What the Future Holds
Two articles clarify what we're in for
Back in March, Naval Academy graduate, former naval aviator, author, and senior defense analyst, Brynn Tannehill wrote one of those spiky pieces for The New Republic.
Spiky means it sticks. Sticks in the mind and sticks out. Like a caltrop penetrating your bare foot. You stepped on it, tried to ignore it and march on, but you just keep losing blood and screaming internally at least, and sooner or later you’re going to have to stop and address it.
Yeah, reading is fun.
The piece was entitled “Bleak House: There Are Four Postelection Scenarios, and Not One Is Good,” and it’s so short and clear, you should go read it now, but I’ll try to summarize even its tight punch.
Suppose Joe Biden (or A Replacement Candidate to Be Named Chaotically Really Damn Soon, Somehow) wins the popular vote and the Electoral College AND the Democrats win the House of Representatives. Once we’re done with all the screaming and court challenges and some amount of violence alleging everything was “rigged”…
…after chaos that looks a lot like 2020 (only more intense, widespread, and gaining more support from state-level Republicans), Biden gets sworn in on January 20, 2025, to govern a nation where over half the states don’t accept his legitimacy. Red states will flout federal authority at every turn, daring a crackdown, much as Texas has done over Eagle Pass and immigration. The Supreme Court won’t do much to thwart Christian nationalists, who are increasingly calling for “dual sovereignty” and implementation of “a Scripture-based system of government whereby Christ-ordained ‘civil magistrates’ exercise authority over the American public.” Even if the Supreme Court rules against states that resist the federal government, they are likely to dare the Biden administration to actually enforce those rulings. Right-wing violence, like that described by Stephen Marche and Barbara F. Walter, is likely. The result is a United States that is one country in name only.
The point in this scenario1 is that a strong, definitive Democratic win (Electoral College plus popular vote plus House majority) leads to increasing revolt among Red states playing to a base of Trumpists and Seven Mountains Mandate whackos who refuse to view the new administration as in any way legitimate, and SCOTUS plays along.
Red States get redder and redder because SCOTUS says they can gerrymander for partisan advantage and the courts can’t get involved. It’ll take time, of course, during which we’ll have to continue to win every presidential election going forward (probably under these same, recurring scenarios), but if this is the Best Case, then we get more states banning abortion and requiring Bible study in public schools. Border states start legalizing hunting migrants for sport, then sue the Olympics (for discriminating against white people) when their Most Dangerous Game isn’t allowed in as a new event. Trans folks are used for non-border states, and when these are in short supply, don’t worry: everything I can see points to SCOTUS eventually overturning—excuse me, “returning to the states”—Obergefell and Lawrence and Griswold, so we can just use plain old Ls, Gs and Bs plus some hussies and slatterns and loose women in a pinch. All the while, incestuous, nationally integrated right-wing media will boost these developments as necessary and virtuous, continually inflicting moral injury on those of us with consciences and swelling the ranks of the forces of cruelty.
There’s so much more evil lawyer shit I can’t even dream up, too. So there’s that novelty to look forward to.
I cannot stress enough that this scenario is not only the Best Case in the short term—the next 100 or so days—but also for every national election moving forward, forever, given the structural problems with our system. Even if we add another sweeping victory—Democrats absolutely crushing it in the US Senate—we have to hope and pray that they will have the chutzpah to actually implement what’s needed to break us out of this doom spiral: eliminate the Electoral College, expand the Supreme Court and institute a passel of Court-limiting reforms, and so, so much more. Given that the Democrats are not an ideological party but one of coalition-building among group interests, I suspect they’ll be too institutional and timid and wedded to past paradigms to take the necessary actions.
If the Dems win the Electoral College and the popular vote, but the GOP retains the majority in the House, there’s a very strong likelihood that the Twelfth Amendment is invoked because, naturally, such a result must be “rigged” and the result of “fraud,” allowing the House to choose the winner, with each state receiving one vote. Since Red States outnumber Blue States, Trump wins. Because it’s technically legal and Constitutional, SCOTUS affirms this result..
This will be the least legitimate-seeming way for Trump to win, so expect massive resistance, protests, the whole shebang. The less legitimate Trump seems, the more likely he is to crack down hard on any and all resistance, not just with legal or quasi-legal means but with brutality and repression, especially since he’s been given what amounts to carte blanche by SCOTUS.
As Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast (now that Steve has reported to minimum security prison for defying a congressional subpoena to testify about Jan. 6),
In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back. No one in the audience should be despairing. And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail…We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.
As Tannehill writes:
Trump’s response will likely be to invoke the Insurrection Act and put down any resistance to his administration with the military. If this results in fatalities and mass detentions, it will probably only exacerbate the situation, leading to many people on both the left and right concluding that violence is the only viable option for change, resistance, or as a response to resistance. Right-wing elements have long been itching to use violence to put “those people” in their place. But the missing ingredient for a civil war is people on the left concluding that the only possible way to preserve themselves is violence. The outcome tilts toward the civil war scenario more than any of the other election outcomes.
Of course, a second civil war won’t be at all like the first one. The whole Red State-Blue State isn’t as clean as the old Blue and the Gray. The reddest of states are still home to millions of equality-loving, fascism-rejecting normies who just don’t have the electoral power to do much at all about the governments of their particular fiefs. There won’t be cute little border wars (although there may be some of those) as much as there’ll be disparate, diffused Americans in revolt against the sitting president, and a country divided against itself.
Scenario 3 is a Trump Electoral College victory but a Democratic popular vote win. This, once again, strains the legitimacy of the Electoral College, but since it continues to be the (fucking stupid) established way we choose presidents, popular resistance may well be muted.
If the crackdown on limited resistance is also restrained, then it will blow over, and the country will grudgingly settle into the new normal, that is, in Tannehill’s words a “fascist, theocratic, hereditary dictatorship” or FTHD (which also, conveniently, could stand for Fuck This Here Democracy).
But if resistance is heated, we’re back to the Insurrection Act and harsh crackdowns from Scenario 2, with the resulting civil war, except that the Trumpists have an even stronger case that the rebels are “defying the [letter of the] Constitution.” (The right-wing SCOTUS already murdered and exorcised its spirit.)
Then there’s the possibility that Trump just runs the table, winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Given that SCOTUS rejected the principle of rule of law and equality under the law and we’re not all out in the streets burning things down, I’d say we’re still suckers for stuff that claims a “by the rules” and “well, it’s legal” mantle. So a “legally” elected authoritarian king will take office, and for the most part, resistance will be paltry, at least publicly. We will settle into the FTHD. That’s Scenario 4.
Trump will almost certainly do the things he promises regarding women’s rights, immigrants, LGBTQ people, the environment, and weaponizing the Department of Justice and FBI against Muslims, Dreamers, and anyone else against whom he’s promised vengeance. His government will absolutely spread this to all 50 states, but the perceived legitimacy of the regime, and the belief that “we’ll get ’em in 2028,” will prevent any real resistance. Republicans will pretend that free and fair elections in 2028 will absolutely happen, until they don’t. The government functionally becomes a competitive autocracy, much the same as Russia’s or Hungary’s. Elections are meaningless, other than serving as an anesthetic to public grievances.
For most people, life will be boring and tolerable. For the people targeted by the regime, it will not be easy to survive in the U.S. It will also lead to a wave of people (particularly trans individuals) attempting to flee to other countries. Corruption and graft will run rampant. The government will primarily serve the interests of Christian nationalists, and a tiered system of justice will become more and more apparent. Most people will decide that getting ahead in life (or keeping your head down) is better than asking pesky questions about where your transgender neighbor went. The result is a mix of the modern Hungarian political system, Russia-like apathy, and Nazi-esque zeal for creating a pure culture. As happened in all three of those countries, democracy dies with barely a whimper in this scenario.
The article Tannehill links to immediately above is important. Associate professor of government at Cornell University Thomas Pepinsky’s (too short) explainer on what life is like in authoritarian countries does a few important things. Whether they are salutary at this moment in time depends on your perspective.
First, he explains that Americans generally have a truly cartoonish image of life in authoritarian states. We imbibe Hollywood depictions and assume that if Trump wins, suddenly all architecture will be brutalist, the SS will be conducting Nuremberg rallies down every Mainstreet, USA, and kristallnachts will happen every Saturday. The sun will no longer shine; everything falls into black-and-white, and men in trenchcoats lurk under streetlamps with Walthers at the ready.
Even if this were the goal, it’s just not possible in a nation of over 330 million people, spread out across a land mass as vast as the US. While authoritarian regimes are not good for anything, ultimately, they still need to keep the lights on, keep the economy running. Smart authoritarians change very little all that suddenly and dramatically, though they do many things theatrically, to make examples. Targeting the mass of average Joes and Janes is a recipe for revolt, even in a complacent society, which is why they target marginalized populations (and marginalize them more as a way to legitimize their seizure of power). If you’re not undocumented or trans or gay or homeless or Muslim or working at a Women’s Clinic, you (1) might well not even notice anything has changed in your day-to-day, (2) might not even care much because it doesn’t seem to affect you and yours (which is the individualistic outlook necessary for authoritarians to rise in the first place), and/or (3) might even like it because it seems to remove the apparent cause of “all the problems,” that is, those human beings who are so different that they challenge the easy and traditional ways of looking at the world and getting things done.
Life will go on for the vast, vast majority, very much unchanged, and in a lot of cases, at least psychologically improved because supremacy and whiteness and Christian nationalism will have “won” the “game,” which is all politics seems to mean to these folks. Their team won, back to the grind, just now with bragging rights. Emboldened of course, depending on their level of aggression, to engage in more acts of low-intensity harassment and bullying of anyone perceived to be a “lib.” Increasingly, the culture will tolerate and even encourage such harassment. It won’t be sane/safe to do things like fly a Pride flag.
But let’s be real: 2020 saw the largest turnout in 120 years in the US, and still, one-third of eligible voters didn’t bother. While electoral participation isn’t a perfect sign of political engagement, it’s usually the minimum even among disaffected system-critics spouting a pox on both your houses, if only in the name of “harm-reduction.” A third of us who could, didn’t vote four years ago, suggesting a state of unpluggedness from our common life at the national level that, I suspect, strongly supports the “authoritarianism will be taken in stride” point that Pepinsky makes. A shitload of people basically won’t notice, because they aren’t noticing now.
Occupy Democrats Facebooked out some clickbait trumpeting Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough response to Kevin Roberts’ “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be” threat.
Which is nice for propaganda, but Scarborough falls right into Pepinsky’s argument about cartoonish depictions of what the Right is pulling here. Heritage’s, Kevin Roberts’ and Chief Justice John Roberts’ “Second American Revolution,” their new Founding, will be that of a Schmittian Sovereign who rises to power representing a minority of “real Americans” and who “Constitutes” a completely new order designed for their supremacy. It won’t involve musket balls (or bump-stock powered AR-15 shells) flying over the field of Lexington and Concord; it’ll just require Trump v. United States and a Republican president.
Which brings us to the other important thing Pepinsky’s article brings too close to consciousness: the uncomfortable familiarity authoritarianism has.
The reality is that everyday life under the kinds of authoritarianism that exist today is very familiar to most Americans. You go to work, you eat your lunch, you go home to your family. There are schools and businesses, and some people “make it” through hard work and luck. Most people worry about making sure their kids get into good schools. The military is in the barracks, and the police mostly investigate crimes and solve cases. There is political dissent, if rarely open protest, but in general people are free to complain to one another. There are even elections.
…Everyday life in the modern authoritarian regime is, in this sense, boring and tolerable. It is not outrageous. Most critics, even vocal ones, are not going to be murdered…; they are going to be frustrated. Most not-very-vocal critics will live their lives completely unmolested by the security forces. They will enjoy it when the trains run on time, blame the government when they do not, gripe about their taxes, and save for vacation. Elections, when they happen, will serve the “anesthetic function”….
Life under authoritarian rule in such situations looks a lot like life in a democracy. As Malaysia’s longtime Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad used to say, “if you don’t like me, defeat me in my district.” That this could never happen was almost beside the point; there were elections, and the ruling National Front coalition deployed the same language of democracy that American politicians do today
This observation has two particular consequences. One, for asking if “the people” will tolerate authoritarian rule. The premise upon which this question is based is that authoritarianism is intolerable generally. It turns out that most people express democratic values, but living in a complicated world in which people care more about more things than just their form of government — feeding their families, educating their children, professional success — it is easy to see that given an orderly society and a functioning economy, democratic politics may become a low priority. The answer to the question “will ‘the people’ tolerate authoritarian rule?” is yes, absolutely.
Pepinsky closes by noting that we have loads of fellow Americans who, in their own living memory, can speak of life under American authoritarianism: in the one-party rule in the Jim Crow South. The oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre is still with us at 110 years of age.
Above, I wrote that whether Pepinsky’s authoritarian clarification is salutary depends on your perspective. The same is true of Tannehill’s four scenarios.
If you care about order more than justice, well, I have some great news for you! You can root for either a Democratic blowout and the resulting Balkanization and soft-secession of Red States enabled by SCOTUS…or a Trump sweep and FTHD!
You probably don’t have many close friends or relations in marginalized groups, and you won’t live long enough to suffer all that much from climate change because you were fortunate enough to be born in the United States; and if you do, in fact, prefer order over justice, then (let’s hope) you probably have a certain amount of discretionary income to ride out the increasingly bad stuff that will round out your lifespan. Maybe you’re even rich enough to leave a fat inheritance to your progeny so they, too, can have a reasonably comfy life as well. Congratulations.
The above absolutely includes everyone whose image of Trump winning in 2024 was a nightmare of jackbooted thugs rounding up dissident Smalltown, USA, members of Moms Demand Action or whatever. That’s probably not going to happen, so apart from the ever increasing moral injury of watching terrorism inflicted on the marginalized (and don’t worry too much about that—apart from the celebratory coverage from Fox and their ilk, the media won’t get too daring after a while when it comes to telling the hard truth), you’ll be pretty safe if you can just swallow it, keep your mouth shut most of the time, and remain a small person all on your lonesome.
For anyone with empathy, for anyone who wants a better future, including a livable one for the long-term, well, everything above is really bad news. Even the Best Case scenario. Even Pepinsky’s “authoritarianism probably won’t ruffle your feathers all that much, statistically.”
And if you’re troubled by the resemblance between authoritarianism and the democracy we lived under up until it ended July 1, 2024, well, that’s kinda what activists had been trying to tell you for a very long time: the system itself was really broken; the institutions were depleted and needed to be scrapped; what passed for “the law” was often a sham; what was needed was really bold, utopian thinking and daring experimentation to find out what was, actually, possible.
But they were all dismissed as fools and cranks and unserious, and because they didn’t have every detail of “the plan” already worked out, so you went with the sensible pragmatists and centrists who always cautioned action based on the institutions we knew.
Meanwhile, the vibe that democracy wasn’t working, wasn’t even a thing anymore, just kept spreading through the ether, convincing a whole lot of folks that if they couldn’t get representation that improved their lives, they could at least get revenge on everyone they were taught to hate and blame for the disappointing lives they had.
The folks who toiled in the wilderness, trying to make a better world, the organizers? Well, if you’d supported them, maybe we’d still be facing this moment. But at least their mutual aid and resistance and solidarity networks would be that much stronger, deeper and resilient today, and you’d be plugged into them.
Maybe what we’re in for will reveal how desperately they are needed and how well they actually work.
One can only hope.
The Eagle Pass reference Tannehill makes may seem dated because we have the attention span of fruit flies. Eagle Pass is about Texas usurping the federal government’s authority to address immigration by putting razor wire buoys and barricades in the Rio Grande to kill migrants trying to cross, and whether the feds can make them take those down.
More recently SCOTUS, in the Idaho EMTALA case, did not rule on that case’s basic question, which is the same issue. EMTALA is the federal law that says you can get life-saving emergency care anywhere in the country. But Idaho bans abortion. So if you go to the ER in Idaho with a crisis pregnancy, and the question is whether to give you life-stabilizing/saving care that entails loss of the life of the fetus, do the ER docs follow federal law or state law?
Normally, this would be a lay-up, thanks to the doctrine of “supremacy,” that federal law supersedes that of the states. As with Eagle Pass, federal authority and federal law should trump the states, but with the EMTALA decision, probably fearing what yet another medically draconian anti-abortion ruling would do to GOP electoral chances in November, the Court punted, designating the case “improvidently granted certiorari.” This settles nothing, and when the issue returns to SCOTUS, federal supremacy could well be shot down, especially if Dems defeat Trump, because such a ruling would give maximal leeway to Red States looking to defy a Democratic president and institute their own draconian policies.