After watching the GOP evolve (devolve depending on your perspective) into a hard right authoritarian party, I’ve convinced myself there are two types of conservatives. There are the puppeteers consisting of groups like the Federalist Society, Fox News and others. Then, there are the puppets which is basically everyone else. This specific grouping is a topic for another post, but kinda relevant to the scenario that just popped into my head.
While sitting on my back deck and enjoying a summer breeze, I logged into the app pictured above, and that’s the image that greeted me. Notice the top 3 stories AND the red banner? Yeah, I did to. That got the gears in my head to spinning at about 12,000rpm, well beyond the redline of 10,000rpm. *(Just glad that I didn’t burn my brain down in the process…)
Anyway, travel with me along this high heat induced scenario for a while.
The GOP has been playing the long game for decades when it comes to ushering in their dream conservative utopia in America. We’ve seen the Southern Strategy employed. We’ve seen Newt Gingrich and others literally break the government and how it functions. We’ve even witnessed what could be described as a practice coup attempt. But what if this all has been a well coordinated, well thought out strategy from the beginning?
Conservatives love their guns, right? We’ve seen through statistical analysis that more guns leads to more gun violence. Yet, conservatives have been gaslighting Americans about this for decades now. “An armed society is a polite society” sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Look at how we respond to gun violence today. There’s so much of it that it doesn’t even trigger much of any response from the public. We just accept it and move on.
In addition to gun violence, we’ve become apathetic towards government corruption. The previous administration was arguably one four year long stream of corruption depending on who you ask. We were thrown from one issue to the next without ever getting to the bottom of any one thing via thorough investigation. Six months after an insurrection against the Constitution, we have yet to see a single enabler held to account. And, we just continue on living like this is perfectly acceptable.
Next, there has been a string of court rulings made by Federalist judges and others that have potentially set the table for the scenario I thought of. Over the past decade, we’ve seen the Voting Rights Act turned into just an act. There have been other rulings that have been setting the table for the conservative utopia as well from LGBTQ, police enforcement, and other issues.
One ruling that kinda disappeared but plays a major role in my scenario was the border emergency ruling that favored Trump. Remember that one? The SCOTUS basically allowed the president to appropriate funds for building a border wall when the Constitution states that is a responsibility of the House of Representatives. With that precedent, a sitting president can claim any emergency and appropriate funding for his/her declared emergency no matter what Congress does.
So, let’s get to this scenario:
It’s 2024, the next presidential election cycle. In 2022, Democrats lost Congress because of state election laws that were upheld by the SCOTUS. Failing to enact federal legislation on election saw a conservative rout in 2022 at the all levels, local, state, and federal. Now, the #3 person in the line of presidential succession is a hard core member of the GOP.
Now, 2024 has the look of a make-or-break election for Democrats. Through some major miracle, Democrats manage to somehow retain the WH and gain a few seats in Congress but not enough to flip either house. Conservatives are incensed that Dems managed to hang on and immediately start the accusations of voter fraud.
Now, the disaster starts unfolding before our very eyes. States begin to overturn the election results and declare the GOP won because of fraud. Democrats appeal to the SCOTUS which obviously rules in favor of the GOP. This leads to nationwide protests in December and January.
So, we end up on the day of January 6th again. Nationwide protests have now become centered on Washington DC for obvious reasons as everyone is anticipating the GOP tactics. What nobody anticipated was the following.
As the EC certification process goes off the rails as expected, the FBI receives a threat they deem as highly credible and evacute the VP and others while also locking down the WH. The threat is investigated and implicates the president and vice president in a plot to “overthrow” the government and remain in office, sound familiar?
Firmly in control, the GOP quickly labels the entire Democratic Party as domestic terrorists and eject them from Congress and the White House using section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This puts the then Speaker in charge. As there is no law or precedent on the books to address this, the Speaker is free to make up the rules as they go with a compliant SCOTUS in their back pocket.
Far fetched? Yes. Likely to happen? I would think not. Then again, I didn’t think America would have a political party openly embracing white supremacy and authoritarianism in 2021. Anyway, that’s my dive into conspiracy theories for the day. Happy Birthday Jeff!! 😁
The Mind of Brosephus 