Drumpf’s presidency is catastrophic for America, but the consequences will not be apparent for quite some time.We can now see the most immediate consequences of Drumpf’s policies. He is utterly unprepared for the complexities of international relations. In Drumpf’s puerile perception, China is a “bad guy” who must be opposed. He has already promised to declare China a “currency manipulator”, which will subject China to trade penalties. China will of course retaliate, which in turn will anger Drumpf, causing him to escalate the confrontation. It will appear to be nothing more than a nasty trade dispute, but meanwhile, China will seize the opportunity to establish suzerainty over East Asia. Drumpf’s idiotic rhetoric about making allies pay for their defense will, of course, undermine their confidence in American security assurances. Already resistance is crumbling with the Philippine’s own version of Drumpf, Duterte, thinking that he’ll play off the USA and China against each other — which of course won’t happen. Instead, Duterte will end up a Chinese client. Vietnam will probably be the next nation to fold, trying to negotiate a favorable surrender to Chinese interests. After that, we’ll see Taiwan give in to Chinese suzerainty. Japan and Korea will try to hedge their bets by a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, they may well yield to Chinese demands that they ban American military facilities in their countries. But they might also seek to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Pic related: typical drumpftard; smelly, illiterate, drunk white trash.
There will be much danger during this transitional phase. My fear is that Drumpf will figure out — too late — that he has been taken for a retarded chump, and react with his typical temper tantrum. He’ll shove an American aircraft carrier group right into the middle of the South China Sea, the Chinese will nuke it, and then he might well launch an all-out nuclear war.
The Long Term Believe it or not, the short-term consequences I list above (including a nuclear war) are not the worst outcome. What causes me to despair for my country is the inevitability of a long-term collapse of the American Republic.
Compromise is the lifeblood of democracy. The many competing factions must learn to work out their differences to get the job of governance done. They wrangle, they argue, they give, they take, and ultimately they come up with a compromise that everybody thinks is odiferous, yet most people can live with. That’s what makes democracy tick.
But Drumpf is not the compromising sort, and with control of both houses of Congress, he doesn’t need to compromise. He and the Republicans will gleefully cram their radical schemes down the throats of the Left, laughing at the impotent fury of the Democrats. “Elections have consequences!” they will exult as they ban abortion, gut social programs, reduce educational opportunity, unleash the dogs of environmental destruction on the world, and trash the health care system. To them it will be sweet revenge, and they’ll savor it.
Jaxon Foster
But the problem here is that more Americans voted for Ms. Clinton than voted for Drumpf. All those Americans will respond to his radical agenda with increasing anger. The hotter heads will launch protest movements and will savagely pillory Drumpf in public. Drumpf will not treat these acts as the normal response of a healthy democracy; he will consider them to be insolent assaults on his character. He will react with the aforementioned assaults on civil liberties. He will send armed troops with loaded weapons to counter the demonstrations. An escalatory sequence will ensue, with Drumpf clamping down ever more harshly, inciting even more desperate demonstrations, and so on.
I do not believe that we will reach the stage of Brownshirts marching down Main Street, shouting “Heil Trump!” Nor do I believe that Drumpf will end up imposing martial law on the country. It will take too long for that process to develop to maturity during his four years in office. No, the poison will be more subtle than that. This country is now fissioning into two mutually antagonistic factions. The Trump faction wants to return us to the 1950s; the opposing faction wants to adapt to the 21st Century. What’s important is that, from here on, the gloves are off. Drumpf will not be conciliatory; he will not attempt to unite the country. In so doing, he will cement forever the antagonism between the two sides. They will never be able to work together again. They will never share a common vision of the future. They will never again have any bonds of loyalty to each other.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. We are now divided against ourselves. Collapse is now inevitable.
Geographical considerations The deep divisions within the country have geographic expressions. The coasts are blue and the interior is red. This makes it easier for the two factions to organize themselves regionally. California itself is especially well favored to utilize its geographical isolation from the rest of the country to repudiate Trump’s policies. When — not if, when — the divisions between the two factions create unresolvable disputes, it would be a simple matter for the country to disintegrate into three units: West, East, and Middle.
What might save us? Most Trump supporters reject this depressing prognostication by claiming that Drumpf will be reined in by his advisors. Surely they won’t allow him to run wild with his crazy ideas, they say.
Read your history. That is exactly what Germans said about Hitler. Surely, they told themselves, his rhetoric is just dramatic hyperbole; surely he won’t actually do all those things. They were wrong.
Of course, the public institutions of the Weimar Republic were much weaker than our own institutions, and that gives us some reason for hope. But look at Drumpf’s past behavior: when has he ever been constrained by the advice of his subordinates? He has declared many times that he trusts his gut feelings more than the words of his advisors. He famously exulted after the last debate that he was unshackled and now Trump could be Trump. No, Drumpf will not be constrained by advisors. Any advisor who objects too loudly will be told “You’re fired!”
Ryan Kelly
How about a military coup? Drumpf, I’m sure, does not appreciate just how seriously the officers of the American military take their oath of loyalty to the Constitution. He could well order them to carry out some obviously disastrous action, at which point they might well arrest him and take control of the government. I am confident that they will quickly return control to civilians. However, Drumpf need not go that far to germinate the seeds of our destruction.
Nor can we place any hope in reconciliation between the two factions. Obama tried hard to reconcile Democrats with Republicans, and Republicans refused to compromise. They tried to shut down the government several times. They publically declared that they would not cooperate with Obama. Even if a Democrat replaces Drumpf in 2020, Democrats will be in no mood to compromise with Republicans. They will cram their policies down the throats as enthusiastically as the Republicans did to them.
Likely outcomes Here are my conclusions as to likely outcomes:
1. Nuclear war in 2018 or 2019. Unlikely, but highly plausible.
2. Internal unrest turning violent and leading to an authoritarian government. Unlikely in the near term. Possible during the 2020s.
3. Violent breakup of the country. States would offer increasing resistance to federal policies; this could eventually lead to the use of the military to enforce federal rule. The military would fall apart as soldiers refuse to shoot fellow Americans (This is a common problem for all dictators.)
4. Nonviolent breakup of the country. This is my most optimistic scenario. Faced with the prospect of civil war, politicians balk and agree to split the country up between the two implacable factions.
Luis Fisher
Conclusions The central idea here is that the American body politic has now split into two mutually antagonistic factions. Henceforth there will be no cooperation between blues and reds; there will be only furious battles for power. This will inevitably lead to the collapse of the American Republic. I don’t see this happening in the next ten years; I think we’ll see the collapse come in the late 2020s or 2030s.
A Final Thought Americans have been living cushy lives for too long. The people who remember our last serious crisis — the Depression followed by World War II — are too old and too few to warn us of just how bad things can get. The generations since World War II have enjoyed peace and prosperity for so long that they take it for granted. They don’t have the deepset fear of conflict that the Europeans and Japanese have. Once again, they will have to learn that lesson from the harsh hand of Reality.
Bentley Fisher
Where was this copy-and-pasted from?
Matthew Jones
Chris Crawford - ancieng geostrategy game designer
