The key thing to remember about all of this “dictator” talk by Trump is he just wants that idea rolling around people’s minds should he get re-elected. It will, in his ding-dong brain — give him more wiggle room when it comes to what he can actually do.
While I hate to compare someone as lazy and dumb as Trump to an actual Great Man of history, it is easy to compare Trump as Julius Caesar. Just like Caesar, Trump could be a transitional figure for our hobbled Republic. It could be that for no other reason than Trump is old, fat and lazy as fuck that it won’t be him who turns us into a Russian-style autocracy, but, rather his next Republican successor.
But all of this won’t happen in a political or historical vacuum. The United States is not a one-to-one with the late Roman Republic, as much it might be easy to assume that it is. The US is more likely to collapse into revolution and civil war than it is to peacefully transition into autocracy — especially under the ham-handed “guidance” of someone like Trump.
And, remember, after Caesar’s death, there was a huge civil war. So, I think rather than us assuming Trump is an American Caesar, we need to think seriously about the global implications of the world’s hyperpower buckling into autocracy, revolution and civil war.
We could see a few of these in late 2024, early 2025.
The longer answer is — it’s complicated. I think there is a good chance that through a combination of Executive Orders and using the pardon power that Trump could probably be something akin to a dictator in 2025 should he win in 2024.
But the thing that the liberal popinjays on Twitter miss is the nation’s slide into dictatorship would NOT happen in a vacuum. People would get pissed! As such, if he did such a thing, I think the following MIGHT happen — Trump is somehow “deposed” and we might get something akin to a military junta with someone like James Mattis as acting president.
That is all VERY SPECULTIVE.
But the point is — it’s at least possible that late 2024, early 2025 could see some amazing, unprecedented political and historical events take place. What’s more, if the USA implodes, the the entire post-WW2 global order will implode, too.
We could see about 1 billion people around the globe die DIRECTLY because of ding-dong Trump being such a fucking idiot.
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.
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.
We live in strange times. My far more conservative relative — whom I love dearly — really lives in a totally different universe than I do. They have a pretty well thought-out series of talking points that he has been fed through all the Right-wing podcasts they listen to.
They think all the investigations into Trump are nothing more than “lawfare.” They think the economy is horrible. They think the armies of Russia and China are soooo much more powerful than ours because they’re not “woke.” I tried my best to point out how wrong all of that was on a strictly factual basis, but I don’t know how successful I was.
The point remains — the proof will be in the pudding should Trump get re-elected and he start to do things that are so totally bonkers that even Traditionalists who are “MAGA curious” will sit up and take notice. If Trump goes full tyrant to the point that Traditionalists — who otherwise love, love, love his policies — throw up their hands in disgust…everyone, not just Trump, will have a real problem on their hands.
That is crux of the issue going forward — is there *any* red line that Traditionalists will have should the time come? Is there *any* tyrannical thing that Trump might do that will cause them to say, “enough is enough” and support whatever last-ditch direct action might be thought up to get rid of Trump?
The entirety of the American democratic experience hinges on what Traditionalists decide at that point.
For some time now, the MAGA Right has lobbed the threat of a “civil war” at anyone who dare oppose them. Then, of course, they turn around and claim it’s Blues who want a civil war. It’s all very curious.
The issue of a Second American Civil War is difficult to game out because what idiot MAGA people mean by using the term and what will actually happen are two different things. What MAGA MEANS by using the term “civil war” is “I’m so worked up about the browning of America and the increased economic, sexual and political agency of women I’m daydreaming about being able to murder people I disagree with politically without being charged.”
But in reality, I….just don’t know. As I’ve said before, there are two ways we’ll have a civil war — either because Trump loses and he demands a National Divorce because he wants to stay out of prison, OR Trump is re-elected and he’s so ham-handed in his tyranny that he gets deposed….which leads to Red States leaving the Union.
There is a HUGE difference between blathering on about a civil war on Fox News and actually risking your life for what you believe in in the real world. And, at this point, I just don’t know.
There are just too many different ways things could work out. It could be that even if Trump does lose and he demands a National Divorce, no one will listen to him and, lulz, we punt our structural political problems down the road another four years.
And it could be that so many smug Twitter liberals leave the country when Trump is re-elected that, welp, that’s it. Trump will be a Red King over Blue states and that will be that — America will join Turkey, Hungary and Russia as an autocratic state.
There is something very curious about the reasoning of the anti-anti-Trump popinjays who blather on about how horrible it is that the Colorado Supreme Court took the wording of the 14th Amendment at face value and banned Trump from the ballot.
It really seems as though they think Trump should be above the law. They rather wanly use the fall back position of, “let the people decide,” and, yet Trump keeps breaking the law so they tie themselves into a logical pretzel to explain why what we all know to be true, isn’t true. Yes, Trump broke the law. And yes, Trump incited an Insurrection on January 6th.
But to according to anti-anti-Trump conservatives, holding Trump accountable is The End Times. All of this leads me to wonder if they have *any* red line. Is there *anything* Trump could possibly do that would make them side with small-d-democratic forces in opposition to Trump?
And it gets worse.
What happens should Trump be re-elected and he goes full-tyrant on Blues? Are they going to sit on their hands when Trump weaponizes the existing ICE infrastructure to put not only undocumented people in camps, but Jews, the mentally ill and gay people?
Will even that be acceptable? Will they just shrug and say, “Well, that’s what people voted for.” It’s all very sad because most anti-anti-Trump people are smart and well educated.
The issue about any sort of civil war or revolution because of ding-dong Trump thrashing around history is how much it would suck, suck, suck. It would be not sexy or fun. It would be a horrible tragedy.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize that we could very well be on the cusp of nothing short of the most powerful nation in the world bombing itself into the stone age because of…vibes. Once you start things like revolution and civil war, it is very, very difficult to stop it.
So, it’s very possible that we could have a solid decade of death and destruction starting in late 2024. Now that really sounds hysterical, but there is an air of inevitability when it comes to Trump coming to power again that is very eerie. It’s like we’ve just decided that we all have to “go through some things” to get it all out of our system.
And remember none of this catastrophic tragedy would happen in a geopolitical vacuum. If the United States is imploding, that will mean that the greater world is exploding into WW3. At least a billion people could die specifically and directly because of ding-dong Trump because he will have caused the US to implode into civil war / revolution.
I know how hysterical that all sounds, but we have to start taking shit like that seriously. We have to sit up and take notice about where things are heading. And part of that is taking seriously how bad this new, war-torn America would be for the everyday person.
The chief thing is how any form of communication would probably be a premium. Command and control would be the first thing each side of any war in the United States would try to knock out and, as such, there’s a good chance that once the ball started rolling most of us would have no idea what the fuck was going on outside of our immediate neighborhood.
And if the absolute worst happens, we’ll all be so busy struggling to eat and avoid various explosions that we just won’t have time to worry about what our pronouns are any other form of identity politics — it’s hard to be “woke” when everything is very, very existential on a daily basis.
But only time will tell. It could be I’m overthinking all of this and we’ll either drift peacefully into a MAGA themed autocracy or Trump will lose and he’ll just slink away into the political darkness.
It is becoming apparent to me that the usual suspects of the American intelligentsia are willfully hiding from the American public how fucking bad it will get if ding-dong Trump wins re-election.
The more I learn about Trump’s plans for his second term, the more alarmed I grow. The reason is — he wants to rule as a Red King over the Blue States. And somehow thinks that simply invoking the Insurrection Act will make all his dictatorial dreams come true.
And that is just not how these things work.
So, the smarty pants of The Atlantic are saying everything but the obvious — America is probably going to descend into civil war / revolution if Trump wins a second term for the simple fact that America 2025 is NOT Germany 1933.
Trump will have no MAGA SA at his disposal. The USA has a long history as a strong, stable democracy — it’s not the Weimar Republic. The US is far bigger and far more decentralized than the Weimar Republic of 1933. And, in general, the tool that Trump thinks he can use to knock heads — the U.S. Military — is a foundation of the American democratic tradition.
So, if it is Trump, rather than, say, Ron DeSantis, who gets the opportunity to become America’s Republican autocrat — shit is going to hit the fucking fan pretty quick. And the fine folks at The Atlantic apparently want to dance around this fact, rather than shake the American population by the shoulders and tell them DO YOU REALIZE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IF TRUMP WINS IN 20204????
I guess the nattering nabobs of negativism simply don’t want to scare people because at the moment it’s all rather abstract. I mean, we don’t KNOW what will happen in a Trump second term, we can only speculate. It definitely *seems* as though Trump will try to subjugate Blue States as a Red King, they will fight back and the country has something akin to a Blue “Glorious Revolution,” which, in turn causes a Red Secession Crisis and…we’re going to the show.
Blues may turn into Blue Meanies before 2025 is over with.
The greatest country the world has ever seen will implode because of…vibes? Because Red Alpha Males are strangely so insecure in their masculinity that they hate gay people? What the what?
But, here we are. It could be that in about a year the final bolts will fly off the United States and some rather dramatic events may happen. Or….Trump loses and he somehow has a brain transplant and slinks into the political night without demanding a National Divorce so he stays out of prison?
I just don’t know. I can’t predict the future. No one can. But I’m growing more and more alarmed!
Some of the political rhetoric spewing out of the MAGA Republican right these days is so insane that it’s hard not to see how all of this ends in civil war / revolution or some sort of Pol Pot American Killing Fields. I mean, it is a tenant of faith at the moment in most Republican circles that Democrats personally kill a baby at least once a day.
And it continues to get worse. Trump keeps cribbing off of Nazi ideas in his speeches in a way to telegraph exactly what he plans to do. Now, there is something interesting to think about.
If Trump is re-elected, I assume he’ll go after undocumented people by dramatically building out the existing ICE infrastructure. But it definitely seems as though once things get going that MAGA is coming for gay people in a big way. But it won’t stop there — because form follows function, the Jews will inevitable be put in the camps along with the undocumented, the gay, and the mentally ill.
But, of course, none of this is going to happen in a political vacuum. And never forget that Trump doesn’t have an American SA to knock heads. He doesn’t have a nation-wide paramilitary group of a few million men to swoop in after he’s re-elected and bash the heads in of Blues to “persuade” them to keep their head down while Trump establishes Trumplandia.
The United States is just too diverse and decentralized for anyone — much less ding-dong Trump — to establish a military dictatorship without the assistance of an SA-like paramilitary group. So, even if 1 million smug Twitter liberals flee the country starting in late 2024, there will still be PLENTY of Blues who refuse to kowtow to Tyrant Trump.
What that will mean in real terms for the future of the country, I just don’t know. But we can all point to the bonkers Right wing rhetoric that’s being pumped out at the moment, a year before, as a sign of things to come.
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