REPUBLICANS ARE ADDICTED TO APOCALYPSE PORN

At The Bulwark, Christian Vanderbrouk tells us about a report prepzared by pro-Trump figures shortly before the 2020 election:

... [The] report published in mid-October 2020 by the Claremont Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation’s (TPPF) [is] called “79 Days to Inauguration” ...

Among [its authors] were figures such as John Eastman—lawyer for Donald Trump and author of a memo advising Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally block certification of Joe Biden’s win in order to buy time for GOP-controlled state legislatures to send competing slates of electors—and K.T. McFarland, who served as deputy national security advisor under Michael Flynn in the Trump White House.

The people who prepared this document must watch a lot of Fox News, because they seemed to believe that the country would burn if Joe Biden wasn't declared the winner of the election. They imagined a scenario in which Texas is called for Biden and then the call is withdrawn. Immediately, all hell breaks loose, according to the report:

Riots break out in more than a dozen major cities ... 14 law enforcement officers are known to have been shot, with one confirmed death. There are unconfirmed reports of a car bombing of a police precinct building in Philadelphia....

Police recede to a defensive posture around their precincts, it is unsafe to maneuver police vehicles down the streets and responding to calls for service, even emergency calls, is suspended. Fire departments are unable to approach buildings on fire without police escorts, which are not happening.

Um ... no.

There was a bit of violence in 2016 after Trump was declared the winner of the election, particularly in Portland and Oakland. Did you notice? You probably didn't. America continued to function. The transition was orderly. There was a bit more violence in D.C. on Inauguration Day, but we had a peaceful transition of power.

Right-wingers concocted this scenario of societal collapse because right-wingers like to imagine living through the apocalypse. They like the idea because they want to be heroes of the video game that constantly plays in their heads, the one in which they smite Antifa members and "gangbangers" and dirty hippies.

Vanderbrouk writes:

Law enforcement plays an openly insurrectionist role throughout the “79 Days” exercise, defying civilian leaders, refusing to offer them protection, and threatening them with arrest.

For example, the report imagines Chicago police (with vocal backing from their union) abandoning Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s residential block, permitting protesters to set up camp on her front lawn.

Chicago -- of course. These wankers are obsessed with Chicago.

In imagined dialogue, the wargame quotes the city’s Fraternal Order of Police president as saying “We have officers risking their lives by not shooting people they should be shooting, or waiting too long because Lightfoot and her Soros-funded prosecutor Kim Foxx seem more interested in arresting cops than criminals.”

... The authors use an imaginary appearance by former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke on Fox News to issue an open threat to elected leaders of the political opposition, which is imagined as going “viral”:

“The police are here to protect people and preserve the peace. They will do that. Politicians might get in the way for a while like they’re doing right now, but at some point, cops will remember their oath and will take back their communities for the good, law-abiding people in those communities. You won’t want to be on the other side of that once they have had enough of this nonsense.”

This report was written in response to "Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition," an August 2020 report prepared by the Transition Integrity Project, a group concerned about efforts to install Trump as president after a Joe Biden victory. The TIP report imagined some dire scenarios as well, but primarily focused on ways to avoid a disrupted transition.

The Claremont report is just what you'd expect from a movement that's been mainlining Fox for years, along with even more extreme shit-hits-the-fan fantasy material (The Camp of the Saints, The Turner Diaries): In this scenario, liberals and the left can bring the country to its knees at will, so what's a True Patriot supposed to do about that? Love of country demands the slaughter of the pinkos.

That's what they want: (1) to shoot their enemies and (2) to have society's encouragement to do it. They're not afraid of this scenario. They're actually disappointed that it hasn't come to pass. This report wasn't a warning, it was a porn fantasy for the authors and their intended readers.

*****

And speaking of apocalypse porn, here's Senator Ted Cruz, speaking at Texas A&M last month, in response to a question about Texas possibly seceding from the Union:

"If the Democrats end the filibuster, if they fundamentally destroy the country, if they pack the Supreme Court, if they make D.C. a state, if they federalize elections, if they massively expand voter fraud, there may come a point where it's hopeless," Cruz said....

"We're not there yet, and if there comes a point where it's hopeless, then I think we take NASA, we take the military, we take the oil," Cruz said.

Ending the filibuster, adding a couple of seats to the Supreme Court and a couple of states to the Union, passing even a Joe Manchin-approved voting bill -- that creates a situation that's hopeless, that would fundamentally destroy the country. What a cool excuse to seize all the military bases and NASA rockets! (And, presumbly, kill a few pinkos.)

Right-wingers really hate government run even partly by people who aren't them, and it's maddening to them that laws prevent them from simply seizing total control of the country by force. They want the apocalypse -- now.