Tag: Second American Civil War

Countdown To Implosion: A Very American Coup (And Counter-Coup)


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about what’s going on right now is it’s difficult, if not impossible, to figure out how serious Trump is about staging A Very American Coup and how much is him simply hedging his bets. Trump may simply want a wide-array of options to choose from.

And, remember, Trump must know by this point that Russian hackers are going to (attempt) to directly change the results of the 2020 election by hacking directly into our election computer systems. As such, that MIGHT be the real explanation behind the odd decision on the part of the Trump Campaign to go dark with their advertising in key battleground states right before the election. Trump is lulzing it because he knows nothing matters at this point — the fix is in.

Anyway, let’s imagine he decides to go ahead with his Very American Coup. What happens?

The Coup
The key thing you have to remember is Interior Minister Bill Bar is going to fuck with the election in a very “Who, me?” kind of way. He did it with the Mueller Investigation and he’s going to do it with the election. In fact, I would go so far as to say his success in blunting the blow of Mueller Investigation has given him a very good understanding of what to do.

As long as House Trump controls the post-election narrative, they win. As things grow more and more unhinged, the pressure will be on Biden to accept “defeat” for the “sake of the country.” So, it’s easy to see a situation whereby somehow even though a coup takes place, The New York Times and others play right into Barr’s hands by not even recognizing that a coup has taken place.

And, really, Barr has every reason to believe he will win. So, it’s very possible that even if MAGA state legislatures simply seat Trump Electors out of spite, a wide swath of the mainstream press will go full Vichy on us. I could see this being the setup to not a civil war, but a fucking revolution.

In other words, House Trump and Barr pretty brazenly steal the election post-Election night by fucking with the selection of Electors. The New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman in a ever-so-droll way, signs away the Republic. She poo-poos the notion that anyone has the right to object to this theft and goes back to telling randos like me that I don’t know anything about (access) journalism.

So, this would be a moment of truth. I honestly can’t tell you which way the public would go. There might be some protestings here and there, but Barr controls the media narrative so completely that The New York Times focuses only on the violences associated with these otherwise peaceful protests and that’s it. We turn into an autocracy without even putting up a fight. Remember, the Women’s March has some pretty huge peaceful protests every year and the national press lulzes them because it’s just a bunch of angry broads, amiright?

The Counter-Coup
This is very iffy because of what I describe above. But let’s say Trump, despite “winning” so absolutely brazen in his theft of the election that he enrages enough of the population that Nancy Pelosi finally, finally, finally, finally, FINALLY really begins to play white knuckled power politics with Trump. She begins a game of chicken with him.

Now, the thing to remember is, there are a lot of different things that would have to go wrong for Trump for this to happen. A lot. He’s going to bank on a hard 5-4 vote in his favor at SCOTUS if it comes to that. And he’ll be right. But it’s at least possible that out of sheer desperation, Pelosi drops an H-bomb on Trump’s plans to steal the election.

She announces soon after the last 5-4 SCOTUS vote a two pronged attack against Trump’s coup. First, the House will immediately impeach Trump the moment it comes into session in January. But it won’t be a “skinny” impeachment, it will be a 10 article political MOAB. Everything Trump — and Pence have done over the last four years, from Stormy Daniels to general abuse of power will be thrown into the expansive articles of impeachment. Now, if the Senate hasn’t flipped, then lulz, this is all smoke and mirrors.

MoscowMich does exactly what he did with the first Trump impeachment. But, let’s suppose the Senate does flip. If the country is obviously beginning to fall apart at this point — which would be the only way Pelosi would actually have the guts to do any of this — then there might be a real shot that both Trump AND Pence would be convicted.

This is where things get tricky.

In an effort to placate some very angry Biden voters, Pelosi says she’s going to step aside and have the Democratic House name Biden as speaker of the House, thus putting him in line of succession. The argument that Pelosi could make is that desperate times call for desperate measures and one coup deserves another.

Remember, this would NOT happen in a vacuum. The entire country would likely be on the cusp of implosion at this point. And Trump could very well send in the D.C. national guard (or whatever) to Capitol Hill and try to disperse any impeachment proceedings. But let’s suppose that doesn’t work for some reason, maybe a massive human shield of voters or something.

So both Trump and Pence are convicted — in no large part because Senate Republicans realize the country is probably going to descend into civil war / revolution anyway — and Biden becomes POTUS in a very roundabout manner. He proceeds to name Harris as his veep, and the Senate approves her at a record speed.

If things have gotten THIS BAD, then obviously Trump — who is probably barely hanging on to his sanity — will hold up in the White House. But it’s reasonable to believe that rather than play Hitler-in-the-Berlin-Bunker, he steals Marine One and races to, say, the very CSA-friendly Mobile, Alabama.

And that’s how the country implodes.

‘What’s The Craic?’ For September 24th, 2020 — A Renewed American Covenant

Program Guide

Today in Trumplandia
Trump refuses to agree to the peaceful transfer of power

Part 2
The United States has two paths before it

Autocracy
Implosion

Autocracy
1933
Happens because of apathy
Nothing would really change at first
Twitter liberals are extremely weak
Trump is more likely to go Pol Pot out of sheer incompetence than either Putin or Hitler
Qanon is nothing more than repurposed anti-Seminism (Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

Implosion
1860-1861
Likely 9/11 domestic terroism event opens it (maybe coordinated assassinations?)
The storming of Trump Tower in NYC
Destruction of Fox News, WSJ, NYP (Maybe NYT)

The War
African Americans get the promise of reparations for destabilizing South
Women get the promise of codified gender equality and reproductive rights for unisex conscription
A Renewed American Covenant
No assurance it would work

Part 3
Need, as always: Co-host / Guests / Engagement

‘The Decline & Fall Of The First American Republic’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m no Gibbons, but I am self-aware enough to notice we may be careening towards an end-of-epoch moment. And event so unexpected, so spectator on a macro scale, that it will be spoken about for generations — the end of the First American Republic.

Now, let me get some stuff out of the way. What I mean by this is the First Republic was founded with the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789. It’s very possible that the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, is going tits up in a matter of months. We will be effectively neutralized as the “essential nation” that serves as the guarantor of the post-World War 2 global liberal order known as Pax Americana.

Once that happens, a series of major regional wars will erupt and, throwing potentially the very existence of humanity into question. It really could get that bad. China and India are already nearly at war. And it’s well known that Pakistan and India are pretty much just one border skirmish away from exchanging nuclear weapons.

At this point, I would casually note that I still think that one of the reasons why American Evangelicals love, love, love, LOVE Donald Trump is they think he’s the anti-Christ and, as such, will hasten the return of Jesus H. Christ. I would also note that there’s something called the Battle of Armageddon, which is would take place in a real place in the Middle East. It’s pretty easy to imagine that Evangelicals think Trump is going to prompt such a battle between Israel and Iran and Jesus is going to pop out at some point very, very soon.

Anyway, I would also like to note that the First American Republic now faces two possible futures — autocracy or collapse. Absolutely nothing in the real world gives me any indication that, in real terms, we’re not going to simply slide into autocracy with our eyes wide open. Too many things would have to go wrong for House Trump for that to happen.

And, yet, when you have a 50/50 chance that something is going to happen, you have to at least contemplate it.

So.

Implosion.

My current theory is if it Trump isn’t able to steal the election outright on Election Night that things will grow more radical and more surreal every day the question of who the president is hasn’t been answered.

So, Trump stages A Very American Coup by getting MAGA state legislatures to ignore the popular vote altogether and name MAGA Electors. There’s a lot of very upset liberals on Twitter, but Trump is sworn in after a strict 5-4 vote at SCOTUS.

Now, here’s where things get really weird. The Republic at this point may grow a quantum leap more unstable when Nancy Pelosi steps aside and Democrats name Joe Biden Speaker of the House. The moment Trump is sworn in, both he and Pence are impeached. And now we have a crucial condition to assume — the Senate flips. So, as such, there’s a chance that something of a counter-coup could be staged by Democrats.

The Senate Republicans FINALLY buckle because the country is on the cusp of civil war. Biden becomes president after Trump and Pence are convicted. Biden turns around and names Harris his veep.

But wait, there’s more!

You would have to physically remove Trump from the White House. My guess is, if things have gotten this surreal, he blows up the White House and bounces to a safe Red State like Alabama. It would make sense for him to troll the country by flying purloined Marine One to, say, Mobile in yet another sop to his Neo-Confederate base.

This is the moment when the country collapses. The Blue States would absolutely believe that Biden is president. The Red States would absolutely believe that Trump was president. In the end, it wouldn’t be about secession, it would be about who’s vision of the United States was stronger on the field of battle.

Let me be clear — this is, right now, nothing more than sort of a progressive-liberal Turner Diaries. It’s far, far more likely that instead of such an elaborate series of events, that at some point post-Election Night, there’s some sort of major domestic terrorism event (maybe even a Reichstag Fire false flag) and Trump scrambles to consolidate power that way.

The country still implodes, but Trump, having forced the issue, would be able to lean on the U.S. Military to crush any resistance. Or something. All I know is, there are some Blue Check liberals who need to get woke. They have to start thinking about risking things that are important to them in the real world, not having a tweet that goes viral.

I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. But I do know we’re not going to have a free-and-fair election. And I know we’re not going to have a peaceful transfer of power.

So, good luck.

MAGA-Qanon’s Strategic Error


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long said that Republicans no longer see democracy as legitimate. It’s nothing more than a means to an end — power. If it doesn’t help them either obtain or maintain power, then it’s an obstacle.

The interesting thing about MAGA-Qanon is they are really setting themselves up for a historic, strategic miscalculation. They are now so consumed by their own ideology, that they are totally conflating the gains they’ve gotten by abusing the politics of liberal democracy with what they think they can get by running around murdering people in cold blood.

Now, of course, they don’t say it that way. They project. They say it’s people like ME who want to hurt people like THEM. They wrap this bullshit in attacks on BLM or Antifa or whatever the latest fucking boogeyman is of the moment. But their obsession with political violence is telling — it’s obviously on THEIR minds.

But why?

Well, it seems as though the basis for their bloodlust is the assumption that the people they hate — namely, people like me — are so degenerate, immoral and debauched that they have something of a moral duty to eliminate them. To solve that particular “problem,” if you will. The latest version of this bullshit is Qanon, which is demonstrably just the age-old blood libel against the Jews repurposed to attack the more general “liberals.”

But the endgame is the same — the implication is that Republicans and their MAGA-Qanon base are itching for a “final solution” to the liberal “problem” in the United States. What started with Reagan Revolution has reached its logical extreme — liberals have, in the eyes of many right wing nutjobs been dehumanized to the point that rounding them up and putting them in the existing ICE camp infrastructure will be seen as morally justified.

And, yet, as with any such whacked out idology, they are completely missing some pretty basic elements of human nature. While obviously MAGA-Qanon would have something of a “first mover advantage” should they get what they want, it’s not going to happen in a vacuum. There will be consequences.

It’s at least possible that after the initial shock of massive, brazen power grab on the part of Trump that the very people that MAGA-Qanon dismiss might have a lot more gumption in them than imagined.

I’m not saying there won’t be a lot of loss of life if MAGA-Qanon begins the “Final Solution,” but I am saying Americans don’t generally brook extremism of that type. When the dust settles, America may be transformed. But not into some sort of real-world  Gilead, but rather a new nation based on a Renewed American Covenant.

Or, put another way — it would be a tragedy. It would be a clusterfuck and I don’t want it. I don’t think people appreciate not only how good we have it America but how much it would fucking suck if Trump steals our birthright out from right in front of our eyes. But it will also suck massively if the country implodes and we have to go through The Stand to get the country back together again.

I don’t have any easy answers for you — we’re going to have to suffer one way or another I’m afraid. The one thing we all want — a peaceful transfer of power — is never going to happen.

Either we slip into autocracy or we implode as a nation.

I honestly don’t know which one is going to happen. Good luck.

‘Washington, Nous Sommes Ici!’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If the absolute worst happens at some point between now and, say, April of next year and the United States simply collapses into warring Blue and Red States, it would not happen in a vacuum.

For about 70 years now, the United States has been the lynchpin of a stable liberal global order. If it effectively was no longer able to maintain that order, it’s likely everything would go tits up pretty quick across the globe. A series of regional wars would likely break out after the shock of America’s abrupt collapse wore off. All those wars would be marketed as “WW3.”

So, in a sense, you can’t talk about a civil war / revolution in the United States without talking about it from a global perspective. One upside to America being indisposed for a few years would be the rise of China would be hasented rather dramatically so at least we wouldn’t all die from WW3 breaking out between the US and China. In fact, by the time America sorted out if it was a Red State or a Blue State, the world might be so different that we simply wouldn’t be able to process at it at first.

Instead of having to wait 50 years for China to become a superpower, it might happen in five years. And, remember, what’s even more troublesome is there are no assurances that China and Russia won’t actually physically meddle in our domestic affairs during any implosion.

But, if it makes you feel any better, there is a chance that our NATO allies might also help us try to sort things out. So maybe some French soldier in the United States as part of the NATO Expeditionary Force might go to Washington’s crypt at Mount Vernon and say, “Washington, nous sommes ici!”

Or, put it another way, if the absolute worst happened, the implosion of the United States would be such a massive global clusterfuck that it’s ending would be equal to 1815 and 1945 when it came to historical milestones. At 70 years, we’re kind of early for something like this to happen. Usually, it’s closer to 100 years between geopolitical events that totally scramble the existing political order.

And, let me be clear about some things. One is, as I keep saying a succession of things will have to go wrong for Trump / Barr for the United States to implode. We’re hurtling towards a peaceful transition into a Russian-style autocratic managed democracy. Essentially, it’s already here. The only issue is, because of American self-perception, Trump needs to be a bit careful stealing the 2020 election so as to not crash into the American self-perception that we’re a “free” country.

Trump is so painfully stupid and ham handed that he could, in fact, very well single-handedly destroy the country.

But, again, a lot would have to go wrong for Trump to do that. Somehow, his fucking with the postal service, a fake announcement of a COVID19 vaccine and the “preliminary summary” of the Durham Investigation AND the fucking Russians hacking into our election systems would have to not get the job done by election night.

I just don’t see that happening.

Trump is going to “win” outright on election night and that’s it. A lot of liberals will get angry on Twitter but, lulz, so what.

What The Fuck Is Wrong With The United States?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States finds itself at a crossroads.

Either we slip quietly and peacefully into an American interpretation of Putin’s Russia, or the whole thing collapses and may be the best man win. I say this because the one result we would otherwise expect — a peaceful transition of power — is simply no longer applicable. Trump would rather literally end the United States as a nation than leave office and risk personal criminal liability.

But this leads to a question: why?

It seems to me the issue is Obama’s second term. Which leads to the question, why did THAT get us to this point?

The only answer I have is our fate was sealed the moment WW2 ended. It was inevitable that a Baby Boom would occur and as those people grew older and generally more conservative they would drag the country long with them. Then throw in that the Republican Party has known since at least 1980 that long term demographic trends weren’t on their side and, well, here we are.

So, in a general sense, someone like Obama was inevitably going to become president and someone like Trump was inevitable going to become a president as a result.

I would make the case that we’re actually a little early for the fall of the United States. Or, at least, at the early end of a spectrum that goes out until about 2028. I say this because unlike Hitler, it wasn’t like the United States lost a war or anything. We actually won a war — the Cold War.

But here we are.

A country with domestic peace and prosperity and a long tradition of liberal democracy is now careening towards either despotism or a civil war / revolution. It’s all very surreal — especially for someone of my age living through it all.

I really don’t want either option, to tell you the truth. I would much prefer we linger in this twilight era in our nation’s history for the rest of my life. I could handle 40 more years of being just before a decent into final political oblivion. At least, then, I wouldn’t have to live with the New Order.

But this moment in time can’t last forever. Our destiny is waiting for us one way or another. I totally believe we’re going down the peaceful transition to autocracy route. That’s our fate as far as I’m concerned.

The only reason why I have a little bit of uncertainty is Trump is such a fucking moronic self-own artist that he may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and then turn around and destroy the country to protect his own hide. Things are really that tense and perilous right now.

Only time will tell, I guess.

The Coming Second American Civil War — Watch Me Dash The Dreams of ‘Neo-Confederates’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can tell from my Webstats that growing numbers of Southerns hear the siren call of “the Lost Cause” and are stroking one out to all my ranting about a possible Second American Civil War. I’m Southern, so I’m well versed in the lingering nationalism found in Dixie. It’s so much a part of the world Southerners live in that we don’t even realize how deep the longing for the “South to rise again” really is.

Now excuse me while I shit on all that.

First of all, my dear fellow Southerners, if you really are a Neo-Confederate, you are conflating two different things. You’re mixing up what you’ve been able to get via politics with what you THINK you can get by running around murdering people. The dynamics of these two situations are very, very different. The moment a center-Right-but-not-MAGA family in the exurbs of, say, Nashville, wake up and realize they have to make an existential decision about their personal fate because fucking Neo-Confederates have forced the country to implode, the decisions they make next may surprise you.

And that’s just how you should simply be patient and at least give people a false sense of living in a free country by, maybe, just maybe, not being so fucking bloodthirsty about keeping Trump in power no matter what. You’re in a fucking personality death cult and you’re blinded by the massive self-own you’re setting yourself up for.

Now, let’s get to an even bigger problem of Neo-Confederates — your war aims. You want, in a sense, your romanticised antebellum dreams to come true. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine MAGA-Qanon taking that to its logical conclusion and attempting to murder millions of African Americans across the South. Or, put another way — do you really think Southern blacks are going to sit back and lulz being put under the White jackboot so you can stroke one out to “Song of the South?”

The issue of race is so existential to any notion of using Dixie as the cornerstone of Trumplandia that you really, really need to slow your roll. You’re risking destroying the South AGAIN because of, what, cancel culture? Is that all you got?

And another thing — you may have a contiguous states and a lot of land, but you don’t really have the advantaged of concentrated population that Blue States have. You’re going to have to write off Red States in the Midwest and hunker down with deep Red States in the Deep South as your core. And even that will be unstable because of the race issue.

All I’m saying is — if the Neo-Confederates grow to extreme and greedy, it won’t be a civil war we’re talking about, it’s going to be a revolution in the sense that no institution — not even the Federal government — will escape the forces of creative destruction.

So, please, let’s play nice and let Biden get sworn into office peacefully if he wins. Ok? Thanks.

Comparative Collapse: Soviet Union 1991 Vs. United States 2021


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be absolutely clear — the only reason why I keep writing about the possibility of some sort of “collapse” of the United States into civil war / revolution is we have a 50 / 50 chance it is going to happen between now and, say, January 2021.

Either Trump “wins” outright and we slip into a Russian style autocratic managed democracy peacefully, or there’s a significant implosion of the United States that takes months, if not years, to sort out. There is never going to be what we otherwise would assume would happen — a peaceful transfer of power. Those days are gone. We are now in the age of white-knuckled power politics.

If the United States does “collapse,” the closest approximation in modern times to this event would be the a similar collapse by the Soviet Union. But the similarities between these two events extremely superficial — it simply involves a major geopolitical power imploding. That’s it. Otherwise, the two situations appear to be completely different.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a unique event because everyone pretty much just stop believing in its central tenet all at once after years of decline. The whole thing was peaceful because the major political force in the Soviet Union — Russia — essentially had something akin to a political revolution in the months leading up to the Soviet Union’s demise in the guise of Boris Yeltsin declaring that Russia’s laws held precedence over those of the Soviet Union.

And, remember, the Soviet Union was, in a sense, a 19th Century dream that outlived its welcome after existing for just about the length of one lifetime. Communism simply could not adapt to the vigor of American Capitalism. At its heart, Communism was a lie and little more than Russian imperialism under a different name.

So when Russia stopped believing in Communism, the whole thing became moot. The coup of August 1991 was, in hindsight, nothing more than a final deathrattle.

Now, let’s look at the United States in late 2020, early 2021.

Any collapse of the United States will happen because a lot — a LOT — of things go wrong for Donald Trump. He’s well on his way to consolidating power by stealing the election in a rather brazen fashion and that will be that. Americans are too content, too politically apathetic and too generally indifferent to the rise of tyranny in the country to do the things necessary to stop it in its tracks at this late date.

There are two ways Trump could screw this otherwise foregone conclusion up — one, be himself. He’s a self-own artist. He’s just an idiot. So, that’s one major known unknown. Connected to that is if things move to fast the average person not on Twitter might get woke in a rather abrupt fashion. So abrupt that we careen towards something closer to a revolution than a civil war.

So, in a sense, any collapse of the United States would be a political collapse. The two sides simply would have no middle ground and, as such, would try to solve their differences through “other means.” A lot of gnashing of teeth is being done about what California might do if there were, say, dualing presidents. The lazy answer is that California will leave the Union. I find that stupid because that’s just the type of the Trump would want so he could really consolidate power. There’s a chance, however, that not even Trump could pull that office because, well, he’s just a fucking idiot.

The liberal fever dream is, of course, that Blue States will simply leave the Union, establish a liberal utopia (maybe in conjunction with Canada) and we will, at last, have a taco truck on every corner and drive through free abortions. But I just don’t see that happening.

Yes, there will be a lot of talk about Blue States leaving the Union if things get bad enough, but it seems as though it would be more a matter of Blue States not recognizing Trump as president and coordinating a reponse to that rather than they leave the Union and do some sort of New Coke USA.

Or, put it another way – once the collapse is actually upon us, it won’t be a matter of everyone no longer believing in our shared ideals, but that those ideals are interpreted in radically different fashions by Blue and Red States. There will likely be a lot of debate about Blue States simply leaving the Union, but in the end, that choice may be made for them — they may realize they can get a lot more support from center-Right-but-not-MAGA people if they market their struggle as a fight for the soul of a shared nation, not the creation of a new one — a New American Covenant, if you will. You might go with “Renewed American Covenant” if you wanted to sound a tick less radical, but lulz, no one listens to me.

And, remember, the United States is a voluntary union of states, at least since April, 1865. The Soviet Union actively did everything in its power to prevent some of its more restless Republics — like those in the Baltics — from leaving. So, the United States starts with a vast reservoir of legitimacy that the Soviet Union didn’t have when it really began to collapse all of a sudden.

The Soviet Union was RUSSIA and 14 other Republics. The United States is California, Texas, Florida and 47 other States. The Federal — especially the U.S. Military — has the “mandate of heaven” for millions of people who simply want to raise their kids, pay their mortgage and go see a nice movie every once in a while.

As such, those people will be completely sucker punched if the bolts finally pop off the Republic and Blue and Red States actively begin to plot against each other on the battlefield.

I still don’t think this is going to happen. Something pretty big would have to happen for me not to simply try to tune out after Trump “wins” election night and we become, at last, the Fourth Reich.

Escape To New York — Imagining Life In ‘Revolutionary’ NYC


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve decided that if need be, I’m going to head north towards NYC in the event of the advent of a Second American Civil War. There are some personal and practical obstacles to me doing this, but my general intention is to head that way at some point with the other thousands of political refugees that likely would exist by that point.

Me, fall 2021?

One my frequent refrains is I know myself well enough to know that if you put me anywhere in the five boroughs with access to the subway, I would likely make a name for myself one way or another. I’m too much of an extrovert and too driven not to make myself noticed. I’m well aware that this makes me sound both “delusional and stupid” given that I’ve not done anything for much of the last decade and — relative to the metrics of the average New Yorker, I’m just a big old rando loser.

And, yet, there’s a case to be made that if things have grown so absolutely bad in the United States that I become a political refugee that the “old ways” would have collapsed and a person like me might have a chance to rise to the occasion of an unexpected destiny.

The only reason why I even bring this up is I thought it would be interesting to imagine what life in a near future, “revolutionary” New York City might be. I’ve only been to NYC a few times and I love it. I used to live in Seoul and the two cities are very similar. In Seoul people won’t talk to you because they can’t speak English. In NYC people won’t speak to you because they don’t give a shit. But form follows function and my reaction to that is very similar — I thrive. What’s amusing is I also know that I probably would prosper more in LA because it’s a town based on storytelling and people are more willing to give a dumbass writer like me a chance because you never can tell.

Anyway, if things have grown so absolutely dire that I — and thousands of others — have been forced out of home for political reasons — I think the biggest difference would be how militarized the city would have become. Also, some of the locations of major conservative media outlets would have been gutted by that point as well.

One interesting thing would be the fate of The New York Times. The case could be made that on an institutional level, The Old Gray Lady has been on the wrong side of history. It’s at least possible that the NYT might have been destroyed — or radically re-imagined — because of the same forces that drove FOX News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post out of the city.

On a personal level, I wonder what I might be able to cook up if I was crashed on someone’s couch in, say, Staten Island. I’d be organizing something, that’s for sure. I learned a lot from running ROKon Magazine in Seoul and a lot of the reason why I haven’t been able to exploit that skillset is the fall of ROKon Magazine left me emotionally hobbled and I simply had no motivation for a long, long time.

Anyway, no one listens to me and no one cares. And if they do, they usually — with good reason –dismiss me as a fool. But, as the song goes, you never can tell.

California & A ‘New American Covenant’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Dirt don’t vote. Dirt don’t fight. But what does vote and fight is people. Looking at the United States with a clear eye, it’s pretty obvious that MAGA-Qanon is very, very, very stupid for chomping at the bit for any type of civil war. They have a lot of big states with a lot of dirt. That’s it. They have a bloodthirsty 38% of the electorate in a personality death cult scattered across the 50 States and maybe 9 solid old Confederate States they could rely upon. But even then, the African American community in those states probably wouldn’t appreciate being put under a white power jackboot.

The basis of a New American Covenant.

The best I can do is they’re conflating what they’ve gotten policy wise by abusing our political system with all the “wonderful” things they think they can get if they just start murdering people in cold blood. But as I keep saying, if things grew existential, a lot of those soyboys drinking lottes at hipster coffee shops and smelling their own farts would turn into Rambo pretty quick for no other reason than they absolutely would have to.

In a sense, what people like Roger Stone and Michael Caputo are doing is the same thing with Blue States that Hitler and Tojo did about the United States in 1941 — they see their enemy through the eyes of ideology. With the Axis, it was the supposed “degenerate” nature of American culture. With MAGA-Qanon, it’s something very similar — they are ignoring basic human nature. If you stick a gun in someone’s face, they just might freak out and surprise you.

So, I guess what I’m saying is if the United States implodes and we can somehow convince California to stay and fight, then the Blue States have a pretty good shot at surprising those fuckers Stone and Caputo, just like the Greatest Generation surprised the Axis. What’s more, Stone and Caputo are such fucking misogynists, that they are totally oblivious to the untapped skills that unisex conscription by Blue States would be able to tap into.

One issue that needs to be address is — why would Blue States stay and fight in the first place? Why not just leave the Union and establish some sort of liberal fever dream utopia? Well, there a lot of problems with that. First, there are a lot of conservative military guys who simply would not brook leaving the Union. Why force yourself to write off Gen. Mattis out of some sort of delusional belief that Blue States could actually leave the Union without a serious beatdown by the U.S. Military. Also, think of it this way — a lot of America’s problems would be solved if the entire country was based on the implied ideology of California.

California is a big, prosperous, diverse state. It would be extremely shortsighted for them to leave the Union when they could help save the Union and unlock a massive amount of untapped potential in Red States by forcing them to undergo a Second Reconstruction.

Or, let me put it more concrete terms — not only is the end of the Union what our enemies want (Putin, Trump) but there’s no assurance that they would be able to successfully escape in the first place. It would make a lot more sense to appeal to everyone’s common sense of being American and to re-imagine that idea, rather than abandoned it altogether.

The United States has a lot — A LOT — going for it, but our politics is broken. We need a refounding. We need a New Covenant. We need a Second Republic. And the only way to do that is to get California to believe in the Union again by telling them that, in essence, it would be a takeover. California in the Second Civil War would play the part of The North in the First Civil War.

Look at it this way — abolition was a very, very radical 19th Century concept until out of sheer desperation Lincoln adopted it as a war aim. The same thing with my proposal — to your average blue collar guy in small town Alabama, basing a Second Republic on the ideals of California would be a pretty fucking radical proposal — until they absolutely had to accept it.

Let me be clear that I keep talking about this not because I want it to happen — fuck that — but that the fucking MAGA-Qanon assholes seem determined to murder people who would again like to enjoy a liberal democracy — like me!

I just want to finish my novel. And no one reads this blog, so it’s not like anyone is listening to me. And if they are, they probably think I’m both delusional and bonkers. Or, “delusional and stupid” as someone once called me.