Tag: American Fascism

America’s Stark Choice: Autocracy Or Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States is far less stable on a political level than we realize. If I have to spend this much time thinking about all the different ways we could buckle sooner rather than later, we got a problem. I generally believe that if there’s going to be any kind of modern civil war, it’s going to be in the 2024-2025 timeframe.

And, yet, we have to deal with the bonkers Cyber Ninja recount in Arizona that has the potential to be extremely destabilizing. If they do manage to pull a Trump “victory” out of their butt — which they definitely seem hellbent on doing — then there’s a good chance that Trump will pop out of his hidey-hole and scream at the top of his lungs that this “proves” that he won the 2020 election and, as such, the Biden Administration should be “nullified” (whatever that means.)

What’s more, that’s not the only way we might find ourselves in a hot civil war — the unexpected death of any number of major political leaders, for any reason, would do the same thing at this point.

The point is — the United States is at a breaking point. We’re primed and ready for a collapse of historic proportions pretty much at any point between now and January 2025. It’s pretty easy to imagine that MAGA Republicans in Congress will simply refuse to certify the election of anyone they don’t like and that will be when we face a very, very stark choice: do we become a fascist state or do we find ourselves in a hot civil war?

I don’t particularly want either outcome, but as I keep saying, the issue is no one will have a choice. We’re all going to have to make some existential decisions. There will, at last, be no middle ground. We’re all going to have to pick a side, any side and risk our lives by doing so.

The Rise Of American Fascism


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It used to be I had at least one conservative relative I had regular, friendly debates with. That has ended, ominously, however, because my conservative interlocutor finally was so detached from reality that I got mad and he said he didn’t want to talk politics with me anymore.

I try to be empathetic, so I find myself rolling around in my mind the topics we talked about in our last debate. The key take away I can think of off the top of my head is how much conservatives fucking hate science. It’s not that they don’t believe in it or that they deny it — they just hate it. This is the origin of their collective hatred of Dr. Fauci. In fact, Dr. Fauci was one of several instances where what my conservative relative started to say seemed like it was being beamed out of the Upside Down. It was surreal. It was bonkers. And it was dangerous.

Anyway, another re-occurring theme with conservatives is they “just want to be left alone.”

I assume what they mean is they think that just by being conservative, that just by having an opinion that doesn’t fit the “liberal media’s agenda” that they risk having their lives destroyed via “cancel culture.” I find it curious that conservatives get so worked up over the power of the liberal media when it’s also pretty obvious that for all the talk about the Republican Party dying it is actually growing more powerful as it marinates in its hate.

I struggle to figure out what the solution to how the United States is tearing itself apart. My fear is the only way there’s any solution is some sort of historic “reset” of our politics that involves an actual hot civil war. I could be a lot more empathetic to the concerns of American conservatives if they weren’t so hysterical that they were willing to throw their lot with fascism. Because that’s what we face right now — the rise of American fascism.

And, really, ironically, what has allowed us to doge the fate of the Weimer Republic for the time being is the Right is completely consumed with hero worship of a…ding-dong. Trump pretty much is an American Hitler…but for the part where he just talks a lot and never actually takes the next step of knocking heads. Trump is soooo fucking lazy and disorganized that while he has helped us lurch towards a Fourth Reich, he has also delayed its creation because of his, specific, personality quirks.

It’s not like Trump has the wherewithal to organize any sort of SA-type paramilitary group. So, a crucial aspect of the rise of American fascism doesn’t exist. We have a few would-be paramilitary groups but they’re small and disorganized at the moment. And, hopefully, will stay that way and never organize into one big jackbooted organization.

But let me be clear — the MAGA Republican Party isn’t dying. If we were still a liberal democracy, then, yes, you could make that argument. But we’re not that anymore –we’re an autocracy without an autocrat. What I mean by that is — all the conditions are there for an autocrat to turn us into a managed democracy like Russia…but for someone to actually do it.

And the one person who history would have do it — Donald J. Fucking Trump — is such a dingbat that for the time being we have a few years of peace. Either Trump will come back tan, ready and rested and take us into the dark night of fascism, or any one of seemingly endless stream of would-be MAGA autocrat presidents will do it instead.

And, as such, that’s why, as I keep saying, we face a stark choice between now and January 2025: autocracy or civil war.

The Third Great Cataclysm


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s at least possible when the United States finally buckles, it will be up there will the fall of the two Romes in its significance. The reason is — the United States holds the entire world together.

If we’re too busy killing each other — or we just pull a Dr. Manhattan on world affairs — everything is going to go tits up pretty quick. The number of dead could get up into the 100s millions.

I just don’t think the average person realizes how rotten the American political system is. When America at last buckles, it will happen so quickly that we won’t be able to process it.

The core issue is — is the United States going to have a civil war or become an entirely inward looking autocracy? As of right now, I honestly have no clue which of these two possibilities will come true — but I do know it will be one of them.

A lot depends on if House Trump bungles the transition to Truamplandia or not in the 2024-2025 period. If there’s a smooth transition to the “Velvet Fist” of, say, Ivanka Trump / Tom Cotton or Lara Trump / Josh Hawley, then, well, we’ll be an autocracy. But if they fuck things up like they always do, then we’ll have a civil war.

As I say, get out the country if you can.

I Definitely Have The Creative White Hot Rage Necessary To Finish This Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This novel, from the beginning, has been powered by my center-of-the-sun rage over the Trump Era. Now that the fucker has been acquitted AGAIN by the Senate, all systems are go to throw myself into this novel.

I’m enraged by the fact that the United States is officially hurtling towards either a civil war / revolution or MAGA-based autocracy. We are now living in something akin to the American Weimar Republic. This is the calm before the storm. We’re going to be in political neutral for about two years. Once the Republicans win Congress back, then they’ll impeach Biden and plot how they’re going to steal the 2024 election.

If they manage to steal the 2024 election without bungling it, then we get an autocracy very, very quickly. If they bungle it, then we get a secession crisis, civil war, revolution, you name it.

These are macro forces at work. Something on a strategic level would have to change for this not to happen. The Singularity. First Contact. A limited nuclear exchange. That type of stuff.

Anyway, the emotional, mental and creative energy I need to finish this novel is back on line. I’m apoplectic that Democrats did not have the guts to at least TRY to get Trump convicted by calling additional witnesses. Ugh. Idiots.

But I guess I have to just throw myself into this novel as best I can. And also keep an eye on the exits — if I mange to sell this novel, I may use the funds to bounce to, say, Asia so I can drink BeerLao and watch as the nation I love is consumed by American Nazis.

American Caligula’s Rudy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just as Rome’s Caligula famously named a horse Counsel, it’s possible that within two weeks our American Caligula is going to do something equally nuts: fire Bill Barr and name Rudy in his place.

Or, someone as bonkers as that.

You see, the clock is ticking. Electors, as I understand it, vote on Dec. 15th. After they vote, then things grow far, far more difficult for Trump — even though they’re pretty difficult right now on a political level.

But it’s easy to imagine a situation where in desperation Trump names Rudy (or someone) to Justice in an effort to frogwalk Biden before the Electors vote. Or, if nothing else, just to appease the seditionists like Mike Flynn and Lou Dobbs.

The reasoning behind this would be to put Trump in a position where he could not only maybe peel off enough “legal votes” in the Electoral College to win, he could also, if that fails, have a quid quo pro with Federal and State prosecutors: I drop the charges on Biden if you don’t prosecute me.

This is an extremely high risk strategy that Trump is too stupid to pull off. But, stranger things have happened. So, we’ll see. We still have two very tense, very strange weeks ahead of us.

The Dead Hand Of History Suggests Either Trump ‘Doesn’t Lose’ Or The Country Implodes After The Election


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The weird thing about the modern era, is I’ve read enough history books to know some sense of how they would describe what’s going on around us — our Republic is becoming an empire. It definitely seems as though one scenario would the United States becomes a semi-monarchial autocratic state with a House Trump that rules the country (poorly) until the Browning of America makes their rule untenable.

It definitely seems as though This Is It. Trump, with the help of the Russians hacking directly into our election systems, will “not lose.” He strangles any semblance of liberal democracy in the United States and whatever’s left is allowed to exist because it’s not a threat. In fits and starts over the next two year or so, Trump accelerates our drive towards autocracy and that’s that. That definitely seems to be the path we’re on right now.

What’s worse, if the Russians somehow allow Biden to win, then we face a different problem — MAGA-Qanon could very well begin to blow shit up and actually start killing people (like me!) out of spite in support of The Dear Leader. They try to sucker punch the center-Left, deliver a knock-out blow. Given that they will have the full authority of the Trump regime on their side, it definitely seems as though they will get away with it.

Of course, Trump is such an incompetent moron, that there’s at least a small chance that even with the legal might of Interior Secretary Bill Barr at his disposal, he’s so ham-handed and brazen in his Very American Coup that the country implodes for no other reason than Trump finally jiggles American self-perception enough that conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA finally get woke. That really seems like a liberal fever dream at this point, but who knows.

The 2020 election definitely has a 1860 vibe to it, is all I gotta say. It feels as though the nation is at a crossroads and because MAGA is so insane, if they don’t get what they want, it seems reasonable to assume they’re going to start killing people (like me!) The question, of course, is what our reaction to such behavior will be.

I honestly don’t know.

‘Surprise Me’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me say I have no revealed truth. I have no idea what is going to happen. But, for all my rambling about why I think Blue States could “win” a Second American Civil War if need be, I just don’t think the conditions are there for us to get that far.

The conditions are there for Trump to brazenly steal the election (one way or another) and get away with it. We’ll lurch into an American interpretation Putin’s Russia (at least on a political level) and that will be that.

Surprise me.

It seems to me that just like a lot of people were worried there might be a civil war in the collapsing Soviet Union and then it all happened rather abruptly and rather peacefully, the same thing is going to happen in America. But instead of ushering in an era of unprecedented freedom as happened in Russia, America is going to lose its freedoms one by one.

All the talk about civil war on the part of Right Wing agitators is more along the lines of such chatter in the closing days of the Weimar Republic rather than the Soviet Union. The Right is just nervous they won’t be able to consolidate power, and so they talk really loud about knocking heads. But things will never get that far because Americans are so politically docile that, lulz, what a joke.

Surprise me.

The momentum is on the side of the Bad Guys on this one. It seems to me the question is how far down the spectrum of tyranny do they manage to get before they realize they’ve done too much and pull back a little bit? I’m thinking we’re going to slowly drift towards the politics of modern Russia. In fact, the center-Left is so excruciatingly weak in the United States that nothing, in real terms, might even change immediately.

Any belated attempts to halt our sild into autocratic rule will be punished severely by Barr. The fascist response to events in Portland has already been normalized to such an extent that we could very well know that the practice of snatching people off the street has been taken nationwide and nothing, in real terms, happens. They could even add pushing people (like me!) out of windows and, again, it’s all a luz.

Something truly out of character for the average American — who would decide our fate — would have to happen. They would have to care. They would have to have an opinion.

Surprise me.

Trump: American Norodom Sihanouk


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There has been a lot of hysterical talk on the part of the center-Left that Trump is some sort of “American Hitler.” And I will be the first to admit that I have engaged in a lot of that talk myself. MAGA people chuckle at this and simply grunt something about “orange man bad” in reply.

Well, I used to think that maybe Trump himself wouldn’t be an American Hitler, but it would be one of his younger, more organized successors.

I’m beginning to doubt that assesement.

The reason is: Qanon.

It’s very easy to see a situation where Trump consolidates power after the Russians steal the election for him and ultimately the worst crimes don’t even happen because of him. It would be a situation similar to King Norodom Sihanouk in Cambodia.

Once OANN owns CNN and The New York Times has been nationalized and then given to Rupert Murdoch (and so forth) there simply won’t be anyone to notice that MAGA and Qanon have fused and they’re rounding people up to be murdered in American Killing Fields.

What’s more, the U.S. Military will be so concerned with not interfering in domestic politics that what starts off as a general attack on liberal elites turns into a mass emptying of the cities and American Killing Fields. This sounds surreal and bonkers, I know, but that’s an angle we haven’t really thought about before — Trump himself doesn’t order the American Killing Fields, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it, either.

Besides the whole mass murder thing, the other element of this that is gravely concerning is who is going to save us if this happens? It definitely seems as though once the country implodes that’s it.

I can’t think of how get out to the other side.

This is all a delusional fever nightmare at this point. But it’s definitely something to think about since apparently the fix is in when it comes to Russians hacking directly into our election systems.

Countdown To American Fascism: ’96 Tears’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

During the 2016 campaign, I half-heartedly did something on YouTube called “High Information Voter.” I would go back to that name, but, alas, it has an unfortunate abbreviation. So, I think I’m going with Countdown To American Fascism. I may change this, however.

There are now 96 Days until Trump steals the 2020 election in a rather brazen fashion. The key thing we have to appreciate it what Trump wants is to throw so many different obstacles to a free and fair election into the mix that we’re overwhelmed by them all and, in the end, can’t point to one specific one that really did the deed.

So, if it’s not slowing the mail down to a craw, it’ll be the Durham Investigation indicting someone extremely close to Biden (or Biden himself.) If it’s not the Russians hacking directly into our election systems with Trump’s knowledge and support, it’ll be Little Green Men working to make sure somehow the polls themselves don’t feel safe. The list goes on.

Literally the only things holding back Trump from saying, “Fuck it, let’s just consolidate power now” is he’s a deranged moron, barely holding on to his sanity and the thin red-white-and-blue line that is American self-perception. Everyone, even people who “don’t have time for politics,” would be jarred if Trump is too brazen in his stealing of the election. Not that it really matters, however, it’s just too late.

The ultimate piviot of MAGA and people who “don’t have time for politics” will be to tell people like me, “This is the world we live in now. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be quiet.” Since, by nature, I will never shut up about what a fucking cocksucker fascist Trump is, well, we all know how that is going to turn out.

One interesting thing is, while all signs point to Trump stealing the election in a way that lets conservatives who are not MAGA get to sleep at night, he keeps doing things that will make him after to ram that stealing down our throats a little harder.

Take, for instance, the $600 extra unemployment that people are getting that is largely propping up the American economy right now. It’s now apparently set to expire. If the American economy is in complete free-fall around election time, Trump may be so unpopular that when he steals the election in a forceful way because he has no choice, people might get really, really mad.

And, yet, even that won’t be enough.

The thing about fascism is all it cares about is power. That’s it. Power. It doesn’t matter how a fascist keeps power, as long as they do. They have no shame and will tell any lie, warp any law, threaten any person to keep it. So, in the end, Trump will still be in power even though everyone — EVERYONE — knows he stole the election.

By that point, however, lulz.

What are we going to do about it? Starting from the moment he feels safe about staying in power, he will rapidly consolidate he control over the country. Absolutely nothing matters but power and greed. Our lurch towards a Russian style “managed democracy” will happen in fits and starts starting in 2021, but in the end it will happen.

The demographics just aren’t on the side of liberal democracy in the United States. And, really, at this point, the issue is how many of the presidents between now and, say, whenever the Graying of America crosses the Browning of America will be Trumps and how many won’t. Once Trump steals the 2020 election, I would guess we’re going to have a solid 40-odd years of fascist Republican rule until the last of the Baby Boomers finally drop dead and Zoomers revolt against House Trump and, I don’t know, AOC becomes president.

Or, put another way, things are dark. America is a fascist state. It’s all over but the shouting at this point. We need to stop trying to score identity politics points on Twitter and begin to think, in practical terms how we’re all going to survive in a fascist state.