Tag: Norm Ornstein

The Ballad Of Norm Ornstein


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Norm Ornstein is starting to become my hero. Whenever I hear him on Deep State Radio, he says exactly what I think about the potential fate of our liberal democracy.

Norm Ornstein

And, really, in the end, our best case scenario could be that people like he and I will scream bloody murder when the autocracy finally arrives…but the final transition will be peaceful and largely unnoticed by the average person. It will simply be taken for granted by the typical American that Republicans are always in control and always will be in control no matter what.

And then they stop voting.

Then, gradually, the darker sides of autocracy will begin to pop out simply because form follows function. The media will be purged. The disconnect between the will of the people and the actions of the government will grow very, very severe. People will be — no joke — pushed out of windows for not shutting up. People like me and Mr. Ornstein.

But plutocrats will still be able to get abortions for their mistresses. They won’t pay taxes at all — that will be only for The Poors. In fits and starts, over a generation or so the Untied States and Russia will, on a political level, become indentical.

And people like myself and Mr. Ornstein will either get pushed out a window, get exiled or we’ll be allowed to continue to rant in a rage about how the America that we all once knew and loved is no more.

Or we have a civil war.

At the moment, however, I think the dark fears I share with Mr. Ornstein will happen peacefully because Americans generally are a pretty copasetic bunch –we’re not French, after all — and the Establishment will be so co-opted by our new autocratic overloads that they will have every reason to tell the masses not to freak out when the inevitable MAGA New Right Constitutional Convention is called.

We’ve got a good, solid 20 years before the whole push people out of windows for political reasons thing will happen (I hope.) Enjoy these remaining years of freedom while they last.

Norm Ornstein On Deep State Radio Is Right: The Republican Party Is A Violent Cult


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All the political metrics in the United States are pointing towards a very dark future between now and January 2025. In fact, it’s not so much a question of if, but when, we face a very stark choice: autocracy or civil war.

So when I heard Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute lay out the same arguments that I have been ranting about on this blog for months now, it took me aback a little bit — I’m not the only one to thinks we better enjoy this quiet before the storm.

The only thing that continues to frustrate me is not enough Blue Check liberals on Twitter are taking these cold hard metrics and then asking what the implications of them are. I mean, what does it mean, as Ornstein says, that the Republican Party is now a “violent cult.” How do we prepare for that going forward.

Rather than just noting this ominous development in the public Twitter lyceum why don’t the nattering nabobs of negativism start to figure out what we are supposed to do about it.

This is when I wish I was smart enough to write for VOX, or New York Magazine or even The New Yorker. It would be nice if liberal-progressive thought leaders could come up with some sort of plan of action like they did before the 2020 election. The 2024 election has the potential to be far worse than the 2020 election because the likelihood of violence is significantly greater.

Tragically, just thinking off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of as to how to respond to the Republican “violent cult” is to be prepared to fight dirty just like they do. Or, put another way, we have to recalibrate our views of the Republican Party. They are no longer one of the two major parties in the United States, they are a violent cult hellbent on destroying our liberal democracy one way or another. We have to be prepared to call their bluff in a way we haven’t since 1861.

I hate even having to entertain such a drastic idea, but the only reason I am is, well, the Republican Party is a violent cult. We can’t pretend that they’re a normal political organization anymore. They’re equal to American Slave Power of the 19th Century.

God help us all.