Tag: Autocrats Never Lose

Republicans Will Attempt To Nullify A 2024 Democratic Win


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Enjoy the next two years of normal life, is all I gotta say. The moment Republicans take control of the House (and Senate) things are going to be lit. The first thing they’re going to do, of course, is try to impeach Biden for Not Being Trump. It doesn’t matter what it is. Just if Biden is Not Trump, that’s enough to get him impeached.

And Republicans are going to demand as many witnesses as possible and probably pull in Hunter Biden along the way. But that’s just the prelude to the made event: in 2024, Republicans — if they can — will nullify any Biden win. Their hope in doing so will be people will assume that a Democrat can never become president unless Congress is controlled by Democrats. Then people just stop voting altogether and America’s decent into an autocratic managed democracy like they have in Russia will be complete.

What anyone who is not MAGA has to understand is Republicans live in a completely different political universe than we do. They live in the Upside Down which is full of surreal, paranoid conspiracies and a hate of POC and women with sexual agency to such an extent that they’re more than willing to accept tyranny. That’s why it’s so difficult to talk to MAGA people — the very thing I fear as a nightmare, they look forward to.

You can’t bring up systemic racism, because they don’t believe it exists. And pretty much anything you might bring up that’s based in fact that goes against their media narrative, they dismiss as “woke cancel culture.”

As such, that’s why we’re careening towards a “reset” of sorts in the United States in the 2024-2025 time frame. Shit is going to get real, as they say. The United States is either going to become a Republican-controlled autocracy or we’re going to have a violent, cataclysmic second American civil war. One so bad that the basics of modern American life will be in short supply. Electricity, the Internet, free press and freedom of movement — not to mention assembly — will no longer be things we can assume will be there.

And it’s all going to start as early as late 2024 or as late as early 2025. In fact, we may have a replay of the January 6th, 2021 capitol insurrection, only a quantum leap worse in severity. I can’t even tell you which side will be in rebellion. It could very well be the center-Left if, as I fear, Republicans in Congress simply refuse to allow Biden a second term because they no longer see anyone in power who is not a Republican as legitimate.

As I keep saying, I can’t predict the future. I have no idea if my dystopian predictions are anywhere near being close to what might happen. But I do know that on a macro level the conditions are there for the United States to either become a Russia clone or buckle and have a new civil war. A sizable minority of Republicans already glorify political violence. They’re chomping at the bit to have the opportunity to run around murdering center-Left people like me.

At least we have a few years of peace and quiet to prepare.

2024: Second American War Aims In Red & Blue


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. I have no reveled truth. But as I keep saying, in the 2024-2025 timeframe it’s very, very, very likely that either the United States turns into a Russian style managed democracy run by white minority Republicans for generations to come — or there’s a civil war.

But I suspect it might be more of a spectrum, with civil war at one end and autocracy at the other. A lot depends on the specifics of what happens from the moment the Republican nominee is decided until someone is sworn in on January 20th, 2025. Let’s assume, however, that there is a Second American Civil War. What would be the war aims of the two sides?

One thing you have to understand is things are so spinning out of control that in the end, it could be either side that sparks a civil war, depending on how close the election is and how brazen the Republicans are in nullifying any outcome they don’t like. In a sense, the issue is who gets the USA “brand.” Republicans have already made the mental preparations necessary to start running around murdering people for political reasons and by 2024 they will be on a hair trigger to do just that.

I struggle to understand what Reds would want via a civil war when if they were just patient, they could get everything they want through politics. What they want is to turn the United States into Russia with them on top forever.

They are already well on their way to achieving that via gerrymandering, voter suppression and the existence of the Senate. No need to murder anyone for political reasons.

But the issue is — Republicans are impatient and because of the rot within the American political system on a macro level, they’re probably going to just nullify any 2024 election outcome they don’t like. And that will be the thing that sparks a Second American Civil War.

What makes predicting war aims for Red and Blue so difficult at this point is I don’t know who will be the US and who will be the Rebels. It literally could be either side. If Biden wins and manages to overcome Republican nullification attempts, then a number of Red states will attempt to bounce. Or they will simply try to take over the entire country and impose their will on Blue States. I guess their war aims would be to murder all liberals and ensure that white people are in control of the country no matter what.

If Biden loses or “doesn’t win” because Republicans nullify his election, then it will be Blue states who are the Rebels who either try to leave the Union or attempt to get the right to use the USA brand. At this point, for the Blues, everything would hinge on if California wanted to stay in the Union or not. California is so big on an economic and population scale, that it could be the engine for any successful re-imagining of the United States using Blue ideals. Without California, then Reds would have both Texas and Florida to draw upon and would probably successfully win any Second American Civil War. Though, Texas might not be all that stable because it’s shifting towards being a Blue state and it has a big enough minority population that it might just implode before it could help Republicans do much of anything.

And, remember, it’s very likely that WMD will be seized by both sides and we’ll just start nuking the hell out of each other until things that I can’t imagine or predict at this point happen and either the country is re-united one way or another or there’s some sort of long-term balkanization of the former United States.

But make no mistake — we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked and the sooner we all start to take this absolute historical inevitability seriously, the better.

We Have To Take MAGA’s Glorification Of Political Violence Seriously


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate violence. I hate guns. So, MAGA’s growing obsession with the glorification of political violence is surreal to me. But it’s something we have to take seriously — they are. The thing we have to be aware of is the fucked up fascist shit MAGA pulled in 2020 will be a quantum leap worse in 2024. Given four more years to stew in their fetid fascist juices, it’s easy to imagine the 2024 election being so rife with political violence that it’s not free and fair.

And if that doesn’t happen, the period between Election Night 2024 and January 20, 2025 may be simply one huge attempt on the part of every elected Republican official to ensure that Biden isn’t sworn in again. That may, in fact, be the whole point of the 2024 Republican Party — nullify any presidential election result they don’t like. They will have no other policies other than that and embracing political violence.

It’s very possible that Tucker Carlson or Lara Trump may win fair and square and we’ll simply slide into autocracy with a whimper not a bang. If that happens, then we will never have another free and fair election. Putin’s Russia is already beloved by MAGA Republicans. It’s easy to see his style of governance coming to the United States in some form.

The media will be purged. The ICE infrastructure will be weaponized. All the things that Trump wasn’t able to follow through with, his MAGA successor will be able to complete. There will be a moment in time when the Republican president will have hard power and the center-Left leaning media will have soft power and there will be some sort of truce.

For the average person, there won’t be much of a difference in everyday life. That is, of course, until suddenly all the late night TV hosts are abruptly changed and CNN is sold to Fox. Then there will be reports of people being pushed out of windows and, strangely enough, there won’t be any follow up.

It will only get worse from that point.

Republicans will never leave office and American will grow more and more inward looking, ignorant and poor.

Or there’s a civil war and we start running around murdering each other for political reasons. Ugh.

You Can Feel The Historical Forces Aligning To Cause Either A Second American Civil War Or Decent Into Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s rare that you can actually see, first hand, significant macro historical forces at work. But that’s what we got right now in the United States. The crux of the issue, as is explicated in Ezra Klein’s “Why Were’ Polarized,” is white people are beginning to wake up to the looming inevitability of them being in the minority and a sizable portion of them don’t like it one bit.

All the fucked up shit going on in the United States spring from that fact. Everything from the fight over immigration (brown people scary!) to abortion (make more white babies!) to you name it comes from not “economic anxiety” but regular old racism.

There’s no such thing as reveled truth and I can’t predict the future, but I am enough of a student of history to know the America we have known for about 240 years simply isn’t going to make it through the passions of another presidential cycle. Or, if it does, it will only happen at the cost of a great amount of blood and treasure. Nothing short of a Third American Covenant [first: 1776 second: 1865)] will save our sorry asses at this point.

In other words — a civil war.

But that’s not the only option. We could just shrug when MAGA Republicans refuse to certify Joe Biden’s reelection and in January 2025 and that’s it. We’ll be run by hateful MAGA cocksuckers for decades to come. They will slowly at first, then faster and faster begin to crack down their pet peeves about modern America until they transform us in to Trumplandia.

But 2024 is it. That year will be make or break. But there won’t be any middle ground. The time for compromise will be over. You will have to pick a side, one way or another, no matter what the outcome is. And it will be existential. If there’s a civil war, then your personal safety will be decided by your politics. If its autocracy, then you either become a Good American or you get pushed out a window by a weaponized ICE agent.

As I keep saying, I have no idea what to tell you about how to prepare for this epic clusterfuck. I would suggest you get out of the country if that’s an option. But if it’s not, then make sure your personal politics align with the state you live in.

There are plenty of things that could happen that could punt this particular problem down the road. It happened in 2020, it could happen again. But Republicans are so far into fascism at this point that either they provoke significant political violence or they win and snuff out our liberties once and for all.

MAGA already glorifies political violence and it’s only going to get worse. But I have said over and over again, they are making a serious mistake on a strategic level by being so fucking bloodthirsty. If they were just patient and played by the rules, they could get everything they wanted in a peaceful manner. The entire system is already rigged in their favor in various ways. It’s when they overreach and steal the 2024 election in an extremely brazen fashion that the country will grow extremely unstable.

But, who knows. We might just shrug and let MAGA end our liberal democracy without any conflict at all.

Imagining Life In America During The Second Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because the United States is so big and diverse, there really isn’t one simple answer to what life will be like should we descend into civil war instead of autocracy at some point in 2024-2025. So, let’s pick my home state of Virginia and imagine what life will be like in, say, spring 2025 as the civil war started between election night 2024 and January 20th, 2025 rumbles on.

I believe Virginia would be one of the first states to sort its internal political differences out via armed conflict. So, probably what would happen is the conservative portions of the state would simply not recognize any outcome other than a MAGA victory and attempt to join forces with other MAGA parts of the country doing the same thing. But there’s a problem — they just don’t have the numbers.

They may have a lot of guns they want to fuck, but when you’re dealing with armed conflict it’s about population and economy. Being heavily armed helps, but won’t help you in the long run. It’s easy to imagine that once MAGA portions of Virginia essentially secede from the state that they will assemble some sort of organize militia and also be helped by MAGA cocksuckers from other states. This will lead to a very bloody war as the two sides try to figure out who will control the geopolitical entity known as “Virginia.”

This initial situation will lead to a radicalization on both sides. The media will be seized, purged and controlled and any man of fighting age my be impressed into service whether they like it or not. I generally think the Blue parts of Virginia would win such a struggle, but not after significant blood loss. So, let’s say by spring 2025 that particular situation has been settled and Virginia is firmly in the Blue camp.

What might shock us the most is how many political refugees Virginia would be home to and how bad the economy would be. There’s also a slight chance that the environment might be suffering the effects of a Little Death associated with a number of limited nuclear exchanges around the world since the United States imply was not around to prevent different countries from pulling the trigger.

But one upside — though bought with tragedy — would be a lot of political issues would magically be fixed because Virginia (and Blue America) could simply pass the legislation they wanted to because MAGA Republicans weren’t running around being crybabies.

And, yet, there would be some surreal aspects to all of this. Specifically, I’m thinking of how Blue political refugees from Red States might begin to repopulate the now-vacant parts of Red Virginia. This kind of shit happened all the time in Europe after WW2, but for Americans it would be totally alien. This would lead to a disconcerting re-arrangement of Virginia’s demographics.

As I’ve said before, a lot would depend on California. If California stays and fights during any Second American Civil War, then there’s a good chance Blue States would win. But this would not only drag out the war, but make it far more deadly because Red States would probably grow more and more desperate and probably seize WMD.

Then you have the whole issue of growing number of cities across the United States being vaporized, which would only make the two sides more radical and extreme. I generally like Blue States would win but their victory would not be a straight line. It could be that there would be a period of significant balkanization before we managed to put the country back together. Maybe via a Constitutional Convention of some sort?

But if Red States won, I suspect things would get pretty dark pretty quick for states like Virginia. There would be some sort of MAGA Reconstruction that disenfranchised minorities en mass and there would be the creation of an extensive secret police. A lot of people would just flee the country.

A new global era would begin, with American ideas spread across the globe and present everywhere…but America.

Enjoy This Peace & Quiet While You Can, Civil War Or Autocracy Arrives In 2024-2025


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that the shock is beginning to wear off for MAGA cocksuckers, they are beginning to plot their return to power. It seems their first goal is to eschew policy goals altogether and to wrap themselves up in the Big Lie of “cancel culture.” Using that to gin up the base, they will win back Congress in 2022 and use THAT as a springboard to nullify any election result in 2024 that doesn’t help them.

As such, 2024-2025 is it. We either shrug and become a Russian-style managed democracy or we take up arms and start murdering each other for political reasons.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario whereby Republicans, once they regain control of Congress in 2022, keep in 2024 and if they can’t strangle Biden’s re-election using voter suppression or highjacking local election boards, simply refuse to certify his Electors in early January 2025. Every step along the way, MAGA will be so astonishingly brazen that the likelihood of political violence will grow and grow until they finally we either have a civil war or we give up and turn into an honest-to-God autocracy.

So, in a sense, we’re going to solve the pressing structural issues of the day that we keep punting down the road one way or another in the 2024-2025 timeframe. Either we solve them threw violence or we solve them politically via an autocracy that does whatever the fuck it wants relative to the existential, abstract fears of MAGA whites you are afraid of being in the minority and women with sexual agency.

As I keep saying, I’m not smart enough to tell you what to do about any of this. I hate guns and violence, so my advice is you either get out of the country while you still can or move to a state whose politics fits your own. But even then, you’re going to have to make a choice at some point.

If there’s a civil war, you’re going to have to make some huge sacrifices so your side can win the war. If there’s an autocracy, you’re going to have to either be a “Good American” who follows the rules or risk your entire life being ruined not from some abstract “cancel culture” but because ICE agent thugs will either push you out a window or throw you in an ICE camp for speaking out against the party line.

I honestly have no idea which direction America is going to pick in 2024-2025, but I do know it will pick a direction.

The Macro Trends Hurtling America Towards Civil War Or Autocracy In 2025


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some of the macro trends that are eating away at our political system such that by the time 2024-2025 rolls around we are faced with a stark choice — civil war or autocracy.

Harding of Political Positions
The two sides are beginning to harden their positions in the wake of Trump. Or, put another way, Republicans have become fucking fascists who hate democracy to the point that no amount of political ratfucking is too craven for them. The recent Georgia Jim Crow 2.0 voting restrictions being a prime example of this. The two sides are now just talking passed each other in any political debate and, as such, our politics is beginning to lock up in fits and starts to the point that by the time 2024 rolls around it will collapse and a sizable portion of the population will see violence as their last recourse.

Miscalculations On Both Sides
Both sides are making some major miscalculations about the other. The Right things that if all else fails they can start murdering people to get what they want –without thinking through the practical implications of such a move. Meanwhile, the Left isn’t really taking the Right’s transition into a bloodthirsty mob seriously and think they can somehow magically get what they want via politics.

The Republicans Are Fascists
MAGA is now full-blown fascism and this subgroup of the Republican Party is dragging the rest of the party with it. So in 2024 there will be a number of different junctures where Republicans will test to see if they can simply nullify Biden’s reelection, no matter what the result. Their thinking will be that given we’ve already come to accept someone can win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote by a hefty margin that people will lulz Republicans “legally” nullifying Biden’s re-election by not certifying the vote in Congress. There could be dueling Electors at this point as well to muddy the waters even more.

Income Disparity
A wide gap between rich and more does not a stable nation make. So, it’s easy to imagine that being another systemic breakdown that will make the nation ripe for some sort of violent event in 2024-2025.

A Glorification Of Civil War By The Right
I know from my webstats that there’s a huge amount of interest in a second American civil war out there in the aether. Some of this, I think, comes from good old boys drinking a Miller Light and smoking a doobie on the back porch gaming out what happens when dem dar libtards try to take away their guns. And some of it is simply, on an abstract level, a glorification of violence in the name of political ends that is extremely poorly thought out and completely detached from reality. What I mean by this is — while I know it fits into the FOX News narrative that the center-Left is a bunch of unredeemable soyboy numales who are so limp wristed they could never fire a gun — in reality it’s human nature that when things grow existential humans do tend to adapt in whatever manner necessary to stay alive.

A Second American Civil War & The Congressional Certification Crisis Of 2024


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On paper, the United States is doomed in 2024. As of right now, there simply is no way that at that point we don’t either become a MAGA managed-democracy autocracy or descend into civil war.

Among the reasons why this is now-nearly a law of nature is it’s almost a certainty that both houses of Congress will flip in 2022 and remain Republican in 2024. As such, the actual vote outcome in 2024 won’t matter. The MAGA Republicans will refuse to certify Biden’s re-election no matter what. Or they’ll do whatever necessary at the state level so his re-election doesn’t even get that far. But the point is — 2024 will be the crossroads.

Will the average American lulz the idea that literally their vote doesn’t count if it isn’t for a Republican or will they take up arms at the injustice. I guess it’s possible Republicans might be the ones taking up arms if THEY don’t get their way, but given how Republicans are becoming bloodthirsty fascists I don’t see how it would come to that. In other words, they will control the process such in 2024 that if they take up arms it will be in the context to reacting to the center-Left doing so rather than taking up arms themselves. Their political goal is to take power before the center-Left knows what hit them.

We long ago established that no matter how many votes you win by, if you lose by one vote in a strategic state you lose the presidency. As such, the next logical step is for us to lulz Congress using its “legal” right to engage in certification nullification. It simply won’t do what it’s otherwise supposed to do because it doesn’t like the outcome.

But, again, that’s where the fork in the road happens.

A lot would depend on if Republicans lost control of the political narrative in some way and people got woke to what was going on. That inability to strike before the narrative was established was Trump’s biggest screw up. If he had gone full autocrat anytime during the summer of 2020 he would still be president right now.

Or even if he had struck in some major way between election night and when the election was called for Biden, he would still be president. He was simple too lazy, too much of a ding-dong to do the hard work of being an autocrat. He thought he could simply rant about it and get what he wanted. The next autocrat in waiting won’t be so dumb.

Anyway, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where Republicans make a major power grab at both the state level and, if that fails them, Congress. They simply refuse to accept the election of a Democrat. Period. Full stop. They might dress this up in a bunch of legal bullshit but the end result would be the same — we would have Republicans in power in Washington for decades to come.

And that’s where I just don’t know. I don’t know the reaction of average Americans. Maybe as long as the economy was going well and freedom of speech wasn’t really touched that much that there might be something of a stalemate at this point. Republicans have “hard” power of making policy and passing laws, while Democrats would have the “soft” power of the media. The only way anything would ever change is when Republicans did something so totally, absolutely indefensible that they were shamed into doing the right thing. Though, of course, Republicans have no shame so that would only work occasionally.

The other option is a civil war. And here’s the thing — under the conditions of war, Blue States are in a far better position to win than Red States. Red States have massive — and growing — political power for various reasons but the moment you shift your metrics from power politics to geopolitical realpolitik then everything changes.

Blue States have biggest populations and economies. They wouldn’t have to worry about a race war. Not only are their economies bigger, but they’re more smaller and more concentrated. But there are a lot of known unknowns. Would would be the leaders of Red and Blue? Who uses stolen WMD, where and why?

Remember, this clusterfuck would not happen in a vacuum. It’s very likely that WW3 would happen in conjunction. A number of limited nuclear exchanges would happen around the world as the United States fell into chaos. What’s more, it’s even possible that a state like the DPRK might lob a few nukes our way just for shits and giggles.

I have no idea if we will chose civil war or autocracy. That’s just too far out into the future for me to know. But I do know that MAGA is so fucking dumb to want a civil war. Very, very dumb. They can get everything they want by at least pretending to work within the confines of liberal democracy.

MAGA’s Bloodthirsty Nature & The Prospect Of A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Holy shit has MAGA become bloodthirsty. If my webstats are any indication there is a huge interest in some sort of “second American civil war.” Of course, the ironic part is all my dystopian predictions about such a war are done in the context of ranting about how much I fucking hate MAGA.

But I guess if you’re a cocksucker MAGA person you gotta find your second civil war porn where you can.

Anyway, the question is how did we get to this state of affairs? MAGA’s obsession with a civil war, I think, started with Reagan panting liberals as evil incarnate. It just happened to take 40 years for that particular attempt at de-humanization to fully come to fruition.

The surreal thing about MAGA’s obsession with a civil war is how poorly thought out it is. I know why they, in the abstract, want a civil war so bad — they conflate their rising political power with what they might achieve via bloodshed. And they’re such fucking crybabies that just because they can’t get what they want, they want to run around murdering people.

The only thing I can compare this to is “slave power” in the late 1850s. They really were screwing over the North and when Lincoln was elected and there was even a whiff of them not getting everything they wanted, they freaked out and attempted to leave the Union.

So, here we are, about three years away from MAGA freaking the fuck out no matter what happens in 2024. Either they win in 2024 and begin the process of turning us into Russia, or they lose and attempt to leave the Union. The time for punting such problems down the road is over. We’re totally, completely fucked and the sooner the center-Left realizes the gravity of this situation, the better.

But I don’t see what can be done at this point other than just hunker down. The macro forces at play in the United State’s political system right now are simply too powerful to be stopped by anything. There’s just no punting this crisis down the road anymore.

In 2024-2025 everyone will have a pick a side. Everyone will have a choice to make. We have something of a spectrum from civil war to autocracy ahead of us in 2024 and in no scenario will the average person avoid having to do a serious gut check.

Either your personal safety will be at risk because of your politics if you live in the wrong place, or when the autocracy comes you’re going to have to make a personal decision as to how much of a “Good American” you’re going to be.

I’ve already told my conservative relatives to just turn me in should we become an autocracy. I’m never fucking shutting up. I’d rather die on my feet a free man then live on my knees a slave.

Georgia As Setup For America’s 2024 Catastrophe


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s growing clear that our choice in 2024 will be quite stark. The move to restrict voting rights in Georgia indicates that the setup is being established for Republicans to finally, finally get their macro wish — to make it so difficult to vote that people finally give up and let them run roughshod over our undead liberal democracy.

This is where you never can tell.

On one hand, it’s possible that now that the passions of the Trump Era are easing that voters will get sucker punched in 2024 and they will either lulz it and let Republicans rape our republic or they will grow enraged and, well..dun dun dun there’s a civil war.

This setup will grow even more obvious the moment Republicans take control of Congress again. It’s going to suck so bad. The one-two punch of severe voter restrictions and a Congress controlled by fascists pretty much means the end of our liberal democracy is here…unless there’s a civil war and solve our systemic problems that way.

And, don’t forget, either way — autocracy or civil war — there’s a good chance that the entire world order will be re-arranged. No matter how much fucking MAGA cocksuckers may want us to think otherwise — America is the indispensable nation and we’re the glue that keeps the world together. Take us out of the equation and…oh boy. I would estimate within a year of us “bringing the boys home” nearly half a billion people could be vaporized. Indian and Pakistan are always one misstep away from blowing each other to hell. Take the US out of world affairs and that particular disaster is almost a foregone conclusion.

As I keep saying, the issue is — enjoy this quiet before the storm. These two years before Congress flips may be the most quiet we get for the rest of the decade.