Tag: Autocratic America

Q Nation: ‘The Velvet Fist’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Of all the House Trump: Next Generation people I’m worried about, it’s Lara Trump that seems the most poised to finally strangle American liberal democracy. I say this because she’s demonstrably beautiful, smart and ambition — and something of a proxy for her much-maligned husband Eric Trump. My current thinking is something like this could happen — Lara Trump wins a Senate seat in North Carolina (because she’s actually willing to, like, work, unlike Ivanka) and after a major primary battle with any number of non-Trump autocrats in waiting, we get ourselves The Velvet Fist.

Lara Trump will be the sunny, beautiful exterior while someone like Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton is the “fist” while serving as her veep. This would be very in line with how autocrats work. As you may know, one of the ways Putin has stayed in power for about three decades now is he kept bouncing back and forth between President and Premier.

So that’s one of several options when it comes to how the United States finally lurches into its pre-ordinaed destiny of fascist autocracy. We’ll be so busy thinking, “Oh, Lara Trump would NEVER do that, would she…” that we are totally oblivious that Mike Pompeo (or whomever) is the REAL president behind the scenes who is quickly consolidating power in the 2025 – 2027 time frame. I have really come to believe that all my dystopian nightmares that I predicted during Trumplandia will still happen, it just may be Lara Trump (face) that it happens under.

We’re just not prepared as a nation for the historial sucker punch that is about to happen to us. American liberal democracy is going to be strangled by The Velvet Fist so quickly that by the time we process what just happened, the ICE Camps will be packed full of all the people Q Anon thinks are involved in some sort of evil cabal. (Which, oddly enough is pretty much just Jewish people all over again…ugh.)

And, really, Lara Trump instead of Ivanka Trump would square the circle of how Q Nation could start killing The Usual Suspects of Jews, etc without upsetting Ivanka’s tender Jewish sensibilities. She’s so complicit that by the time SHE realizes the monster she’s associated with, she’s going to be sharing a concentration camp with the equally gobsmacked Stephen Miller. Or, put another way, anyone who doesn’t think Q is simply a cover to murder “liberals” who also often happen to be Jewish is an idiot.

But this is all very speculative at this moment. It could be that it’s not the Velvet Fist, but the Orange Fist — our good old pal deranged Trump comes back, but only as something of a Trojan Horse. He would come back tan, ready and rested, but with Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton as he veep. They would, in the background, do all the horrific things I thought Trump would do the first time around.

The point is, again — America is an autocracy without an autocrat. Macro trends just aren’t in our liberal democracy’s favor. Something pretty huge that I can’t sketch out would have to happen to prevent Republicans having another shot at turning us into Q Nation. Again — either get out of the country in the next four years or move to a Blue State.

Things are going to get dark.

‘Q Nation’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate to break it to you, but the bad guys are going to win. There continues to be a lot of chatter around that the Republican Party is going to wither away because it’s too growing too extreme and is too consumed with the bonkers Q conspiracy theory.

Sadly, I think the opposite is true — we have to accept that for a sizable chunk of the population liberal democracy is no longer seen as a legitimate form of government. There are a lot — a lot — of reasons for this, but generally I would say it boils down to white blue collar men without a college education not being able to settle down and expect “the American Dream” to be waiting for them as they grow older.

As such, they voted for “the guy from The Apprentice” in 2016, hoping for a Putin-style autocrat. That’s what they wanted. But that’s not what they got. Yes, plutocrats got their massive tax cut. And social conservatives got their hundreds of young hack MAGA judges. But, in the end, when America was spread eagle in front of Trump, he, well, he couldn’t get his figurative autocratic cock up. He turned out just to be an idiot, like Chauncey Gardner from Being There. So, while he had plenty of autocratic or fascist impulses and inclinations, in reality he just didn’t have it in him.

So where does that leave us?

Well, barring something I just can’t predict, we have about four years of something akin to a Weimar Republic ahead of us. Or, even more specifically, we have TWO years of being in political neutral, then another two years of the Republican Party plotting how they can consolidate power once they win back the presidency in 2024.

Republicans now wallow in white identity politics to such an extent that when they do get back to 2017-levels of control, they aren’t going to let the opportunity slip through their fingers again. It will either be the Velvet Fist of Lara Trump / Mike Pompeo or just Mike Pompeo (or someone like him) being full autocrat.

And, really, at this point, the question is not so much if America is an autocracy without an autocrat, it’s when President Pompeo has two years to consolidate power does he cause a secession crisis / civil war / revolution, or do we just slip into an autocratic fascist state without so much as a struggle.

I honestly don’t know the answer to that question.

All I know is the ICE infrastructure is going to be weaponized in about five years and people like me are going to be thrown into concentration camps. All my nightmares from the Trump Era were simply a few years too early. They would have happened if Trump had anywhere near the political acumen that I — and people like The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman — ascribed to him.

The next time around, however, I’m going to be right. And probably starving to death in an ICE Camp somewhere.

Preparing For America’s Inevitable Descent Into Fascist Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here we are. If ever there was reason to believe the Great Man theory of history, this particular moment in time is it. But for the sheer stunning stupidity and incompetence of one Donald John Trump, America would be little more than a managed democracy like Putin’s Russia. Existing ICE camps would begin to welcome liberals (or anyone who’s generally a loudmouth like me) and we would continue our steady march towards Fortress America.

But Trump just wasn’t up to the task.

As such, as I keep saying, the United States is now an autocracy without an autocrat. About half the population longs for the white security of a Christian Entho state that re-assures them that they will always be the most politically powerful race in the United States, no matter their dwindling numbers in real terms.

I keep saying — America’s future is South Africa’s past.

There are a few — but significant — unknowns on a macro level for the United States as we stumble into our very own Fourth Reich. Will there be a civil war? How violent will the process ultimately be? How long will the Fourth Reich last and who, specifically, will be the craven thug who finally pulls the plug on the First American Republic?

For me, one question that looms large is — how does one prepare for this dystopian hellscape?

Since we have about four years to prepare, I would first suggest you get a passport if you can. Also, I might suggest you take concrete steps to connect to like-minded people who will be willing to risk things in the real world. When the Fourth Reich comes into existence, it will be so quick as to be something of a historical suckerpunch.

And, really, I might even suggest if you have the means that you make sure you’re living in a Blue State by 2025. That way, should the American autocrat of 2025 bungle things and the Blue States are able to bounce from the Union before he finally consolidates power, at least you’ll be in the right place.

Otherwise, you’re on your own.

Good luck.

The Rise of The American Fourth Reich: Rating Would-Be Fuhrers


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m reading a book about the rise of Hitler given that the United States definitely has a Weimar Republic vibe to it right now. When it comes to Trump, I totally got him wrong — he was a would-be Hitler (or Putin) but the stress on would-be. He had autocratic and fascist tendencies, but in reality he was just a big old ding-dong.

He was nothing more than a real-life Chauncey Gardner from Being There.

But there are a whole host of men waiting in the wings to do what Trump couldn’t do, despite his impulses: strangle American liberal democracy. Let’s look at who they are.

Lara Trump / Ivanka Trump / Don Jr.
Of all the Young House Trump people, Lara Trump is probably the most dangerous. She’s smart and could probably be very smooth in any type of “Velvet Fist” arragmentment with, say, Mike Pompeo or Josh Hawley. Ivanka and Don Jr are just too vacuous to actually get the nomination. Or not. The likelihood they could pull off such a stunt grows significantly with how much Trump goes with The Patriot Party concept.
Christ Christy
Christy is probably the best of a lot of bad choices. Since Christy would have to bank right in a big way to win the nomination, if he became president, he would probably be an autocrat, but one with a little bit of enlightenment. He would become an autocrat for no other reason than he would need to dance with the one that brung him. His heart probably wouldn’t be in it all that much because he would want to at least pretend to stay within democratic norms.
Ted Cruz
The thing about Cruz is he’s so craven and cynical that even his turn to autocrat would likely have air quotes around it. He would be an autocrat simply because he could be, not because he was all that into it. But the end result would be the same — we would be nothing more than a managed democracy for the foreseeable future.
Mike Pompeo
Pompeo is dangerous. He’s dangerous because he’s smart and seen Trumplandia up close. And he really sees the job as an opportunity to force Jesus to come back by starting a war between Israel and Iran. As such, he’s the real deal when it comes to a would-be fascist leader in the United States. Once he’s elected, there’s no going back. I say this in the context that I expect both houses of Congress to flip in 2022, so in 2025, he would have zero oversight, just like Trump in 2017. He would have a full two years to completely consolidate power and crush any putative “resistance” to him.
Tom Cotton
Cotton is even more dangerous than Pompeo. He’s the real deal when it comes to would-be American autocrats. He’s the autocrat that Trump thought he could be. He’s young enough — and smart enough — that I could see him holding back in 2024 so he could get into a “Velvet Fist” arrangement with either Lara or Ivanka Trump where he would be Veep and let one of them be the “pretty face” of autocracy.
Josh Hawley
As I understand it, it’s Hawley that the MAGA base likes the most after the usual suspects of House Trump. And people who know him call him a fascist. So, in a sense, the only thing stopping him going full Fuhrer on us is his personality. At what end of the autocratic spectrum would he fall? Would he be more of a Putin or more of Hitler? That, I’m afraid, I can’t predict. But what I can predict is it would be Hawley who would flip the switch to turn the existing ICE infrastructure into concentration camps where people like me would be put.

Person X
If there were more conservative celebrities, I would say the real danger is not from any of the above, but someone who is similar to Trump but younger and more focused. James Woods seems the ideal type second generation Trumpian figure to run for POTUS. But he’s kinda old and, to date, doesn’t seem to have any political asperations. Bruce Willis is too nice as is Tim Allen. It would have to be someone who was conservative, frequently played autocratic figures in the media and was actually more than just an empty suit.

Fourth Reich: Hitler, Trump & The Rise Of The Patriot Party


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the spirit of wanting to be where the puck will be, not where it is, I’m reading a great new Hitler biography. It’s part of a two book biography and talks about Hitler’s rise to power up until 1939. It’s a very easy read about a very dark and deep subject.

As I have predicted for some time, the United States is now in political neutral and will likely be so for about two years until Congress flips to the Republicans again. This, of course, will be the setup to Trump or someone like Trump becoming president in 2024.

Enjoy your liberal democracy while you can, America, things are about to get dark. Really dark.

The only reason why liberal democracy survived is because Trump is an idiot. He had the entire nation prone before him, ripe for the taking and he totally, completely blew it. He was all impulse and no follow through. He just isn’t as smart as Putin or as bloodthirsty as Hitler.

So, this brings us to the prospect of The Patriot Party, which be, at first, simply the MAGA subset of the Republican Party. I’ve seen some Twitter liberals gloating about how great such a historic cleaving of the Republican Party would be and all I gotta say is — slow your roll.

If Trump did pull the MAGA element away from the Republican Party to start the Patriot Party, any victory that liberal-progressives would get out of such a situation would be fleeting. Maybe one election cycle. The macro trends that have the United States lurching towards an autocracy are just too powerful. Either we become an autocracy under Republicans in 2024 or one under The Patriot Party in 2028.

You pick.

So, in a sense, the American First Republic has already fallen, history hasn’t caught up yet. The Patriot Party is going to be like that slutty girl who will do the political buttstuff that our old girlfriend won’t do. Broken free from the moderating force of the National Review wing of the Republican Party (the “establishment”) The Patriot Party is going to break any law, destroy any norm, do whatever is necessary — even violence — to obtain and keep power as soon as possible.

I still think in hindsight Qanon will serve as the basis for a new Holocaust. This time, the United States will implode like Cambodia in the 1970s and there will be American Killing Fields filled with…gulp…people like me. It’s going to all happen so fast, it’s going to be a political history suckerpunch.

I just don’t see any way this doesn’t happen. Something I just can’t predict would have to step in and prevent it from happening. I’m thinking something like a limited nuclear exchange with the DPRK or something. Something big. Something so big it would overshadow the rise of fascism in the United States on a macro political level — or at least punt the problem down the road until, I don’t know, the Singularity or First Contact happens.

So, in short, read up on Hitler’s rise now to prepare for how you, on a personal level, will address something similar in the United States at some point in the next decade.

Good luck.

Trump Goes Transactional (Almost)


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Someone on Twitter pinged me, suggesting Trump had, at last, gone “transactional” via his Twitter account. But I don’t think he has, yet. For me, “Trump going transactional” would mean he told his followers to do something specific. Especially if that “something specific” was violence that was not him “just joking.”

It would have to be something completely, totally indefensible. Something that would make conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA sit up and take notice. An “ask” of his followers in the real world for them to, well, hurt people, stage a coup, blow shit up, crash the Congressional certification, you name it.

Any different series of these things might be done in conjunction. Or not. Trump is so desperate at this point and so devoid of any sense that his actions have consequences that it’s possible he could begin to thrash about in the next 24 or so hours in a way that we’ll look back as the defining moment of his era.

What’s more, it might not even be just the next 24 hours. It could be that January 6th is just the beginning of the Fortnight That Shook The World whereby all Trump does is use a “spaghetti gambit” to attempt to stay in power.

He does all kinds of bonkers things, hoping one of them will work. He could do everything from go transactional on Twitter, to start a war to declare martial law, to frogwalk Joe Biden.

We will know soon enough, I guess.

We’re officially in the danger zone now. All the conditions are there for significant violence in DC, enough, in fact, to be Trump’s “Reichstag Fire.”

The Dead Hand Of History: ‘A Do The Right Thing’ Ending For America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m often wrong. Like, all the time. But it definitely seems as though the Dead Hand of History is about to strike the United States at some point between now and, say, March 2021. The black goo of destruction is there, waiting to be used. All the conditions for a civil war or a revolution exist in the United States right now and it’s just a matter of some hot head somewhere flipping the switch.

Or, to put it another way — as I understand it, at the end of the movie Do The Right Thing, Mookie simply out of the blue throws a trashcan through a window, starting a riot. The same with the United States right now — something random could happen out of the blue and cause the United States to buckle in a rather spectacular fashion.

It will be a quantum leap beyond what happened with 9/11 because the center will not hold, as they say. Whatever it is, will cause political violence to roll across the country. Red people in Blue states and Blue people in Red states won’t feel safe anymore and they will flee their home. The two sides will, in turn, not only hard their political views, but grow more radical.

I could see Trump Tower — and FOX News — being seized and gutted in New York City and maybe even a Free State of NYC being established. Or something. Something whereby you have to risk your life and sacred honor specific on your political views — do you support Trump or Biden? You could die if you don’t answer correctly at the right time.

And, really, either the U.S. Military at last has to step in or even they won’t be able to do anything about it because the officers go Blue and the enlisted go Red, or even more dramatic than that with the entire U.S. Military imploding much like it did during the original Civil War.

Regardless, the point is — if we manage to punt this crisis down the road, the corrosive conditions that created this crisis aren’t going anywhere. We will simply kind of be a zombie Republic until Trump comes back in 2024 and finishes the job he started. Or it will be Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo. Or whomever.

Or, put another way — either we address the existential problems we face now, or we face the later. But there’s no escaping them.

American Tribulation


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing a lot of Twitter Liberals are oblivious about is how dire things are right now. They keep pontificating about the rise of fascism in the United States as if it’s a process that hasn’t happened yet — get woke, we are a fascist state NOW.

MAGA 2020.

Or, more specifically, we WOULD be a fascist state but for what a ding-dong our autocrat is. For me, all of this is very surreal because it’s like everything is there, waiting for Trump to go full autocrat….and he’s doing nothing. I can still think of a half a dozen ways he could seize “total control” RIGHT NOW…and…yet it appears as if he’s going to let Electors vote on Monday without even trying to get the Proud Boys to scare the shit out of them — or worse.

So, we lurch close and closer to a Biden getting sworn in and about half the electorate thinking he’s illegitimate. I will note something — the moment the Texas case came out of nowhere, I knew the Dead Hand of History was doing its thing. I have repeatedly said we’ve boxed ourselves into a civil war mindset and the Texas case is a prime example of that. Someone, somewhere with the ability to hand Trump his coup stepped up to the plate for no other reason than that’s where the momentum is right now.

Uh oh.

And, yet, again, Trump hasn’t done squat in real terms to attempt to seize “total control” even though many, many MAGA cocksuckers are begging him to do just that. I can only begin to believe that either Trump is going to allow a very surreal transfer of power actually happen, he’s going to go completely insane in some way, or, in the end, he’s going to finally go transactional and willfully destroy the United States after the point when we think we’ve managed to dodge a bullet.

Trump is so unpredictable, I can’t figure out what he’s going to do. In no small measure that comes from how difficult it is to figure out his motives at this point. Is it all about fundraising? Is it all about just not going to jail in NYS? If I could pin down is actual motives, then I could figure out his next course of action.

It seems more likely than not someone, or something is going to happen in a rather dramatic fashion between now and Jan. 20th….or a little bit afterwards. Let’s say Biden’s first 100 days. If we can actually get past, say, the Ides of March 2021, then things will have claimed down enough that we can all sigh a huge sigh of relief.

I feel you.

It just doesn’t seem like history is on our side right now. Electors could still get doxed, or murdered, or whatever. Trump could still get his Reichstag Fire with the help of the Proud Boys. Or Iran or the DPRK could give him cover to try to pull a Constitutional fast one on us while we’re distracted.

Let me make this clear — as a student of history, by every metric the United States is on the cusp of a historic and shocking implosion. I’m talking France 1940 or France 1789 type of shock. That the otherwise most stable, most powerful and arguably wealthiest nation in the world turn in on itself because of, what, white men without a college degree can’t get laid, is going to be one of the biggest shocks of the last 500 years.

America, 2020.

I’m wrong all the time. Hopefully, I’ll be wrong this time, too.

Coup State Of Play — Rudy Strikes Back


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I hate being right. Especially about shit like this. But Rudy has struck again with his Stormy Daniels Disinformation Playbook. While Twitter liberals were gloating about his farting and melting, Rudy has keep this bullshit in the public eye.

So, here we are.

Rudy has pretty much boxed SCOTUS into just the corner he wanted to.

But, not quite. He’s boxed SCOTUS into a corner in the eyes of 48% of the population. Not so much for 52%. And now Trump is putting all his chips on SCOTUS for them to overturn the election in his favor.

This is exactly — EXACTLY — what I’ve been ranting about for months and months now. All the conditions are there for Trump, Rudy and his merry band of idiots to “catch the car.” ‘

It would be the biggest event in American history since 9/11. It would be, as I have often called it, a “political 9/11.”

We would all walk around in a daze for a few hours at the implications that an actual fucking coup took place in the United States. The reason why it seems clear that a revolution / civil war would happen at that point is the States is so divided that while half the electorate was spooging its pants at the news, the other half would start protesting, rioting and saying, “THIS WILL NOT STAND.”

Shit would get lit pretty quick.

The Storming of Trump Tower, Winter 2020.

And once Trump had his thin veneer of legality to hide behind, he would use the Insurrection Act to stay in power as long as he liked. Or, put another way, he would strangle the Constitution right in front of us all with even realizing what he had done.

As I have written repeatedly, what would probably happen is initially is there would be rolling political violence such that Blue people in Red States and Red people in Blue States would flee, making the difference in the two sides more clear. This would lead to radicalization.

It’s even possible that both the Far Right and the Far Left would size power here and there on a state and local level and form Revolutionary governments. I could see this happening in, say, New York City. And definitely in some parts of my state of Virginia.

It’s even possible that the U.S. Military itself could implode as things progressed. Then you have the potential for Balkanization in among the States and pretty much World War 3 happening around the world as suddenly the United States isn’t there to stop Iran from bombing Israel or the DPRK from bombing South Korea.

And don’t get me started about the DPRK deciding to strike the US homeland itself just out of spite.

Anyway, we have to take this seriously. We’ve entered the valley of the shadow of death.

What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Incels, MAGA & Undead American Democracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key issue to understand is American Democracy as we know it is dead. About half the population wants an autocracy pretty much because they can’t get laid. Technology has made it so blue collar men without a college education can no longer afford to get married and raise a family.

Everything else is just rationalization.

As such, at its core, the racism, misogyny and bigotry of MAGA is pretty much just men angry with blue balls. Or put another way, the idea of the “incel” is far more significant than one might think when it comes to how fucked up American politics is.

If you think you’re being forced to be celibate, then you’re probably going to be open to the ideas of the Proud Boys, or other forms of extremism. I guess what I’m suggesting is under the “resource” theory of history, a big chunk of men hate women and minorities because they lack the means to acquire the “resource” of sex.

The point of all of this is Trump has about half the population begging him to be an autocrat, to kill American democracy once and for all and, in a sense, he can’t get it up. To date, at least, he’s all talk. He gave Republicans hundreds of young hack MAGA judges and a huge plutocrat tax cut….but he can’t be bothered to take the final step of killing American democracy. This, even though a huge swath of the population wants him to do it. Like I said, in fact, people like Lou Dobbs and Gen. Mike Flynn are literally BEGGING him to do it.

And he can’t do it.

This is not to say America isn’t still in a very dangerous situation. Trump could still do something really, really crazy in a last ditch effort to stay in office, no matter what. He could very well snap in some way and destroy the country out of spite — and a fear of going to jail in New York State.

I have no idea what is in store for America at this point.

A lot depends on the economy and people like Tom Cotton. If Cotton manages to become president in 2025 or 2029, then that’s it, we’re an autocracy. The United States will be little more than Belarus.

And, yet, that’s kind of our best case scenario, given macro trends. The worst case scenario is there will be an organized effort to give Trump his Reichstag Fire NOW, so he can stay in power. It is easy to imagine a situation where there are a series of Oklahoma City bombings across the country in major Blue State cities between now and January 20th.

Or there’s a war with the DPRK or Iran.

You name it. What otherwise might happen gradually between now and 2029 might happen violently between now and January 20, 2021. You can dog whistle the need for violence for only so long before someone, somewhere is going to take you up on it.

And we haven’t even gotten to the part where Trump doxes Electors.

So if we manage to punt this particular autocratic problem down the road one election cycle because, in the end, Trump really is just an empty suit, no an autocrat, well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh or cry.