourth Turning or the Great Reset.
Whatever you call it, not only have we passed the Even Horizon for the existential choice of autocracy or civil war in 2024 – 2025, we’re also in the danger zone for something that would be marketed as a “MAGA Revolution.” Here’s how it would happen — America is awash in AR-15s. And, as we all tragically know at this point, AR-15s are specifically designed to murder as many people as possible at one time.
So, if Trump went transactional on Truth Social and told his followers to, say, start to kill FBI agents, then, yes, there is a good chance that they would pick up their AR-15s en mass and begin to do just that. But it might not be FBI agents — it could be pretty much anyone that the MAGA New Right perceives as part of the “woke cancel culture mob”….including people like ME.
And, of course, there is the chance that things could spiral out of control at this point without the help of Trump. It could be that a few lone wolves shooting up a lot of liberals somewhere might be enough to start a violent forest fire across the country that the press would call a “MAGA Revolution.” I suppose the whole point is that MAGA really, really wants the laws of war, rather of the criminal justice system to apply when they start murdering people like me for political reasons.
I guess that’s what they mean when they search for “civil war” or “revolution” and come to this site to look at my dystopian hellscape scenarios. They don’t really know what they want in any concrete manner, but in a gauzy, abstract grunt that is there political views they want to know, “When will I get to murder liberals without having to go to jail?”
But let me be clear — MAGA getting what they want when it comes to a “civil war” or “revolution” in 2022 would be so very, very dumb, not to mention very tragic for everyone involved. If they are just patient, they can get everything they want without firing a shot and it would be in the Blues’ court to start a civil war in 2024 – 2025 because either the 2024 election was brazenly stolen or Trump’s incoming second administration’s policies were just so radical that Blue states will decide to bounce.
The point of all of this is while it may seem inevitable to fucking cocksucker MAGA New Right types that we’re going to have a civil war or revolution at any moment….I still have my doubts. I just don’t see it happening unless Trump specifically demands it and even then, the idea that we’ve crossed that particular Rubicon is dubious.
I like to use the searches that bring people to this obscure Website as writing prompts. The most recent one is, “CIVIL WAR COMING IN US.” So, let’s help this person out. I’m assuming it was a question. I think. But let’s talk about that — is a civil war coming to the US?
Here are some reasons why we may have a civil war over and above the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
Well, the logic for one happening is there now. And all the conditions for one exist. And, yet, barring Trump going transactional, I just don’t see it happening anytime soon. It may happen in late 2024, early 2025 when Blue states leave the Union because MAGA brazenly steals the 2024 election.
But, like I said, Trump has the means, motive and opportunity to single handedly start a civil war — he gets indicted and he lashes out, going transactional and demanding that his followers go Gotterdammerung on the United States. It would not take too many incidents of MAGA lonewolves with AR-15s murdering 30 or 40 people for political reasons for what came next to be marketed as “America’s Second Civil War.”
And, I have to admit that the United States is very much on edge. I won’t totally dismiss the idea of some sort of spontaneous “popular” revolt on the part of MAGA simply because we will have reached a point of such absolute division in the United States that there would seem to be an air of inevitability about a civil war.
And, as I said in my most recent Vibe Shift podcast, there are two things to think about when talking about when a civil war might start — “when” and “civil war.” What do you mean by “when.” I’m assuming what the fucking fascist cocksuckers of MAGA who are chomping at the bit to murder people like me mean when they say “when” is “when can I murder liberals and the rules of war, not law, apply?” In other words, under the rules of a war, they could just run around and murder anyone whose politics they didn’t like — like me — and they wouldn’t be arrested because the Federal government would be overwhelmed by a civil war.
Also, what is a “civil war?” What do they mean by that term? I often think that a “civil war” or “revolution” is something mentioned by the far Right for no other reason than those two concepts are the worst possible thing they can think of. The Far Right has reached the point, however, when they are chomping at the bit to start running around with the AR-15, murdering people like me in cold political blood.
So. What does all of this mean?
It means while a civil war COULD simply start as something of a popular uprising, I have my doubts that it’s going to happen in 2022. It might happen in 2024 – 2025 when Blues leave the Union to protest the theft of the 2024 election. But in 2022 on the part of MAGA to protest the indictment of Trump? Maybe. But not likely.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
People want a simple answer to a very complicated question. They want some sense of when a civil war might start in the United States this year — if ever. The biggest issue is, what exactly do you mean a “civil war.” Do you mean a popular uprising on the part of MAGA that would be like “The Troubles” of Northern Ireland or do you mean something more organized, akin to the First American Civil War.
Here are some reasons why we may have a civil war over and above the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
And the issue of “when” is even more difficult to pin down. What do you expect to happen? “When” is both very nebulous and specific at the same time. It’s nebulous because what would you call the “start?” An explosion? People dying for political reasons? It’s specific because you expect there to be “An Event” that you can point to, like the battle of Fort Sumter as the “beginning.”
So, I honestly have no idea “when” a civil war will begin in 2022. But if you’re really interested in “when” a civil war will begin this year, you need to keep a close eye on Donald Trump. He has the fate of the United States in his tiny, tiny hands. If Trump goes transactional and demands political violence in an effort to intimidating the Federal government to stop them from prosecuting him. There is, of course, the idea that there could be some sort of “spontaneous” popular uprising on the part of the MAGA New Right that would involve a lot of wildcat, lone wolves with AR-15s running around, murdering people for political reasons.
That, in turn would force us towards a situation where we face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war sometime around late 2024, early 2025. So, it could be that there would be growing violence between now and that time, but it would not be as organized as what we might see as the 2024 presidential cycle comes to a climax. Because I believe that, in the end, it will be Blues who start a civil war, if it happens, because the 2024 election will have been brazenly stolen by Republicans.
And, yet, since the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, it’s very, very possible that a “civil war” could, in fact, start the way everyone has long thought it would — MAGA freaks out and starts blowing shit up. And it would happen for one specific reason — Donald Trump. Because, as I have already said, on a macro level, Republicans are ascendant and they have absolutely no reason to start a civil war because they’re getting everything they want via other means.
Below is a bit more detailed breakdown of description of what a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025 might look like.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
Things are dark politically right now in the United States. And I find myself growing more and more frustrated with people who don’t acknowledge the increasing risk of stochastic terrorism. Way too many people are complicit in the rise of fascism in the United States by hiding behind the “both sides” rhetorical trope.
But we have to accept that America is on edge. And it’s very possible that at any moment there could, in fact, be something akin to a “popular revolt” on the part of the MAGA New Right. I have long believed that because Republicans are politically ascendant that they wouldn’t start blowing shit up because they had no reason to — they were getting everything they want via politics and the courts.
Then something happened I could not have predicted — the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. This changes the equation dramatically because it’s an easy-to-understand event that extremists can hang their hat on. They have something that they can frame their use of political violence going forward. It not only makes Trump a martyr, it also makes him the center of attention. There is a change, of course, that Trump could not only become totally politically radioactive and yet because we’re an anocracy not a democracy, he STILL is able to become president again.
But the issue at hand is — could Trump go transactional and demand that his followers start to blow shit up in an effort to intimidate the Federal government into not prosecuting him. Or, it could be that he won’t even go transactional, it could be that we reach a tipping point such that stochastic terrorism is inevitable.
It definitely makes you wonder what the reaction would be on the part of elected Republicans should stochastic terrorism occur. I think we know the answer — they would feign “thoughts and prayers” and then they’ll pivot to saying America has a “mental health crisis.” They will not, of course, address their own implication in what has happened.
Anyway, things are very uncertain right now. We could go either way. America is awash in extreme rhetoric and I don’t know how our political system would be able to handle stochastic terrorism. I think if there was a lot of stochastic terrorism that our political system would collapse into chaos and we would lurch closer and closer to a point where the stark choice of autocracy or civil war will become more and more unavoidable.
Things are beginning to move fast now. So fast, in fact, that I’m beginning to worry that my otherwise well thought out and logical belief that if we have a Second American Civil War that it will happen in 2024 -2025 when Blue States leave the Union after the theft of the 2024 presidential election.
And, yet, here we are in 2022 and the specter of Reds starting a civil war (or “popular” revolt?) is growing more and more real.
I’m just about to believe I was wrong. But something happened that I could never have predicted — the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. If there is the kind of right-wing “Troubles” type civil war that people like Barbara F. Walter have written about it will happen because Trump, feeling trapped, goes transactional and demands his followers begin to blow shit up.
Then there could be a significant rise in political violence in the United States, especially stochastic terrorism. There would be a reason for all that violence that didn’t exist before, when I thought it wouldn’t happen — an concerted effort to intemidate the Federal government in an effort to protect Trump from criminal accountability.
That’s what I couldn’t predict when I came up with all my 2024, 2025 Blue States start a civil war predictions — Trump, on a personal basis, would finally be held accountable and that would give the very well armed MAGA New Right an excuse to initiate significant political violence well ahead of the 2024 election cycle.
But it hasn’t happened yet. And it may never.
And, yet, all that would have to happen is Trump feel so cornered that he went transactional. He’s already done it one, to some extent with January 6th and we’re already beginning to see signs that we’re lurching in that direction now. But it hasn’t happened yet.
There is a real chance that we’re going to see a rise in stochastic terrorism in the immediate future. I have no idea how exactly it might happen, but it definitely would make a lot of sense in a broader historical context if you assume we’re facing the stark choice of autocracy or civil war.
Or, put another way, America’s 2024 election could very well resemble Germany’s in 1933. It was very violent and turbulent, to the point that it could barely be considered “free and fair.” But the issue we have to remember is, things are not officially out of control. The lingering, chronic crisis that we’ve been in since around 2015 is now accelerating and growing more severe by the moment.
A sudden uptick in organized stochastic terrorism would sucker punch the center-Left in the United States. We wouldn’t know how to react. And, yet, talking to my Traditionalist relatives about such things, they indicate to me that stochastic violence might be a “red line” when it comes to their continuing support for MAGA.
They’re willing accept all of the accoutrements of fascism, but when it comes to violence in the streets, it makes them blanch. I don’t know how much of that is specific to just my relatives and how much of that is something Traditionalists in general believe.
But the point is — all the conditions are there for something dramatic to happen on the stochastic terrorism front. There are a LOT of MAGA true believers and dieharders out there with AR-15s and we’re on “truth” away on the part of Trump for them to start running around, picking off FBI agents in an effort to scare the Federal government into staying away from Trump.
And all of this would be happening the context of Trump being the 2024 nominee and brazenly stealing the 2024 election with the aid of Steve K. Bannon’s “spiritual shock troops.”
Anyway. I’m growing concerned. Maybe you should, too.
A whole lot of people continue to put the entire fate of the most powerful nation in the world in the hands of fate by assuming that their “hope” will get them out of the current Trump-induced crisis.
But what we have to accept is Trump could very well become very, very toxic politically…and yet become POTUS again. And if he feels he might get indicted and booked, he could very well begin to demand Red states to leave the Union in an effort to intimidate the Federal government into letting him off.
The thing that isn’t going to happen, at least without a lot of difficulty, is any sort of pivot towards any of the other would-be autocrats who want to be Trump’s successor. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to lead the Trump without Trump version of MAGA and, yet, Trump is in the game again and if anything he’s growing more powerful by the moment.
And, yet.
I want to make clear that we’re not only past the Event Horizon when it comes an existential choice of autocracy or civil war, we’re now in a danger zone of political upheaval that will come to a head in late 2024, early 2025. One thing I fear is going to begin to happen at an alarming rate is stochastic terrorism against groups like the FBI, trans people and anyone else the MAGA New Right hates for various reasons.
There is a real that Trump, who is demonstrably losing his mind, will grow so absolutely politically toxic — and yet refuse to go away — that he, unto himself, is the single reason why the country collapses into something along the lines of a civil war.
But it hasn’t happened yet.
Maybe it won’t. But with Trump, we just don’t know. There are just too many elements to all of this that I can’t game out. I do believe, however, that we’ll have a lot better understanding of things the moment we learn how well the Democrats did with the 2022 midterms.
If Republicans gain control of the House again, then things will grow very unstable very quickly. They will impeach both Biden and Harris repeatedly. They will impeached any number of other people they don’t like. In fact, I would suggest that for the years 2023 – 2024 that’s all the Senate will do — be in session to consider this or that person’s impeachment.
And there is, of course, the idea that Trump could demand to be Speaker. Why he doesn’t talk about doing that more, I don’t know. That seem so on-brand for him as a quasi-autocrat. Anyway. What do I know.
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