NB: Although the opinion below is that of internal
pseudo-local-"warlords", a more likely scenario would be a Republiklan
theocratic white supremacist "United (red) States" and a possible
coalition of some of the "blue" states. Note that due to
gerrymandering, Census manipulation, and outright voter suppression,
there is a prediction below that Republiklan Trumpites would control
Congress after 2022 -- putting a complete halt to whatever Biden might
want to do. Given Republiklan control of SCOTUS (thanks to three
Republiklan Trumpites being installed by Trump along with Thomas et al.,
and a probable lack of Democrat will to expand SCOTUS -- the independent
commission being established for the issues of a polarized and
Republiklan controlled SCOTUS will accomplish nothing in all
likelihood), Biden and any sane humane agenda would be stopped (not Nazi
Klan Proud Boogaloo People of Praise Qanon -- the current Republiklan
base and views -- except for cannabis) and a return to Jim Crow as well
as theocratic values would ensue (a cis woman's enforced "right" to
expire in gestation, delivery, or post-partum as specified by a
Republiklan supernatural omni-all, after she is barefoot and in the
kitchen -- trans women would be tantamount to criminal with no
meaningful civil rights).
https://theweek.com/articles/983063/threat-civil-war-didnt-end-trump-presidency?utm_campaign=afternoon_newsletter_20210518&utm_source=afternoon_newsletter&utm_medium=email\
The Week
Opinion
The threat of civil war didn't end with the Trump presidency
Damon Linker
May 18, 2021
Donald Trump's presidency was a product of the country's political
polarization, but Trump himself pushed that polarization much further
than it was before he took office. His actions during his final weeks in
the White House — above all, his denial of his own loss in the 2020
election and his incitement of the insurrection against Congress' formal
certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6 — brought the country to the
brink.
But the brink of what? Most liberals and progressives assume we were
facing a coup that would have kept Trump in office in defiance of both
the popular and Electoral College vote. That would have overturned
American democracy in favor of a form of authoritarianism.
But that wouldn't have been the end of the story. It would have been the
beginning — the start of a series of events that culminated in something
that looks much more like a second American civil war. That is the
ominous possibility that we need to keep in mind as we advance toward
turbulent elections of the future.
The chilling events of Jan. 6 were made possible by profoundly deep
differences between Democrats and Republicans — not over policy or
morals, but over reality itself. That was Trump's decisive contribution
to our civic breakdown. On top of the substantive partisan disagreements
that have piled up over the decades, Trump built on and radicalized the
polemical style of right-wing media, combining it with the lies and
intentional distortions of a well-practiced conman who considers it
unacceptable ever to concede a loss. Long-standing, low-grade paranoia
on the right about voter fraud now became an outright conspiracy theory
denying that any result other than a victory for Trump could be
considered legitimate.
That got us to the insurrection on Capitol Hill. But the events that
followed — dozens of Republicans voting against certification of state
electoral votes, Trump's continued denial of his own loss, the bulk of
his party in Congress punishing the few daring to call out the former
president's Big Lie, polls indicating that the Republican base continues
to believe in it, and state election officials who certified Biden's
victory being replaced by Trump loyalists — show that the story isn't
over. A significant chunk of the American electorate now resides in an
alternative universe of facts about the nation's elections while
continuing to share the same political space with the rest of the country.
What might that entail four and eight years from now?
The troubling truth is that precisely how events unfold will be a
function not just of the margins between the candidates and which party
controls Congress and the legislatures and governorships within the
closest states, but also of which party holds the White House at the time.
Let's assume for the sake of a thought experiment that the 2024 election
pits Joe Biden against Trump or a Trumpist Republican, that Biden
prevails in the popular vote by a healthy margin, that the Electoral
College is decided by three states controlled by Republican officials
where Biden prevailed by just a couple of percentage points, and that
the GOP controls a majority of the state delegations to the House of
Representatives. In this scenario, the three key state legislatures,
citing unsubstantiated stories of election fraud, refuse to certify the
official slate of Democratic electors and appoint an alternative slate
ready to vote for the Republican candidate.
This would throw the Electoral College into chaos, requiring the House
to assume responsibility for the final outcome. Republicans are favored
to take control of the House in 2022, but already they control a
majority of the state delegations. That will very likely still be true
on Jan. 6, 2025. Which means that they could declare the Republican the
victor even if Biden wins the popular vote and the Electoral College —
though they would of course claim to be acting on the conviction that in
reality Biden lost the key states and so also fell short of the required
electoral votes.
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What would happen then? As the incumbent who actually won the election
and already holds the powers of the presidency, Biden would be in a
strong position to appeal to a majority of the population to support his
efforts to remain in office, as well as to the leadership of key
institutions, including the military, police, executive branch
departments and agencies, and big business. But this doesn't mean that
sentiment within these institutions would be unanimous. A sizable
minority of the population as well as elements within these institutions
might break from the president and support his Republican rival instead.
How far would that opposition go? Would the bulk of the population
relent and accept Biden's victory, leaving dissenters vastly
outnumbered? Or would it be a closer call, with the minority feeling
emboldened in its rejection of the president and his purported victory?
That would be the most precarious moment for American democracy since
the election of 1860. But it's nothing compared to what could happen
four years later, in the aftermath of the 2028 election.
If we assume Biden prevails in 2024 by a wide-enough margin that the
country avoids the kind of scenario laid out above and then remains
president until the end of his second term, we would be facing an
election with no incumbent president able to use the momentum of his
already established powers to steady the body politic. That could
produce a situation in which a still-narrowly divided country finds it
impossible to reach consensus on which of the two candidates is the
rightful and legitimate victor of the contest to succeed Biden.
Congress, state governments, the military, the police, business leaders,
the media — all of them could be deeply and sharply split over which
side to support.
That's the direction in which we seem to be headed. Not toward the
imposition of dictatorial rule, but toward something like its opposite —
a cascading breakdown of authority as the country and its citizens,
already residing in wholly different realities, break apart into rival
camps and find themselves incapable of reaching even the most minimal
agreement required for functional and stable government and the
maintenance of rudimentary public order.
When a nation gets to that point, it has already slipped beyond the
bounds of normal politics into the twilight world of outright
dysfunction and the settling of disputes by violence instead of ballots.
We can't know if this will be our fate. What we can know is that the
potential is there, lurking in the shadows of our civic life and
haunting the national elections that await us.