Sumter Enchanted Evening

Back when all this began, when the aliens invaded and the timeline shifted and the world spun off its axis, we started wondering what life was like in Weimar Germany, knowing what’s coming and being unable to stop it.

We haven’t wondered that lately. Now it’s more like 1860 America.

We’re not alone, obviously. You probably have some excitable friends assuming the worst, and really, who can blame them? What’s to stop all those (white) people from acting out the moment they no longer get their way? What’s to stop politicians from preying on their fears the way they’ve been doing for, oh, let’s say fifty years now?

What’s to stop the next Civil War?

We’re looking at two moments in the next year when — if we’re lucky — we might find out. The first is Donald Trump being convicted in the Senate and removed from office. The second is Trump losing his second straight election, only this time in the Electoral College as well.

What happens next?

In the first case, we’re looking at 67 votes to convict — or two-thirds of those present, if you wanna have some alternate-reality fun — and, well, good luck with that. What’s not hypothetical is what’s happening now, the language we’re hearing about impeachment being a coup, the threats we’re hearing against those who support it, the guns being brandished in a display of righteousness.

You’re free to dismiss that as Fascist Cosplay. Can’t be more than one in a hundred, right?

Well, let’s see, there were about 130 million votes cast in 2016, and Trump polls a solid 40 percent, call that 52 million, and 1 percent of that is…

520,000.

We’d say that’s enough to wreak some havoc.

But it’s really the election we’re looking at, specifically an Electoral College loss, and heck, let’s throw in some close Midwest races for fun, Florida 2000 spread across America’s Heartlessland.

We’re already seeing this: Losers threatening to go over the voters’s heads. Losers like Trump disputing the legitimacy of millions of votes cast. Throw in the complete distaste by Republicans for voting to begin with, as they’ve shown aggressively for the past decade.

It’s not unthinkable that they would find any excuse — or invent one — not to hand over power come January 20, 2021. It’s not unthinkable they would put all those idiot judges they’ve been confirming into play. It’s not unthinkable that William Barr would throw the Justice Department into the fray.

It’s not unthinkable we may be faced with something far beyond what we’ve already endured.

It’s not unthinkable.

Just listen to them.

Listen to them now.

That said, we don’t know what’s coming. We don’t know what happens if Trump loses the Electoral College. We don’t know that the Ship of State won’t right itself, that all of Joe Biden’s friends across the aisle won’t come to their senses, and we resume our regular cantankerous course in the world’s ever-rising seas.

We don’t know. All we know is what they’re capable of. And we know that because they keep telling us and showing us.