One of the purposes of the media is to help construct reality. They make it so there’s an ebb and flow to life. It’s when something so jarring, so astonishing happens that they can’t do their job of making us just accept things that you have a crisis on your hands.
Two things are true right now: Biden is doing well politically. Trump is going to use extra-political means to “win” the election.
So, as such, the question is — are we careening towards a “political 9/11” in which CNN’s Anderson Cooper has to look at us and say, “For the first, time, the United States is in the midst of an attempted coup.”
It will really get that bad. Trump and Barr are going to try to steal the election through extra-political means post election no matter what. Even if Biden somehow wins the popular vote by a landslide, Barr is going to use the full weight of the United States to prevent Biden from actually taking office.
If you throw in batshit insane MAGA-Qanon people running around blowing shit up and murdering people in cold blood for political reasons, well, you got the beginning of a civil war or a revolution. Something bad, to say the least.
So, I would suggest you buckle up. Get ready like you did for COVID19. We’re either going to turn into a Russian-style managed democracy or there’s going to be a civil war – revolution. There’s no middle ground, tragically.
As we careen towards a possible implosion –> revolution — > civil war type scenario here in the United States, I find myself wondering about Texas. The thing about Texas is it’s something of a trans-purple state. It’s not there yet, but it’s working on it.
So, it’s possible if the country goes tits up on a national level that Texas as a polity will also collapse as the it can’t figure out if its the Texas of Ted Cruz or Beto O’Rourke. Or, it might be something like Kansas right before the civil war – it’s both and only through the force of arms does it figure it out.
Texas has a tradition of both being an independent republic and a part of the CSA.So, it’s possible it might just bounce altogether and take a wait-and-see approach if the Federal government collapses in some way. As I keep saying, if the United States imploded, there would be, maybe, five polities that would find themselves with a lot more power than they ever otherwise would.
But Texas is a crucial player in any revolutionary America. It’s a lot easy to put the Union back together if you have both Texas and California on your side to do it.
And, yet, maybe this is just me being hysterical. It’s very possible. I hope I’m wrong. I hope we punt all this down the political history road for another four years.
The United States, much like France before the 1789 revolution, dominates global politics. And, yet, the only thing that holds it all together is a shared idea of what it means to be American –and maybe the U.S. Military.
I propose that even if Biden decisively wins in November, that Barr is going to try to steal the election anyway, because, lulz. As such, my scenario of Red States absolutely thinking Trump is president and Blue States absolutely thinking Biden is president will happen and the whole rotting structure will collapse rather abruptly.
I still think it might not be a civil war we have to worry about, but a fucking revolution. I say this because no institution will escape unchanged. The Civil War was, in a sense, a revolution — for the South — but it actually made a lot of institutions far, far stronger. There’s a reason why Lincoln went from calling the United States “these United States” in 1861 to “the United States” in 1865.
But if the whole thing goes tits up, we really need to look at California. California simply leaving the Union is not only a massive self-own, it’s also a huge fucking cop-out. Why leave the Union to tyranny, when you could join up with other Blue States and re-imagine the whole thing? Only California has the population and economy to be a political cornerstone to a Renew American Covenant.
I guess the point of all of this is I’m a traditional Unionist by nature and I want to save the Union rather than give up. It’s just if my choice is between tyranny and the riskier (and more destructive) implosion, I want to at least want to know where California stands in all of this. I love America and simply want “a more perfect Union.”
As I keep saying, I’m being so hysterical for no other reason than it at least makes my fears concreate. I refuse to live under the tyranny of abstract fears and uncertainties.
But I do think we have to take the idea that the United States — the most powerful, most stable nation in the world — maybe isn’t so stable after all. We could actually have something akin to a revolution. If we’re lucky, it’ll be a Glorious Revolution.
I am growing very irritated with fucking Proud Boys and Boogaloos stroking one out to the idea of a second civil war or revolution. So the above is my attempt to prove a point — if they face an existential threat, Blue States have a lot going for them.
As the Russians can attest, sometimes wishing existential ill-will on your geopolitical foes can come back to bite you in the ass. The Germans sent Lenin to Russia in a sealed train at the advent of the Russian Revolution and their plan of knocking the Russians out of WW1 worked like a charm.
At least in the short term.
So, the argument could be made that Putin might get his short-term geopolitical goes should Trump cause the United States to collapse into civil war or revolution, long term, well, is a different story.
But, really, I think such speculation says more about my personal hopes for this impending clusterfuck. It’s very possible that we’ll just slip into autocracy, ally with Russia and that will be that. That definitely seems to be our fate as of right now.
Trump is never, ever leaving office for any reason. If we let him win using soft power post-election, then, well, I guess we deserve the fate we get.
Whatever happens in the between now and, say, about April, is going to be cataclysmic. Either we turn into a despotic, autocratic managed democracy (of some sort) or we have a fucking civil war / revolution.
The interesting thing is, if we do go the latter route, it will be specifically because conservatives-who-are-not-MAGA get woke. In fact, I would say that’s our only hope at this point. If that doesn’t happen, then we really aren’t a free country anymore. The only reason why Trump might not go “full Putin” on us is he’s too lazy and incompetent to pull it off for a few more years. But the backbone of any type of real “resistance” to Trumplandia will be broken.
It will be just a matter of us slowly lurching politically, at least, to being nothing more than Putin’s America. We might have some continued delusion about how free we are because Trump won’t go after freedom of speech directly for a while, but that will be very ephemeral.
The weird thing about all of this, at least to me, is two absolutes are now racing towards each other. On one hand, we have the dead hand of history’s decision that our democracy is dead. On the other hand, we have the continued belief on the part of most Americans that we are a “free country” and effectively a democracy.
So if Trump and Barr aren’t able to win post-election via management of the media narrative we’re all in for a lot of trouble even if Trump wins a 5-4 vote at SCOTUS.
2020 is not 2000.
And if Trump / Barr have to force the issue to win, we are going to be facing an unprecedented existential threat to the Republic. In a way, I would even suggest that the treat is bigger than even the American Civil War because WMD might get involved. And no institutions may survive the conflict.
Regardless, I have no idea what is going to happen.
One of the reasons why I feel the United States is careening towards an implosion is the Republicans are making a number of significant political misjudgements. They are acting as though their numerous provocative actions are happening in a political vacuum.
They seem to think that if they get their wish of overturning the ACA and Roe V. Wade that there won’t be any political consequences for them. Or, if there is, so what, fuck you.
So, either we turn into an autocracy or, more likely, we implode.
What I mean by this is, the United States will become so divided into Red and Blue that some sort of major violence will break out across the country. This will probably happen after many, many people become domestic political refugees as the two sides consolidate. Then some sort of Fort Sumter happens and a way we go.
It sounds really, really bonkers now. And maybe it is. I would like to make my abstract fears about the future concrete so they’re easier to manage, however. But it will be interesting to see if the “red line” for conservative-but-not-MAGA people is Trump staging a real-life coup. That will be interesting.
If you take my theory that Trump is “Gorbachev in reverse,” then, well, we’re fucked.
The United States, the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world,has two possible fates ahead of it: despotism or collapse. When I’m in a good mood, I say there’s something of a spectrum with one of these two possible futures at either end. But, it could be a lot more extreme than that. It could be there are just two fates with little in the way of granulation.
Or, if you really want to be more specific about things, the dead hand of history has already decided that the United States is going to slip into autocracy. All of the momentum and “logic” is on Trumplandia’s side. The nattering nabobs of negativism of Blue Check Twitter liberals won’t know what hit them.
And, yet, it hasn’t happened yet.
The argument could be made that the absolute last gasp of liberal democracy in the United States, which would happen at some point between November 2020 and about January 2021, would be the thing that prompted the United States to completely implode. Trump and Barr, realizing the “soft power” of managing the media narrative isn’t going to work, decide to get rather thuggish in an attempt to maintain power. This would like be something akin to a political 9/11.
It would be something, done either by House Trump or MAGA-Qanon, that was so brazen, so outrageous, that no amount of talking heads trying to calm everyone down will work. It could be, on a political level, something that is obviously a coup — or is, at least, to everyone but MAGA-Qanon.
I’m thinking there could also be a sort coordinated attack on the leadership of the opposition to Trump or an Oklahoma City-type explosion somewhere. Or, if you really wanted to go full Nazi — some sort of major false flag operation so Trump could take “total control” as we got closer to January 20th.
I say this because of the number of people who have already voted –an estimated 800,000, compared to 10,000 four years ago. As such, a lot — a lot — of things go wrong for Trump / Barr and their absolute last attempt at staying in power is a 5-4 vote at SCOTUS, things may not go the way they did in 2000. Maybe. It’s possible that any real world opposition to Trump’s final consolidation of power will be little more than a death rattle, just like the August Coup of 1991 was little more than a death rattle for the Soviet Union.
I got burned with impeachment, so it seems the most likely outcome is so subtle that we barely even realize what is really happened — Trump and Barr using the Muller Report strategy of controlling the media narrative. They go to SCOTUS and get a 5-4 vote in their favor.
For about 18 months, a lot of liberals on TV and Twitter rant about how America is “turning into” an autocracy. As we get closer to the 2022 mid-terms, it will be pretty obvious that we already are an autocracy, it’s just liberals aren’t willing to risk what’s important to them in the real world to do anything about it. So House Trump wins.
Or, put another way — either Trump consolidates power peacefully by fucking with the law post-election or the entire American Ancient Regime collapses into Blue and Red and may the best man (or woman) win. Things really are that dire.
Trump is absolutely never leaving office for any reason. He would rather destroy the United States than leave office and risk personal criminal liability. He and Barr believe they can simply message the post-election media narrative and use soft power to win.
If that doesn’t happen, they will grow more radical and more thuggish in their efforts to stay in power. This, in turn, might get a lot of people you don’t expect woke and the whole edifice collapses in on itself.
What we fail to notice is there is a big old Pink Elephant staring straight at us: on one end of a spectrum is despotism and on the other is collapse. The one thing that won’t happen is the peaceful transfer of power.
A lot of Twitter liberals keep missing this. They keep musing about the strange dynamics of the 2020 race, totally missing the obvious.
Revolutions have a dynamic all their own. It seems to me that there’s a big old pink elephant staring us straight in the face and we refuse to acknowledge its existence: something is deeply wrong on an existential level with the American Ancient Regime.
Coming soon to 5th Avenue?
This rot pops out every once in a while in a very conspicuous manner. The most recent instance of this is the absolute craven need on the part of Republicans to name Amy Coney Barrett to SCOTUS no matter what. The logic on the part of Republicans is so disconnected from any form of adherence to liberal democratic norms — or common sense — that is makes you sit back and think about the whole edifice.
Republicans aren’t shy to make it clear that they’re gunning for two politically popular aspects of modern American life: Roe V. Wade and the ACA. Both of these poll well above 50% and yet Republicans are lulzing this and licking their chops at the idea of doing away with them altogether.
This is not something that would happen in a functioning liberal democracy. Doing away with both of them would not happen in a vacuum and there would be major political consequences. In fact, I would go so far as to say Republicans are setting themselves up, at least in the case of Roe, for something akin to a reproductive rights Dred Scott Decision.
But there’s a chance the whole country might implode before that even can happen. It makes you wonder what that implosion might look like on a practical level. I would suggest you keep an eye on New York City. Because of its Deep Blue nature, should the absolute worst happen — some sort of implosion — New York City seems like the place where some sort of radical event might happen.
Something like The Taking of Trump Tower. Or maybe the gutting of Fox News headquarters in the city. That could set off a cascading series of events in which the populace rises up and sizes control of municipal government and some sort of revolutionary commune-like governance arises.
This sounds pretty bonkers. But if take a step back from the United States and stop looking as what you think it is and, instead, what it really is, it’s at least possible that this otherwise fantastical thing might happen. Once House Trump loses the Mandate of Heaven in Blue States, some pretty fucking nuts things might happen very, very quickly.
One thing I struggle to figure out is if you start at the end — the United States imploding — and work back, how, exactly, would Blue States defend themselves from Mad King Trump if he really wanted to take “total control” as suggested by his best bud Roger Stone. A lot would depend on what happened to the US Military.
If even that venerable institution wasn’t able to stay together, then, I guess, Blue States would have to organize their own New Model Army (or whatever) under the guise of the governors of individual Blue States. The legal justification for such a call up of forces eludes me. But if you have Red States breathing down your neck, I guess you could pull something out of your butt.
And, remember, the key thing to think about is any type of civil war or revolution would only happen if the natural inclination of the Fourth Estate to calm everyone down was unsuccessful. So, as such, it’s very possible that despite all my wargaming, we don’t implode at all, we just slip into an autocratic managed democracy with our eyes wide open. Barr will give Trump a thin veneer of legitimacy and, as such, he will be able to quickly consolidate power.
Trump’s such a fucking self-own artist, however, that even if he and Barr win the election through the “soft power” of media narrative management, he could single-handedly bring the country to its knees (and incite a revolution) from sheer incompetence.
A fish rots from its head, afterall.
I’m not advocating any of this. But New York City is a very interesting political situation. If my worst nightmare happened, NYC would likely be the first surreal flashpoint in the even more surreal collapse of the most powerful, most stable nation on earth.
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