THE FALL OF AMERICA would unleash hell: economically, diplomatically, militarily, culturally; the whole world would be rocked to its foundations. Like the fall of Rome, the nearest historical equivalent, the collapse of the United States would mark the end of an era.
The musings of a history buff? Not really. The odds of the American Republic collapsing into chaos and civil strife – even civil war – are already better than even.
In the latest issue of the Atlantic, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Barton Gellman, puts it bluntly: “Against Biden or another Democratic nominee, Donald Trump may be capable of winning a fair election in 2024. He does not intend to take that chance.”
The Washington Post is no less pessimistic. It has just published an opinion piece by three retired Generals urging the military to begin preparing now for the “insurrection of 2024”. As befits senior military officers, their words are not minced:
“[T]he Defence Department should war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt to identify weak spots. It must then conduct a top-down debrief of its findings and begin putting in place safeguards to prevent breakdowns not just in the military, but also in any agency that works hand in hand with the military […..] The military and lawmakers have been gifted hindsight to prevent another insurrection from happening in 2024 – but they will succeed only if they take decisive action now.”
These words should quell immediately any impulse to scoff at the idea that the United States could fall. The Generals’ opinion piece is not so much a straw, as a whole haystack, in the wind. The key question it provokes is daunting. Either, they are writing to warn Trump and his followers that the United States Armed Forces are prepared to stop them. Or, it is an act of desperation from military men who already sense that the armed forces should no longer be considered reliable defenders of the US Constitution.
Alarmingly, at least some of the Generals’ advice suggests that it may be the latter:
“In addition, all military branches must undertake more intensive intelligence work at all installations. The goal should be to identify, isolate and remove all potential mutineers; guard against efforts by propagandists who use misinformation to subvert the chain of command; and understand how that and other misinformation spreads across the ranks after it is introduced by propagandists.”
The picture painted here could not be clearer. If American democracy falls beneath the blows of Trump and his followers, then the American armed forces will not escape the breakdown of legitimate authority, and the open recourse to violence, sweeping across the rest of American society. The Army, itself, will split between Trumpists and Constitutionalists. Civil war would be inevitable.
The most astonishing feature of this looming threat to American society and its democratic institutions is how few members of the constitutionalist political class can see it. From the President on down, there is not the slightest evidence that anything is being done to hasten the “decisive action” the Generals are demanding. The Democratic Party, in particular, is a rudderless hulk, riven by faction, and incapable of self-discipline. Trump and his followers, with scant regard for the Constitution or even the Rule of Law, are clearly preparing to re-write the political rules of engagement, and the Democrats just look at them, blinking helplessly in the headlights of the Republican Party’s onrushing Mack Truck.
One can only speculate what the Generals are saying to themselves – and any other constitutionalists still willing to fight for the republic – behind closed doors. The strategic position can only be described as dire.
The mid-term elections are less than twelve months away and, right now, all the smart money says that the Republicans will re-capture both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The key question then, of course, is what will they do with the full powers of Congress at their disposal?
Some will no doubt be clamouring to impeach Joe Biden. But, unless the Republican Party emerges from the mid-term elections with two-thirds of the Senate under its control, conviction on the Senate floor is most unlikely. Impeachment also runs the risk of finally concentrating the minds of the Constitutionalists. As Trump, himself, demonstrated, an incumbent president has a lot of resources – military resources in particular – upon which he can call in extremis. In Biden’s case, those resources might even agree to come to the President’s rescue.
From a purely strategic standpoint, Trump’s and the Republican Congress’s best move would be to take Biden and the Democrats completely by surprise. If the attention of Trump’s enemies is focused almost entirely on what he might do in 2024, then the obvious strategy is to move against them immediately – in 2022. Depose Biden and install Trump as President before next Christmas.
But, surely, there is no legal way President Biden can be deposed? If the Republicans lack the numbers to impeach him, then he cannot be removed from office until the General Election of 2024. Obviously, that is correct. But the Republicans may decide that the “legal way” is not their best option. If they can depose Biden quickly and cleanly, without warning, then they can, almost certainly, rely upon their mates in the Supreme Court to bestow anex post facto blessing on Trump’s fait accompli. (They would plead that the maintenance of peace and national unity demanded nothing less of them!)
The Republican blitzkrieg would be swift and brutally effective. By a Joint Declaration of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the 2020 Presidential Election would be decreed fraudulent and Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory declared null and void. The Office of President of the United States, bestowed upon Donald Trump by a clear majority of the American people on 3 November 2020, would be acknowledged by the Chief Justice administering the Oath of Office to the President-Elect, thereby restoring the proper constitutional order.
Congress would then decree the immediate arrest of the “November 2020 Traitors”, leaving the House and the Senate devoid of Democrats. Trump loyalists in the armed forces would attempt to arrest all senior military officers deemed sympathetic to Biden and the Constitution. Public protest would be met by a declaration of martial law.
American democracy would thus be extinguished in less than a week – and all hell would break loose. The second American civil war would tear the United States apart. The more numerous and much wealthier “Blue States” ( i.e. Democratic Party-controlled) would secede from the Union. The savagery of the conflict would intensify. Ultimately, as Margaret Atwood anticipated in her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, an uneasy truce would follow the use of tactical nuclear weapons by the armies of both sides.
With America in ruins, and the global economy in free-fall, ethno-nationalism and autarky would be the order of the day. To complete this grim apocalyptic picture, successive global pandemics and runaway climate change would bury what remained of humanity’s hopes. A new Dark Age would descend.
Pretty grim, eh? We must all hope, therefore, that a great many more Americans than “Three Retired Generals” are, at this very moment, readying themselves for lots of “decisive action”.
As a keen amateur student of US politics the current situation is fascinating.
The tables have turned – the democratic party is the establishment party and the GOP is now the workers party. Trump was the first President to actively threaten the military and otherwise not engage in foreign wars. Unfortunately for the military’s top brass the core troops a). Are GOP voters; and importantly b). mostly Trump supporters. Any direct action by the military against Trump or his surrogates will likely result in a full blow insurrection. The generals know this and otherwise would be loathe to go down this route.
A more likely scenario is:
a). GOP retakes the House (and perhaps) the Senate
b). Blocks legislation and importantly nominations (i.e. Judges) therefore making Biden/Harris lame ducks
c). GOP re-takes the white house (Trump or otherwise) in 2024 and entrenches voter ID laws, the electoral system and the constitution during the goldilocks 2 year period where they hold the executive office/legislature.
A move towards a handmaid’s tale is unlikely on a number of counts – most importantly that the majority of US manufacturing and (increasingly) industry is domiciled in the South and the majority of their strategic weapons in sparely populated GOP strongholds. Strategically team blue would lose. It’s a fantasy of the democratic elite that the peasants of the US heartland will engage in a racist, redneck uprising so they came tell the cities and the suburbs – I told you so!
Why would the GOP/Trump risk it when the majority of the people will give it to them on a platter over the next 3 years. AND THAT is due to Biden and his minders making such a mess of it.
result –
the ramshackle 3rd world imperial power the US is collapses…at least the USSR walked off the stage with the minimum of bloodshed (gorby doesn’t get enough credit). my fear is that a collapsing us will throw the nuclear toys out of the pram…imagine texas and florida inheriting nukes from a collapsing empire
—NOW THAT SCARES THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME.
The GOP is not and never will be a ‘workers party’. They have NO policies that benefit workers. All they want to do is hold down wages, outlaw unions and strip away any social safety net protections and replace them with ‘opportunity’.
The workers who do support the Republican party are racist, homophobic bigots who work in the trades/oil and gas who will have no sense of solidarity and will throw their brothers and sisters under a bus if it means they get a tax cuts, and the police liberated and liberals policed.
It sickens me that there is so much racism and LGBT-phobia on this blog.
Our esteemed columnist has let his mind wander…and has drawn our attention to what is quite likely to happen in the god damn Yoo Ess Ayy.
The US is indeed teetering on the brink of authoritarianism. Since the 2020 election republican states have been on twin turbo boost with nitrous in extending voter suppression legislation and further district gerrymandering.
Just watch the Republicans ignore the Filibuster in the Senate, which corporate Democrats cannot bring themselves to do.
There are numerically more fire arms than people in the United States of America, mostly owned by people whose cheese slid off the cracker long ago. The prospect of fellow citizens blasting away at each other is grim indeed, because it is reactionaries in the main that have the guns.
The most recent imperial collapse was the USSR. Read 5 Stages of Collapse, Dimtri Orlov, you will find most are well advanced. As for global apocalypse etc, no, the new world order is well advanced and its not the “new world order” “great reset”. Its the renewal of older deep cultures.
Yes Nick, it’s a culture war.
As Marion Maréchal (newest face of the Le Pen family and one day President of France?) said “Change has to be made from the top down, but it will never succeed if we don’t create islands of resistance from below that persist even when the government changes. It is necessary to build islands of resistance in society; it is through them that we will win. I often quote Gramsci, but it was not only Gramsci who said this: political victory comes only after a cultural victory. There are no political victories without cultural victories.”
The dysfunctional and dissolute Democrats and their corporate and media enablers are increasingly alien to a large swath of working and middle class Americans of all ethnicities, in large part thanks to their insane embrace of wokeist bullshit. A bit like our lot.
It’s this that I think the general’s are trying to address – they know that the woke ideology isn’t and won’t be accepted by the proletarian despite the Dems and the elite wanting to drive this cultural shift. If they push much harder, they open the door wider for the Orange Man Bad.
Yes NickJ, but will the stupid US of A give up without wiping us all out first? I can’t trust them, they are corrupt to their core.
Chris, your “decisive action” would be about as useful as a sticking plaster on a tumour. Trump is more a symptom than a cause of America’s woes.
Trump’s constitutency would be much smaller if ordinary Americans hadn’t been done over by the deadly combo of neoliberal globalism and the woke identity politics that have corrupted so many American institutions. “Meritocracy” is now apparently a racist construct.
The education system provides some of the most dramatic examples. The hang-wringing white liberals who run Harvard University (an exclusive, private university) are embarrassed by their surfeit of Asian students, and the scarcity of Blacks and Hispanics. Since 2003, they have attempted to boost the “diversity” of admissions by weighting applicants’ marks differentially by ethnicity, on grounds of “character” – Blacks get upweighted, and Asians downweighted. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/magazine/where-does-affirmative-action-leave-asian-americans.html.
How do you think this looks to ordinary Americans? The ones who haven’t been brainwashed about “diversity, equity and inclusion” at university?
But the armed forces are not immune: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/23/1009592838/top-general-defends-studying-critical-race-theory-in-the-military
Then reflect on the changes happening in New Zealand society. We aren’t much different and indeed if the current government gets another term with the Greens in tow this is our logical position by 2025
Agreed.
“Trump’s constitutency would be much smaller if ordinary Americans hadn’t been done over by the deadly combo of neoliberal globalism and the woke identity politics that have corrupted so many American institutions.”
The first (neoliberal globalism) is the real causal culprit, the second (invoking woke politics) is pointing the finger at what is basically inconsequential to the station of most people but is quite cynically used as a distraction to disguise the cause of the first. It’s fascinating that neoliberalism (particularly globalism), although in essence a right wing creation, has been successfully branded in the minds of “ordinary Americans” as a left wing or Democrat philosophy.
HEAR HEAR CHRISTIE….the slide into ever increasing impoverishment is more important to most people than right/left squabbling over pronouns which are a mere LINO distraction, how many homes for trans folk are built by pronouns? if you really wanna help them then….
…BUT HEY VIRTUE SIGNALLING FEELS SOOOO GOOD.
Keep those blacks out of Harvard eh?
Your point is what exactly?
It’s obviousous that you want to keep blacks and working class people out of Harvard because you want more Asians.
That comment says a lot about you and nothing about me.
At least I dont have my head up Bari Weiss’ arse, because you are parroting her rhetoric.
millsy
You cast your own shadow and then charge at it – not even up to Don Quixote standard.
The Asians appear to be the main target and losers out of these policies. They have formed a resistance and are following through with legal challenges against the universities – plural.
We have 65% of Otago medical school now taken up with the “special category” intake. Our aspirational Asians are not happy, that’s for sure.
Interesting times!
apparently the NZ librarians organisation is seeking new recruits of a more diverse nature (especially men) as their ranks are filled with aging white females…now theres a turn up for the books
That’s not at all what PP said. Why would you willfully misconstrue something? So it fits with your own peculiar narrative I suppose? PP’s comment is a thoughtful one backed up by references. Disagree if you like but please don’t pretend he said something he didn’t.
Such interesting times Chris!
To think that I may live to see the end of this ridiculous 18th Century vanity experiment…
Careful what you wish for, who would you prefer? China? Perato Distribution tells us that there will always be someone on top.
It’s no coincidence that the fall of the Roman Empire lead to the dark ages and sometimes it’s better the devil you know.
if you remove NZers knee jerk ‘yellow peril’ reaction, both US and China much of a muchness
Yeah, there are so many more US colonists on the ground in No Zealand than Han Chinese lebensraumers…
well who let the cheap labour in cancelman? oh yup the nats–not that labour objected or did anything different……it’s noticeable though on ‘we just moved our family to NZ ‘ videos how many are upper middle class yanks….who just lurve it here, course they do, they’re loaded and wouldn’t know an everyday NZer from a hole in the ground unless he was mowing their lawn
so yeah fair bit of yank immigration and they will change our society just like boer immigration did….it’s a function of selling passports the overseas bourgeoisie wherever they come from.
.juz sayin…
Don’t be silly, Bg – it was a coincidence. Other empires have fallen without long ‘dark ages’ following.
Are you suggesting that some divine power has control over our history?
Got those grandkids goosestepping and squawking in Mandarin yet?
Well, there goes my Crassmas cheer in one dire blast of nervous diarrhoea.
Before all hope fades, you’d better read this.
Boingboing.net/
“The time a US defence contractor turned on Soviet military scientists to MDMA to lubricate the nuclear peace process.”
“A few days before the drug became illegal in the US in 1985, Rosin says, she took a suitcase full of MDMA to a friend’s apartment in Moscow. In walked mutual friends with empty medicine bottles, which she proceeded to fill with tablets of Ecstasy.”
https://boingboing.net/2021/12/22/the-time-a-us-defense-contractor-turned-on-soviet-military-scientists-to-mdma-to-lubricate-the-nuclear-peace-process.html
@ CT. You write.
“The picture painted here could not be clearer. If American democracy falls beneath the blows of Trump and his followers,”
But which/what iteration of American democracy are you writing about @CT? A socialist democracy? A capitalist democracy? A fascist democracy? A communist democracy?
The U$A will become a chilling testimony to, and the victim of, their own sociopathic and egomaniacal greed enabled by their well scripted capitalism-democracy. The psychopathic capitalist hi falooters who’re now here, in AO/NZ, buying citizenships and undoubtedly digging into the very foundations of our politics will have the dubious luxury of watching from here, their handiwork there. No person worth close to $200 Billion dollars U$ should ever be allowed anywhere near our AO/NZ. Unless, of course, they leave, say, 99.999% of their financial wealth in trust for all of us to spend and party with.
Capitalism can only lead to the despair and destruction of most of the rest of us while those who did this to us will sit back in the front row seats they’ve stolen off us by stealth and enjoy the show they scripted while they pass the popcorn.
Democracy must be a social affair. Think street party ? Where everyone in the street’s involved regardless of their financial worth, their religious beliefs or as can be seen in the U$A, their mental state.
And, of course, we all know that, that’s extremely unlikely. Therefore we’re all fucked.
I find it beyond bizarre that the only hope I can see for humanity is in drugs. Specifically in MDMA.
Is this going to be written on the headstone of humanity?
” They sought great comfort from war, hate, misery and mistrust and found great distress in peace, harmony, love and inclusion. That’s why the stupid cunts are buried here. “
That epitaph, CB, is nothing short of brilliant.
Forty years I have spent writing about this benighted species of ours, and you have compressed everything I have learned into a single, marvelous sentence.
Bravo!
@CB. AMEN.
The old saying ‘the lunatics are running the asylum’ often comes to mind when I read about American politicians. The Representatives are indeed representative of the population.
It is said America is the land of opportunity and anyone can ‘get to the top.’ In the sense that being elected to public is ‘the top’ the diversity in their legislatures show that many significantly flawed individuals get to ‘the top.’ Money and human foibles see that will continue to happen.
People like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are heroes too many. Here, on ability, they would be lucky to be voted onto the committee of the local tennis or football clubs.
indeed peter but the same can be said for NZ pollies on both sides of the house, labour have some right no-marks at the moment but the nats have just as many….I think the intellectual q1uality of the political class has drastically declined since politics became a managerial career rather than a calling….bureaucracy requires/creates mediocrities.
First I think that a wonderful image Chris, good one on that. Second those comments from the USA forces leaders are incontestable for truth I imagine, and can be trusted, and show eyes wide open to reality without any Lord or Lady Hawhaw bs.
Then there is the position of USA at the hub of the world’s financial centres (and not forgetting the UK which has become a closer friend than before, and which apparently has a lot of Russian investment, or am I wrong there?) and there is a fine lot of pickle, which the sober amongst us don’t relish. Hah! My psychiatrist would if I had one, advise a small amount of humour or satire every day, for balance you know.
Talking about balances what about the USAs huge debt* of trillions.
*NEWS ALERT December 15, 2021, 3:00 p.m. EST: On Tuesday afternoon, Congress passed legislation that would raise the statutory debt limit by $2.5 trillion, which is expected to fund borrowing into 2023. Once signed by President Biden, this would raise the debt ceiling to nearly $31.4 trillion. ..
Medicare/Medicaid and other healthcare programs
For 2021, a total of $1.4 trillion is allocated to healthcare benefit programs, which include Medicare and Medicaid.21
Social Security program and disability pensions
Aimed at providing financial security to the retired and disabled, total Social Security and other expenditures are approximately $1.1 trillion.21
Defense budget expenses
This represents the portion of the national budget that is allocated for military-related expenditures. $752 billion is earmarked for the U.S. Defense Budget in 2021.22
Other miscellaneous expenses
Transportation, veterans’ benefits, international affairs, and public education are also government expenses.
(Also this site has good information on Modern Monetary Theory, Keynesian and Austrian & Chicago School theories, easy to reach. Put your feet up with a coffee or chilled wine and enjoy greater understanding of what is virtually a parallel virus!)
https://www.investopedia.com/updates/usa-national-debt/
Medical aid eats up a huge amount. But the book License to Steal by Sparrow shows how much of that expenditure is rorted and swells business coffers. https://www.amazon.com/License-Steal-Updated-Malcolm-Sparrow-ebook/dp/B009TCWD82
The USA inflating medical system.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spending-healthcare-changed-time/
(https://www. usdebtclock.org/
PS Japan, with its population of 127,185,332, has the highest national debt in the world at 234.18% of its GDP, followed by Greece at 181.78%.
Debt to GDP Ratio by Country 2021 – World Population Review
https://worldpopulationreview.com › countries
The USA is pulling itself down from within, living on borrowing instead of gathering reasonable taxation from income and spending, and that behaviour affects the world’s nations also. And USA has too many people white-anting its function, sloppy on controlling its own malfunctions (echoed here with Joanne Harrison* relatively small but following the same downward path.).
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/22-05-2017/is-fraudster-joanne-harrisons-old-boss-really-fit-to-lead-nzs-top-public-watchdog
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/stuff-circuit/300076002/ministry-of-transport-fraudster-joanne-harrison-cons-her-way-into-companies-in-the-uk
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHeFFcc40Z0
Is it really likely CJ Roberts would simply swear in Trump following a Joint Declaration by Congress? Much more likely a protracted series of court cases that would be heard in the Supreme Court. Even with it’s current composition the Court would be highly unlikely to accept that a 2023 Declaration by Congress can nullify the 2030 election.
If Trump regains power it will happen in 2024 as a result of the presidential election
Look a the numbers of the swing states the Republicans are literally dyeing to vote for trump unvaxedlook looking forward to that 2% swing! As well there are no five star generals who are going to whistle up a battalion there really is no support for some kind of coup amongst the top brass. The US military are pretty much 50/50 red blue. Also the Jan 6th commission is starting to really get some momentum November 8th is a long way off. So relax and enjoy your Christmas! Here’s a Unionist ex military on the topic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUTuBI3j2pg
Biden is so damaging for the poor, just like Jacinda, that the Dems will be finished for a generation.
How can you forecast what will happen in a generation tallydan? We don’t even know what will happen next year and are trying different scenarios so your opinion isn’t helpful as it stands. The USA isn’t what its people think it is, and it doesn’t do what seems reasonable according to its stated aims so are you taking those aspects into account in your prophetising?
ineed more years of nothing is still nothing
…the dems don’t have the sense to help themselves, which underlines the fact that they and the reps are basically the same party…they really don’t object the rep policy but find them ‘frightfully frightfully uncouth and not the sort of person you’d invite to dinner’ but other than that snobbery they’re hand in glove…don’t anyone be surprised if the reps are victorious next time cos the dems have made betrayal their policy once again…..but…. the disgruntled ignored and abandoned are still out there complete with their votes.
I’m a simple guy. If the best the US with 330million people can muster as their President is some half-dead bumbling fool, then they seriously deserve what’s coming. Whatever that may be…Trump I suppose?
say what you like kraut, biden is a sharp one compared to you…mind you that’s not a very high bar.
exactly Gg. 330million and that is the best the Democrats can muster? incredible.
Trump can have a Russian “golden shower” grab a woman by the pussy because he’s famous and yet there’s something wrong with Biden…..riiiiight?
Not really. The Right-wing pricks in the Supreme Court think they’re right by reason. It’s a matter of self-respect for them. Certainly the Republican Congress representatives now know their voters don’t give a shit about democracy. They are only interested in ‘truth’ they like.
The Democratic Party is unwilling to appeal to the people because it pisses off their donors. So it’s a shitty situation. Likely, given Amerika’s history, to end in a circumscribed republic in favour of the powerful, and white people as their orc bodyguard.
Given General Milley understanding the parallel to WW ll, how the Trump drongos on Jan 6 were the same as Nazis, I think the army leadership is the only way through. Yes, I’m saying it. America is a terrible plutocracy. Bernie is one person.
Likely why Youtube disallows my political comments about America I think, like they would disallow Churchill’s 30s comments . But how would you know since you can’t actually contact Youtube to ask. And they are a corporation with anti-democratic interests.
Everyone must go to the movie DUNE.
The best movie ever to show what this species would become if it could.
The best dystopian military scenes I’ve ever seen.
I’ve been to Dune three times already.
It is awesome!
I am always amazed that people think someone is really in charge.
I live in a dystopian Body Corporate in the bush. The lies, deception, dereliction, sabotage…. Is astounding, and what blows my mind is at every AGM the fools vote for the more of the same.
Lemmings off a cliff….stupid.
We need a passport for this place!
I gave Dune its 4th and last chance with the film. Being released from its 2 and a half hours gave me a renewed enjoyment of immediate life. I laughed, I laughed. Boy, I was bored by that shitload.
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