If there was some kind of betting parlor for it, I’d bet two thousand dollars on the triumph of lies brought about by Trump’s presidency–lies effectuated by the degradation of consensus reality; a degradation produced by the mindless use of social media….
I will vote for Democrats, and fight for Democracy–but I would bet money on the imminent midterm elections giving congress to the GOP, and the 2024 election being stolen by Trump or a Trumpy, with the collusion of a GOP-led congress. Then will come theocracy, an end to democracy, a restoration of racial segregation–and worse. I fervently hope I’m wrong.
The optimism part? I’m certain that something over half of America will be outraged when the country is stolen by the extreme-right corporate oligarchy; when flagrant racism and the oppression of women becomes the order of the day. This outrage will split the nation into a de facto geographic balkanization. Something like discrete mini-nations, official or unofficial, will become the norm within the USA, formed around progressive zones: California, the NE USA, Washington State (Oregon could go either way), in reaction to the takeover of the theocratic right…
Militias formed by progressives will defend these stubbornly progressive regions. But the federal military, with the US Army and Marines, its Navy and Air Force, its tanks and missiles, will be controlled by the rightist regime. Only a sadly improbable revolution organized from within the federal military could lead us back to a unified democratic nation. Still, optimistically, there will be areas of the USA–the geographical USA at least–which may remain free and Democratic…locally. And who knows what technological innovations, what hacks, what new drone technologies, could be deployed by the Unified Progressive States…