World War G: Midterms
Short update from the ether
I had originally intended to write the follow up post to this by now but life did get in the way and the game has changed significantly since the original post so I am going with an update to the original post first, and will get to the follow up shortly after if life permits. Most of the themes are playing out in the expected direction however the pace of events and the ebb and flow have resulted in some surprises.
As it turns out the overturning of Roe vs Wade was indeed the bat signal to republicans to go nuts—do whatever you want, and my opening assertion was not all that hyperbolic at all. We will see this week exactly how belligerent they are willing to be regarding the law when the 11th circuit & Clarence Thomas weigh in.
The biggest surprise to me is that Russia has proven so weak (and I had them rated extremely poor to begin with) and that the war on the ground is already mostly decided without a miracle, significant escalation with wmd or Chinese intervention. China has so far been behaving opportunistic and pragmatic as expected. For Putin however it is difficult to see a path forward. The bulk of the conventional red army has been destroyed or captured equipment wise, full mobilization without the ability to rearm is impossible and Russia has been reduced to nuclear threats and hybrid warfare.
The hybrid warfare continues on as total war against the west, and with the assistance of westerners and western businesses (perhaps to be the dominant form of warfare in the information age). But the big objective for the European theater of destroying the red army in place has mostly come to fruition.
Russia has lost control of Central Asia, Erdogan is pushing, Kazakhstan is pushing, and Azerbaijan is YOLOing the opportunity with great vigor. Armenia has discovered the value of knock off NATO CSTO’s article 4 is precisely nil after getting “you’re doing great” in response to triggering it. Nancy Pelosi is on the ground providing greater security guarantees to them at the moment attempting to broker a cease fire. American and Ukrainian flags have been spotted flying in Armenian protests (Armenians are no strangers to the wrong end of genocidal savagery).
Biden out of nowhere decided to quit playing republican games which was unexpected. Democrats are finally calling things what they are. They have even racked up legislative victories right up to the buzzer in the cycle. But we should be very direct with the message- these midterms are not normal midterms and the gop will change the rules immediately if they take both houses. The courts have already signaled go. The right has salivated over this constitutional convention & control of the courts scenario for decades, none of the things happening have not been telegraphed for a long time. They are not the kind to go kindly so now that they got their foothold, they’re going to exploit it.
Shockingly, Trump has proven much more resiliant than Putin the way things have played out. The initial read on this, that the courts are ready to accept Chewbacca defense arguments or create them out of whole cloth on their own to protect Trump rather than discard him demonstrates the Theocratic wing is driving the bus and his leadership with cult status is unquestioned still. Trump has also fully embraced Qanon and merged with the Flynn insurgency in doing so if he hadn’t already. It’s taken on Jim Jones cult like strangeness and is a violent force untethered from reality. My personal feeling is that the combination of Putin’s implodsion and the walls closing in on Trump has accelerated the game and put the 2024 stakes into the 2022 contest. Trump is activating an irregular force out of necessity/desperation.
And not to dabble too much in conspiracy ideation, but Flynn was outed in 2017 trying to sell nuclear technology to the Saudis, and Trump has been caught with nuclear secrets (possibly distributed already), and the Saudis gave Kushner $2 billion dollars, and the Saudis are laundering obscene amounts of cash into American politics thru their golf tournament—which hands out trophies that are straight doppelgangers for the World Trade Center wreckage. I don’t know, all in all is seems a bit suspect and rather insane any of this is allowed to carry on. But it does appear we have our Jefferson Davis and General Lee sorted out now.
Not to spend a bunch more time on the insanity that is the gop but since they’ve embraced violence and outright thuggery and they’re training poll watchers to disrupt the vote we are in fact facing grave danger in November and an almost guaranteed constitutional crisis immediately following. There will be obstruction both politically and physically on the streets and the only question is to the degree. It is almost an absolute certainty they will contest the vote wherever they lose and try to kick it to their favored judges to take assume/usurp office. There are too many election deniers on the ballot and right wing saboteurs that have inserted themselves into the election process to expect it to go off without a hitch. There is a completely bonkers possible scenario where different gop judges flip different elections on different and contrary grounds to each other to seat said republicans and it is not all that farfetched. The lawlessness displayed by DeSantis and Abbot trafficking asylum seekers and any other number of political stunts that come at real human cost is in full swing. DeSantis will be aggresively targeting Florida voters as well.
We have also reached the point where even those in the media who are fully aware of the con job treat it as old hat, the fire-hose of lies is just breakfast now. It is key to understand that by repetition of these old and debunked lies, while continually inventing even more absurd ones as both observers of the movement and established members inside it both brush it off as ‘same old shit’ its how they keep the movement growing.
The reason it stays on full blast is you may get used to it, but for new recruits to the movement they get blast after blast of endorphins spiraling down the rabbit hole. The lies are not for you. The lies are Joe Camel and Spuds McKenzie.
Now I am not trying to be overly alarmist here either, these are just a series of things each one of which can/will go any which way, but it is better to be clear eyed about the difficulty of task—hope is not a strategy. We must be prepared to overcome obstructions to carrying out our duty as citizens to remove these criminals from office via the ballot box, and the degree of difficulty will vary by zip code (you know exactly what I mean here). The election could be a violent flash point or the MAGA right’s showing could be a whimper.
So if these aren’t interesting times, I really don’t have any idea what interesting times are, but at least regular people are starting to truly understand the meaning behind HST’s “when the going gets weird the weird turn pro”. It’s all Calvin ball, all the time.
The bottom line is that this election is a contest for the national identity, we’re either going to keep trying to be the country we pretend to be, or we’re gonna say fuck it and let the KKK run shit. There is no ambiguity.
Final note, time permitting I should have part two tentatively titled “Green New Fields” ready in a couple weeks that covers a builder’s agenda on energy, infrastructure, and greening the planet via micro-geoengineering. We really don’t have much time for authoritarian games before getting to the real work.