While many here have been shocked and astonished at the increasingly extreme positions being taken by supposedly “serious” politicians, little of it has come as even the mildest surprise to me personally. As the effects of the rollback of Row v/Wade begin to permeate at least the red states and our once and possibly future president literally proposes concentration camps, martial law, and summary execution of those he finds undesirable, a clear pattern is emerging of a frightening and all too possible vision of the road ahead.
I am a science fiction writer, focusing primarily on future life and technology. I do this by examining current and past trends and calculating their development rate to attempt to divine where things are leading. Normally, I focus on technological trends, since this is most pertinent to my writing. But, for this exercise, I attempted to base my “predictions” not on technological trends but on socio-political ones.
Using my same methods I have come up with the following possible scenario. This scenario really depends on two things more than anything else. 1) That we do indeed lose the lower chamber of Congress in this year’s election, and 2) that either Trump himself, or a Trumpy wannabe such as Ron Desantis is elected in 2024.
We can head off this most dystopian of possibilities by retaining the House of Representatives, extending our gains in the Senate by at least 2, and fielding a presidential candidate who can actually beat Ron Desantis. I’m sorry for those who are upset by the following, but right now it does not look like that candidate is Joe Biden.
If we are able to retain congress, a rapid repeal of the filibuster followed by an expansion of the Supreme court will allow us to correct the path and lead to a better future for all Americans. Failing all of that, we may well be left with the following predicted outcome:
There will be a complete fascist takeover of the US Government starting with the 2022 congressional elections. Rampant gerrymandering coupled with frustration with inflation and high gas prices about which the sitting president and congress can do virtually nothing will end up with republican victories far and wide. As the republican party has been thoroughly radicalized, the bulk of republicans in congress will be right wing extremists hell bent on installing their fascist version of governance.
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will all be on the chopping block. Abortion will be completely outlawed in most states, and miscarriages will automatically spur investigations. Even birth control will be outlawed in at least some states. LGBTQ's will be further demonized and eventually persecuted with the help of anti-grooming or anti-perversion laws, ultimately resulting in either sending scores back into the closet or into prison cells.
Voting rights will be gutted and laws and policies intended to guarantee right wing rule will be easily passed and put in place. Federal courts will gradually move further and further rightward thus cementing a long term hard right dictatorial system.
Armed vigilante groups such as Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers etc. will begin to attack leftists of all types with impunity, facing few if any consequences for their actions. Secret police forces such as Ron Desantis' "Florida State Guard" will become the rule rather than the exception, culminating in such a force at the presidential level. These groups will assist the vigilantes as they persecute anyone even suspected of having leftward leanings.
Even a reinstitution of slavery may well be proposed, adopted, and applied to anyone the right wing find objectionable. These could include POCs, LGBTQs, Jews, non-white ethnic groups and left leaning activists.
The fascist takeover will be complete and irrevocable until such time as there is a populist uprising to challenge it. Advances in AI coupled with a strong militarized police system will make such an uprising incapable of success. So this fascist police state will likely endure far into the future.
As millions of seniors will be thrown off social security and into literal homelessness, euthanization will be proposed and adopted as a "necessary evil". It will then quickly spread beyond the homeless and into all groups found to be objectionable.
The perversion of Christianity currently espoused by the evangelical right will eventually be proposed and adopted as the national religion.
I will be very happy to be wrong about any of this, but all my research draws direct line from current trends to the above scenario. If one finds this too objectionable to contemplate, and I can certainly see how it might, just keep in mind it’s not set in stone. At the end of the day, it’s just one guy’s opinion. One guy who really hopes he is wrong.
Update: I should have mentioned I made the predictions back in June, well before Trump made his recent announcements about his future plans.