WORDS: 2,069 —  Hope for the best, expect the worst, and prepare the best way you can.  The next two years are going to certainly be different.  We aren’t even out of the pandemic yet.  The good news?  The economy is coming back!  Could that change things regarding our national trajectory?

So What Exactly Should We Expect to Happen Either in 2022 or 2024, or Both, and What Might Be the Trigger?

The trigger would be.. simply having the election(s) at all.  Meaning, as it relates to the potential for violence, there is a good chance it will happen regardless of who wins.

We should expect rage from Trump supporters and contempt from non-Trump supporters.  Perhaps another attempt at something one might want to interpret as an  insurrection, likely coupled with various violent demonstrations, presumably at state capitols.  If Trump wins and there is alleged legislative tinkering of vote counts in Red States, the Liberal side will grow more “assertive”, likely leading to confrontations with pro-Trump supporters who think they are “patriotically” defending something.  If Biden wins.. the same formula of civil discontent and disobedience.  Either way, this will of course draw out the extreme nutjobs.. and most assuredly people will die.  If Biden wins I might actually expect a run on the White House itself as the Far Right assigns all ills to Biden and sees Biden illegitimate anyway.  If Harris runs and wins, that’s less likely symbolic.  Obviously, my definition of a “run on the White House”  does not in the least suggest it would be anything like Jan. 6th and sacked or looted.  Maybe nothing more than a typical demonstration at the White House.

What if the mid-term next year results in the Dems controlling both houses, with a fair enough margin to hold a consistent majority in future legislation?  This could be a real table-turner event that will very likely sway the 2024 election.  Even if Trump or some other GOP surrogate wins, he/she administration is nearly dead in the water in promoting their agenda for at least the next two years.  A lot can happen in the meantime by a Dem Congress.  But that’s the political part.  What happens in the streets of America?  The only thing I can draw on is the feeling across the land.. the morose dullness… the immense, surprising results of the 2016 election.  There was crying.  While it’s notable that given the huge disappointment in Trump winning… the public accepted the results of the vote counts without challenge.  Trump and his supporters losing both houses in 2022 will make them… not sad or morose.  There will be anger and complete disbelief.  How would they release all that?  Something will happen, but exactly what and how bad I can’t even surmise.  Do I think the Dems could pull off a grand slam like this in 2022?  No.  Likely the Dems will retain the House with a larger margin, and slim the GOP Senate margin a bit.  Not a bad showing in the least if they do.

Here’s the takeaway from all this palaver.  Constantly focusing on the Trump lie that the last election was rigged means people are listening to him because of his bully pulpit for having been president, simply because a disgruntled faction of the public… some 40-45% faction… is actually believing that there was widespread fraud and corruption, which then feeds discontent, disharmony, and distrust in the confidence of our election system.  This in turn fosters mistrust of those in power and feeds a perception that government itself, along with its institutions cannot be trusted.  You have this large part of a populace feeling that way you end up with a percolating undercurrent of Right Wing Conservatism trusting more in their gun than the Constitution.

Can Any of This Be Avoided?

We have 12 months until the next election and 24 months until 2024.  That’s a long time for external or internal events to affect change for the better or for the worse.  In the meantime, things are simmering…. and the fuse has been lit.  There is a possibility, slight as it might be, that Trump goes even more ridiculous to the point that even the Trump hardliners in Congress think he’s more a burden than an asset.  Couple that with anything that results legally from the House’s Jan. 6th Committee investigation.  He could end up having some legal judgement from some case that ends up disqualifying him from running.  Let’s also keep in mind that whether you are Liberal or Conservative the pandemic and the effect on the economy happens to all parties.  If the economy improves… if the Covid threat is reduced to a manageable level… the national stress levels might be reduced enough to make political confrontation less of an issue.  One can only hope.  But then you have this being quoted by McConnell just the last couple days…..

“I do think we need to be thinking about the future and not the past. I think the American people are focusing on this administration, what it’s doing to the country, and it’s my hope the ’22 election will be a referendum on the performance of the current administration, not a rehash of suggestions about what may have happened in 2020.”

Maybe McConnell is starting to come clean on Trump being a liability.  You gotta think that McConnell has spent a life in Congress formulating policy legislation that favors the GOP (ok.. and maybe the country as well)… and Trump offers completely zero policy arguments to support any effort on the part of the GOP to actually try and win over voters.  But to answer that question, can any of this be avoided, the sincere answer is.. I am not sure that we will not experience at least some level of national discontent overflowing into the streets somewhere across America… whether Trump (or a minion) wins or loses.  But to me the right thing is not voting for Trump or any of his people… keep our belief in the Constitution, and ride out the storm.

What About Their Ages, and Mortality?

Trump and Biden are old guys and we can’t ignore a possible medical malady with either of them before 2022 or 2024.  A stroke incapacitates, and certainly a risk of age-related death is an obvious political game-changer.  Yes, we can qualify that we don’t wish bad things to befall other human beings.  But death is a fact of life, and life moves on in spite of it.  Given that, Trump himself has a number of lurking conditions such as a weight issue, and his diet of Big Macs doesn’t help either.  As it relates to our tenuous politics we should wish Trump lives a long life without issues.  His followers are volatile enough to suggest every conspiracy imaginable if his death is “unnatural”… and violence could follow in some quarters.  Likely even more so if he does indeed succumb to an age-related malady, as the conspiracies will spawn all kinds of Hollywood plots of secret pacts and specialized undetectable poisons… the CIA… help from MI6… blah, blah.  We should hope Trump stays healthy enough to fall from grace on his own.  A martyr he should never be, for a cause that was meant to deny our Republic.  But if anything occurs to take Trump out of politics, whether he runs or not, it’s difficult how his supporters will receive that and not be suspicious that it wasn’t just too many Big Macs.

This Is Entirely About The Constitution

The realization of what is happening and what might happen can be two different things.  A while back in another post I made an observation about defending democracy.  That concept is easy to understand because we naturally assume the connotation is that we defend ourselves from someone trying to conquer us in some fashion.  We all unify ourselves against the enemy attacking us and we fight back to defend  ourselves, our government, and our way of life.   But defending ourselves from ourselves is an entirely different concept with greater repercussions toward the future… or “a” future.  Our internal struggle portends to be a struggle to defend the Constitution, both sides of the Great Divide feeling they alone are making the effort; the other side being the “enemy”.  My point is that all this talk of defending the Constitution is not really the problem simply because the Constitution easily defends itself when we, as We, the people... stick to following its precepts.  The document  exists solely based on the collective will of “We, the people….”  to follow it.  Our current national dilemma is that one side thinks the other side is the one side not following it, and the opposite side thinks they are.  Now, ask yourself the question… how does one even defend the Constitution?  The January 6th insurrection was one attempt to stop a Constitutional process… because “someone” spread a lie that the votes they were certifying were illegitimate and fraudulent.  That lie was easy to spread among those disenfranchised Americans who feel threatened and not represented in government, hence not trusting government.  The January 6th insurrection was purely a mob trying to overthrow the Constitutional process in motion… and inflict physical harm as a form of vengeance and retribution on those Constitutionally elected officials.

So.. what if they had been successful?  What if the mob found Pelosi, Pence, and a number of others?  A mob like that could easily overtake Pence’s Secret Service detail.  Capitol police were spread far too thin to be of any good.  Maybe Pence gets hanged out on the makeshift gallows, or maybe him and the rest are just shot or bludgeoned as the mob passed them by in the hallways.  Surely the rabid crowd smelling blood would have attempted to set fire to the House chamber.  Guaranteed.. as soon as the police radio chatter picked up on the mob killing anyone…. the police would simply assemble, en masse, and just going in shooting everyone in sight not wearing a suitcoat or office attire, perceiving everyone as a threat.  A pretty high body count all the way around.  One can surely expect a national rage against Trump and his supporters… letting out the nut jobs on both sides.  Yep, had all the events of January 6th been successful for the insurgents… we’d be in a very different country right now.  What’s a bit interesting is that since Jan. 6th I have not read anyone’s speculating, what if it had been successful.  To me, THAT is the reality check… and the fact there’s been little or no speculation if the nation had not dodged-the-bullet that day, what would the country experience going forward.

Well, we may get another chance.. either in 2022 or 2024 because Trump and his minion buffoons are already setting up to declare the vote count fraudulent if the counts don’t go his way.  By my prediction, the counts in 2024 will no way support Trump or any sycophants.  There’s a number of fairly intuitive folks traversing the halls of power in D.C. who readily acknowledge that we indeed came close on Jan. 6th. to losing our collective faith in the Constitution… and the threat is not over.

While I seem rather.. restrained (comparatively speaking).. from the rank and file blogging “screamers”, this should not mask the idea that I feel a serious threat is upon the nation, and this is my “patriotic” attempt to express my concern to “fight back” using words to spread the nature of our national Constitutional threat, and my vote.  I’ll reserve using my trigger finger until, say, the end of week one after food distribution stops in the country… politics isn’t a priority anymore… the Constitution is a fading past memory…. and I am forced to defend my last can of Beef-a-Roni at the price of your life or mine.

In the End….

What I am saying is that the next two elections are not about Trump, the ex-President.  It is entirely about Trumpian Conservatism and retaining faith in the Constitution.  Not policies.  Not issues.  This isn’t to suggest that his supporters do not have credible grievances on policies.  But the voice they are listening to isn’t allowing them a voice they can trust with truth, facts, and a belief in the Constitution serving the people, and not as a self-serving instrument to dodge responsibility in defying its precepts.  We have some difficult times ahead.  Live life, but be prepared.  These are surely “the times that try men’s [and women’s] souls.”