The Light And The Darkness (American Revelation: Final Judgment, Day One.)

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. ~Chief Seattle.

Imagine, if you will, a divided America in 2050; "Blue" and "Purple" states on one side/ "Red" States on the other side.

Each has a different President, dueling domestic and foreign policies, and open economic and even military conflict between the two sides. Even some states have split with one part joining one side, and a different part to the other, Texas for example.

The Blue and Purple states have very contentious politics, outright physical brawls might even sometimes erupt in the halls of power. But ya know, everybody gets a respite in non-election years, but on the whole life is a little better for people, the creeping tide of inequality has begun to be reversed, racism has mostly been driven back underground and even forced from police forces, which have reformed only grudgingly but reformed nonetheless. Public health has improved and disease, viral or otherwise is not rampant, people take care of themselves...and each other. 

It's a diverse society, at the crossroads of global trade, and despite, or perhaps even because of infusions of immigrants from Africa and Latin America neither conservatism nor religion has suffered. In fact, it has thrived. Thanks to the influence and passions of those Black and Brown believers, church services often have the same kind of energy as concerts and parties. Despite the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment, at long last, and Constitutionally-guaranteed access to abortion and health care, abortion rates have been in decline for thirty years, and even the continued electoral success of The Lincoln Party has not changed any of that. Drug legalization and sexual freedom are balanced by education and a degree of social responsibility.

Despite all that has changed, in most places the main face of government remains the local mail carrier.

Also, people with guns are a fairly rare sight unless it's hunting season, or unless you live near the front and there are active local self-defense forces and troops around. Of course, there's the endless uncertainty and sacrifice of what the world calls the American Internal Conflict and the government euphemistically refers to as "The Emergency." whether it's close by or far away, that people try to put out of their minds until the news cycle or the rumbling thunder of dueling jets in the sky or the death of a family member at the front brings it into your life up close and personal.

This is the future Trump Supporters want.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. ~Revelation 9:1-4

On the Red side, Donald Trump is long dead and ensconced in a gilded, guarded tomb, stuffed like Vladimir Lenin. 

His children and grandchildren have just cruised effortlessly to reelection cycle after cycle. It's not a democracy, but for appearances' sake and the bread and circuses factor it maintains the trappings of one. The endless churn of politics and ratfucking never stops, even though there's only one party now. Since the retreat from Washington and the cities in the early days of 2021, there has only ever even been a Provisional Government. Government and Party are indivisible, in the public sphere it effectively has no name, it is simply The Party, as if there were no other, and had never been. 

It's literally the only way conservatives in this time will accept government at all, on shitty principle.

Those who are in opposition, or out of political favor might briefly cause a stir here and there, but then they disappear and are never heard from or spoken of again, or they are simply shot in the streets, because men with guns are omnipresent, entirely politicized, and largely empowered to do as they like so long as they do not strain overmuch on the leashes held by their masters.

And no one cares who they kill or what they do to the living, so long as that person is not wealthy, white, and politically connected.

And it's these people and their guns and their foul dispositions, not the affable local mail carrier, who are the daily and most visible representation of the State.

There is no social welfare, except for the ultra-wealthy who remain in political favor, and only so that they may remain wealthy. Stupendous mansions surrounded by fortress walls rise out of dirty, dangerous, disease-ridden and overpopulated shantytowns and slums. The owners, if they cannot maintain and defend green, guarded thoroughfares for their own benefit, simply travel to and from their momentous abodes by helicopter. In a society defined by contempt, there's no one those put in power by the masses want to look upon less than the masses of people who put them there, or who allow them to continue to remain so.

And the faces that look up reflexively from their grossly underpaid labors at the sound of rotors chopping their way through the smoky air are almost uniformly white, male faces, and outside of those who are elites, few women and fewer of what few racial and sexual minorities are present make themselves known. It's better to keep a low profile if you don't have money, status and above all political reliability to protect you.

Abortion has been illegal for nearly the whole existence of this new nation, made illegal by the six member Provisional Supreme Court as one of its first acts, but that hasn't actually changed much, 
 babies are routinely found in trash cans, left at churches, and so on. It is, in fact, not uncommon for those in this position to list the President as their father, or January 14th, the date of the Tweet that started it all, as their birthday once they get old enough to answer the question. Such is seen not as an admission of lack of knowledge, but as an expression of patriotism. 

It's these young people, along with the masses of the urban poor and whatever rural folk the press-gangs can catch or overpower, who are most often pressed into service in the armed forces, in a long struggle that State Media refers to as an endless flow of victories but that somehow, never really changes much, the best ones get sent to places like China or Russia for training, and as many as are intelligent enough to and who can do so find ways not to come back.

Because it's a society of barriers and fences and fortifications and walls, of patrolled borders and daily escapes and hidden resistance fighters in an insurgency that invites endless crackdowns and collective punishments that only the wealthy ever seem to truly escape. and for those without the connections or the wealth to choose their own destinies, the only True Faith, is the worship of the State.

In this land, the only morality, the only political philosophy, the only truth, is what those with power say it is. All too often, they can be gay, or do drugs or practice sexual immoralities or steal to their dark hearts' content...and you cannot. They can have freedom and political participation and rights, not you. In their ideal world, they get to use and abuse the rest of us.

And it doesn't matter to them that there's a lot more of us.

To people who believe that who you can have sex with is a measure of power, incestuous drug fueled orgies that would shame the fucking Romans are absolutely not sinful if you're powerful enough. If sex is not a consensual, choice-based union between two people who love each other, but the simple dominance of a man over his sex object of the moment, it's a safe bet that on a fundamental level, anything goes.

That is conservatism stripped of morality. Caesar Augustus was a conservative.

That is the world these fucking people want to live in. And this is the level of utter immorality and incompetence that they're willing to bring to the table, or maybe just the best they could get, in order to get that world.

Either we show up, and show up in vast numbers to vote these fucking people out, or we deserve what we're going to get.

We have to vote these people the fuck out, and it has to be a fucking landslide.

And even if it is, even if they lose their ass as badly as it looks like they might, chances are they'll just break off whatever areas did vote for them and try to make their own country.

But we have to fight back against this shit anyway, for as long as it takes. It is simply a matter of right and wrong.

Conservatives were the people who taught me that worldview, who taught me the distinction between right and wrong, and why it matters.

That they have forgotten it means that they must pay.

 I can't put it any simpler than that.

When I saw that "American Conservative" article this morning, I was extremely offended. Americans already have a "Father of our country" George Washington.

That anybody would want to replace him, much less replace him with Donald Trump, should offend everybody.

Since Trump slimed his way down that golden escalator in front of a crowd of actors paid to cheer for him, conservatives have been basically shouting "Daddy! Daddy!" not like an excited kid, but like some bottom gay dude being sodomized in a dirty truck stop restroom.

And for the most part this is not out of sincere beliefs, but because they think, financially or ideologically, that they are going to get something for it.

If that's what you want for the country you live in, for the people you live with, or you're so hung up on your own ideological purity that you refuse to stand up against this shit, then maybe you need to face the fact that you're a terrible, shitty person.

And then go fuck yourself.

This is judgment day.

You're either going to be a sheep or a goat, you're either going to help to aim us back heavenward or you're going to start an inexorable slide into hell.

You make the call.

It's America or Trump.

And it really is that simple.