How, Exactly, Does Trump Plan To Be a Dictator?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Malignant ding-dong has made it clear that he wants to be a dictator at least for “one day.” And I get that the is working on using Schedule F and Agenda 47 to further that goal.

But.

Maybe Blues should become Blue Meanies.

The issue is even Putin gradually became the autocrat that we now know him to be. It took him a few years to consolidate power. If Trump just rushes into things in 2025 and starts to act like a dictator, I struggle to figure out how far he can get. I am well aware of how you can have a zombie “managed democracy” autocracy, but Trump is so, so very dumb and lazy that if he starts to do a major power grab in the first few days of his second term — there is going to be a reaction.

Now, some context.

The Traditionalists I know love Trump’s policies, but don’t like him in large part because they think he’s a “loser” who can’t win a general. If he wins, however, they will be quite content with his tyrannical policies…until it hits home on a personal basis.

Because if Trump makes deporting 20 million undocumented people in the United States in one fell swoop, then the idea of “show your papers” will become the center of the American experience. There are plenty of conservative white Americans who have at least one non-white person in their extended family and when 1 million armed ICE agents start snatching anyone who isn’t white off the street “just ’cause,” that MIGHT be enough to get even Traditionalists “woke.”

What’s more, even with his own MAGA Deep State in place, Trump couldn’t just instantly, overnight, be an American Tyrant. It would take time for him to ramp up the weaponization of ICE and to quell Blue parts of the country that might be upset with his tyrannical thrashing around.

As such, if Trump wins re-election in 2024, the first few months of 2025 could be very, very rocky. Because the moment Trump is so tyrannical that even Traditionalists have to acknowledge that he’s gone full-tyrant….Trump and everyone else in America has a problem.

Since I can’t predict the future, may be some Black Swan event — like what happened in 2020 and the pandemic — will happen that will allow us to defeat Trump once and for all and all of this talk about civil war / revolution is just going to be seen as silly as all the talk about Y2K back in the day.

I just don’t know. At the moment, it could go either way.

But, like I said, I just don’t understand what, exactly Trump thinks he can do that would allow him to be “dictator,” even for one day. I suppose he could just keep pardoning himself and anyone else who does something illegal. Only time will tell.

January 6th Counterfactuals

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really struggle to imagine what would have happened had Trump force the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol on January 6th like he wanted them to. I don’t think he would have been any more success with Pence certifying the vote, but I do think the January 6th clusterfuck would have been a quantum leap worse.

The more I think about it, the more I think we came very, very close to going to the show with January 6th. If Pence had done as Trump wanted him to do — not certify the vote — there is a pretty good chance that there would have been the revolution then civil war that I have been predicting for much of the last three years.

All the conditions were there for the United States to buckle had Pence not found the guts to simply do a very ceremonial job. The country would have probably had a something akin to a Glorious Blue Revolution the moment Pence balked at certifying the vote. Too many people weren’t paying attention to what was going on with Trump and Certification at the crisis was taking place.

So, if Pence had successfully allow Trump to stage a coup….Jesus Christ would things have gotten hot really quick in the United States.

I’m just grateful that they didn’t. We still have time to save ourselves, not that we will.

Our Coming Moment of Historic Truth

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For me, the issue is not if Trump wins or loses in 2024, but what happens after that. It is easy to imagine that either way, Trump could very well cause a civil war, if for different reasons. He might cause a civil war if he loses because he demands a National Divorce to keep himself out of jail.

Meanwhile, he could cause a revolution THEN a civil war if he wins because he will simply be such a ham-handed tyrant –a Red King, if you will — that the country will be brought to its knees.

As such, we have to start to think about what happens if we’re pushed to the breaking point as a nation. Is it possible that for the Traditionalists who are the backbone of any stable democracy, there is no red line when it comes to Trump? Is is possible that they are soooooo anxious about the browning of America and the rise of women with more reproductive and economic agency that they will ride the pony of fascism all the way down?

I would like to THINK that the Traditionalists I know would at least have the Red Line of the personal. I would like to think that would happen. And, yet, who knows. It could be that they’ll simply become Good Germans and keep their heads down and just shrug if weaponized ICE agents come after me because I won’t shut the fuck up about what a piece of shit Trump is.

That moment of truth is really the issue at hand. The fate of the United States will be determined by Traditionalists. I say this because they are the people who are center-Right and provide the stability of the United States. If they actually are riled up by Tyrant Trump’s either demand for a National Divorce in 2024 because he loses or if he goes totally bonkers and tyrannical in 2025 should he win…then, well, freedom in the United States will have a fighting chance.

It could go either way, though. It really could.

Third Time’s The Charm?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been writing a lot about how we might get rid of Tyrant Trump should he be re-elected late this year. While I’ve blathered on about very speculative ideas about him being “deposed” by the U.S. Military using the 14th Amendment as some sort of legal cover, in reality given American history, what would probably happen is just a regular old impeachment.

I say this because if Trump went full tyrant in a very ham-handed way, that, by definition, would be an abuse power, and as such, an impeachable offence. There is the issue, of course the chief issue is who would be in charge of the House in 2025.

If it’s Republicans, then holy shit would things have to get very, very, very bad before there would be any talk of an impeachment. Meanwhile, if Agenda 47 was implemented the way we’ve been told and Democrats control the House, Trump could very well be at least impeached within a few months of being sworn in.

But there are a lot complications.

If Trump has gone full tyrant when he’s impeached and things head over to the Senate for trail, the country would literally have to be on the cusp of a Glorious Revolution for him to be convicted — especially if Republicans controlled the Senate.

And some unpreceded things would have to be going on for Trump to be convicted. An actual General Strike that was actually in place and working would be the only way I can imagine that Trump would come anywhere near being convicted in the Senate.

And…maybe…if Republican Senators were leaving the Senate in droves to help organize some sort of “rebel” Trumplandia government as all of this was going on then, yeah, I guess it’s possible Trump might get convicted. But he would probably just fly to some safe rebel Red state and plot his revenge.

But that’s all very speculative and just my usual hysterical doom shit. It could be that either Trump loses and MAGA fades in power, or he wins and so many smug, wealthy Twitter liberals will be too busy leaving the country to organize any sort of effective direct action against our new Red King.

Who knows. Not me.

I’m Aghast At The Idea Of A Second American Civil War Starting In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not a violent man. I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas. I hate guns with all my heart. What’s more, I, in general, hate even basic conflict and will do everything in my power to avoid it. Having said all that, I also refuse to be intimidated by people on the Right who seem to be chomping at the bit for a Second American Civil War.

I once had a boss who would scream at the top of his lungs over a phone bill, but when he had to vote about the arrival of Wal-Mart to town (he was on Town Council) he pretty much just said, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

And that’s how I feel about the prospect of a civil war. I don’t want one, but don’t try to browbeat me into submission by threatening to start one. It is growing more and more obvious that MAGA is a fascist, bad-faith movement that wants to rule, not govern. They want to turn us into a white Christian ethnostate that will inevitably slouch into excess that will transform American life.

Now, this is the point where I remind you that I can’t predict the future. It could be that all of this is a lot of words over something that isn’t going to happen. We are just going to punt our problems down the road and that will be that. But the MAGA Right loves to use the threat of civil war as a way to spook the center-Left into doing their bidding.

And I say, fuck that. If you are such crybabies — snowflakes — then shake your money maker and attempt to leave the Union should either Trump lose or Trump win and then be deposed / impeached and convicted because he goes full tyrant.

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

I believe that the ideals that Blue states organize themselves under are true and right and are no less honorable than those of the North during the first American Civil War. I don’t want violence, but there is such a thing as a Good War and I refuse to be scared into submission at the threat of a civil war.

Please, God, let’s not have any of this happen. I just want to live in a traditional liberal democracy. That should not be such a big deal.

What Caused The Second American Civil War?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If there is new, second civil war, the question of what caused it will be just as potentially controversial and complex as that of the first. But to me, I think just as slavery is the simple answer for what caused the First Civil War, the Second Civil War was caused by one word: abortion.

I say this because, in a sense, abortion is an economic system as much as it is a form of birth control. Where the population of a state lands on the legality of abortion pretty much aligns with if they’re a Blue or Red state. This is a very simplistic point of view — there are some obvious exceptions — but I guess what I’m trying to point out is that if the dominate political party of your state does everything in its power to make abortion absolutely illegal then you’re probably living in a Red state.

Of course, the REAL answer for what caused the 2ACW is, well vibes.

Pretty much the United States is being torn apart by how the two sides perceive each other. Or, to put an even more fine point on it, the issue of how MAGA perceives itself in relation to Blues is what will be the cause of the 2ACW. MAGA is a classic late-stage-empire movement.

It’s about retrenchment combined with the once majority ethnic group — white people — feeling resentment about the growing encroachment of brown and black people. So, in a sense, while slavery was the clear cut macro issue that led to the 1ACW, the 2ACW is about not one clear-cut macro issue, but a number of such issues that all could be referred to under the rubric of “abortion.”

Just from the conversations I’ve had with my far more conservative relatives, it definitely seems as though Trump will have a huge amount of slack should he get re-elected and go full tyrant. It won’t be until it starts to get personal that my Traditioinalist relatives — whom I love dearly — might begin to have second thoughts.

That will be the moment of truth, not just for them, but for the nation in general on a macro level.

Of course, it could be too late by that point.

Someone Needs To Tell Tim Pool That A Second American Civil War Would Fucking Suck


By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, I’m not the only one with a second American civil war on the brain. I still am curious what green haired woman at Vice broke that poor man’s heart to the point that he turned to a raving MAGA lunatic. But, anyway, while I write a lot about a civil war, it’s not like I *want* one.

I just feel compelled to game different scenarios out because I don’t want to have some sort of abstract fear hanging over my head.

Anyway, it’s par for the course for people like Pool to scream at the top of their lungs that we *should* have a civil war. Ugh. A civil war would be a massive tragedy not just for how much it would fucking suck in the US, but how WW3 would break out if it actually happened.

A Moment Of Truth

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something I find myself thinking about a lot these days is what will happen on a personal basis to different people if any of my political dystopian hellscape nightmares come true.

I would suggest you keep an eye on some of the more bonkers MAGA people in Congress if it seems as though we’re going to have some sort of Secession Crisis. If Ted Cruz leaves the Senate to help organize a Trumplandia government then, welp, we’re going to the show. But if he doesn’t leave….then maybe things will kind of fizzle out.

Meanwhile, there are a number of notable Blues that I think could see their lives turned upside down if we have something akin to a civil war. Jon Stewart, in particular, seems like just the sort of guy who would stand and fight, rather than flee the country to have a circle jerk podcast that he did in the South of France. In fact, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and even Jimmy Fallen might shock us all with how they might be forced into some sort of political leadership position.

They may become political prisoners under the watchful eye of MAGA goons, if things get bad enough.

If things get as bad as I fear, everything and I mean EVERYTHING is going to be scrambled in a rather shocking, startling manner. The Woke Era will end because we’ll all be so busy trying to avoid artillery shells that we don’t have time to think about what pronouns we want people to use in reference to us.

And, I can’t predict the future and I hope — HOPE — I’m wrong. I just can’t help myself when it comes to trying to make my abstract fears concrete.

The Siege of Austin & Other Second American Civil War Nightmares

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me again say, I can’t predict the future. There is every reason to believe that in the end, the US will simply shrug and we either have four more years of Biden or we turn into a MAGA America First nightmare and it’s all a lulz.

But because I like to make my abstract fears concrete, let’s really think about the nuts and bolts of a possible Second American Civil War starting in late 2024, early 2025.

The state we should keep an eye on in this situation is Texas. The state is already an autocratic MAGA bastion, and so it makes a lot of sense that if Red States feel they need to bounce that Texas would be the first state to do it. Tradition would suggest that South Carolina might be the first out the door, but there are so many African Americans in the state….whoa buddy…that, in practical terms might not be as sure a thing.

But Texas has just the right demographic composition that if Trump lost in 2024, or if he won then went full tyrant in 2025 and was deposed, they seem to be the state that would call up a snap secessionist convention on the fly. Now, there are some obvious complications to this idea. On the ground, Texas — as I understand — is s l o w l y — shifting to Purple.

As such, even if Texas MAGA Nazis were able to sucker punch the populace by calling up a Secessionist Convention overnight, there would be some pretty dire consequences going forward. You could easily imagine a scenario where the state capital of Austin went full Paris Commune on the rest of the state and there was some sort of Siege of Austin.

Ok, let’s also think about how things might play out with other Red States. I think pretty much all the low population Red States of the Mountain area would flee the Union the moment Texas made it clear they were serious. Utah is one of those states that could go either way because it’s a hotbed of NeverTrump support…but one of its Senators is Mike Lee, so lulz?

Now we get to even MORE complication. States like Oregon and Virginia would likely implode because of how diverse they are. If we started to have a serious secessionist crisis, there would be A LOT of self-selection across the country as people bounced to states that better fit their own personal political views. And then, of course, there is the issue of places like Austin and other Blue dots in Red States that would either be razed by Red forces or see a huge amount of depopulation as their political difference became untenable.

And don’t even get me started about my fears of Trump going Pol Pot on us an emptying the “Godless cities” so American Killing Fields can be filled with the bodies of Blues.

And, remember, none of this will happen in a geopolitical vacuum. World War 3 would start the moment it became clear that the US was too pre-occupied blowing itself up to do anything about various regional conflicts around the globe. What’s more, if any sort of Second American Civil War dragged out long enough, then the outside world would begin to get involved, too.

I could totally see the DPRK dropping a few H-bombs on the US to kick us while we’re down.

Anyway, if things get so bad that we have states leaving the Union….yikes. May God have mercy on our souls.

America’s Fate Starting in Late 2024, Early 2025 Rests On State Republican Parties

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Yeah, right.

The thing too many media popinjays miss about the looming threat of a civil war in the United States is that on a state level, the Republican Party has crossed the Rubicon on the issue — at least on a rhetorical basis. So, the question of the moment is, at at state level, is the Republican Party prepared to put its money where its mouth is on the issue of secession.

Just from my discussion of my mainstream conservative Traditionalists relatives — whom I love dearly — it definitely seems as though if there was a sudden lurch towards a secession crisis that they would be prepared to follow along.

Of course, any secession crisis would be a royal clusterfuck for a number of reasons. There are a lot of Blue dots in Red States. And there are states –like Virginia — which are actually two states, one Red, one Blue, fused together who fucking hate each others guts.

So, Virginia, in particular, would likely be the site where the first actual violence of a Second American Civil War might occur. I could see there be coups and counter coups as the two sides fight over if the commonwealth is going to stay in the Union or not.

What’s more, that particular situation is easy compared to areas of the Deep South where you would have the dominate white Republican Party pushing for secession and the large African American community balking. That is a very complicated situation that, if not handled properly, could possibly lead to a historic race war.

I know, that sounds like my usual “hysterical doom shit,” but that’s what we’re facing at the moment. Once you take the idea of secession seriously, you start to come up with a lot of very, very dark scenarios.