For all the chaos of the 2024 election, the outcome was a near carbon copy of the 2020 election: Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump with hardly any spoiler effect from a string of third party cranks. While the Democrats reveled in their victory, Texas, in an unprecedented decision, stopped the vote count in Harris County on the flimsiest of grounds. Texas's most recent act against democracy does not stop Joe Biden's victory, the Democrats retaking of the House, or the party's narrow control over the Senate; its a petulant act designed to keep Republicans in control of the state government. Legal challenges from the state Democratic party were filed almost immediately and were left tied up in the courts until the next midterms.
But the bigger story involved former President Donald Trump. Trump had managed to get his felony trial dates pushed back to after the 2024 election or tie up the appeals process so that he could continue to campaign. This was no masterplan by the Trump camp; the former President was simply the beneficiary of half a century of Republicans stacking the courts with jurists that were never in a rush to hold members of their party accountable. Despite this legal respite, the realities of appearing in a never-ending string of courts, myriad gag orders, and the heavy financial burden made traditional campaigning rather difficult, if not impossible for the embattled Trump. Instead his son, Don Jr., had taken the lead as the primary campaign surrogate, and despite his inane babbling and objective lack of charisma, the MAGA crowd loved it, and Trump the Younger's ego only grew with the adoration of his father's throngs of supporters.
But for Don Sr. the drama of the campaign was nothing less than a battle for his personal freedom. He knew that he wouldn't be able to run out the appeals process forever, and that once the campaign ended he'd likely be dragged into a string of long deferred court dates. And clearly the 45th President must have believed that at least one of those cases would end with him spending his remaining years behind bars, because as the results came in, those inside the Trump campaign HQ watched the former President's behavior grow ever more erratic. As he bellowed at the TV he was heavily perspiring, his breathing ragged, his speech an indecipherable word salad, and as the FOX commentors continued to mention his court cases Donald Trump collapsed .
As doctors rushed the former President to the ER the MAGA movement had already organized a vigil, and the Trump family were slinging all manner of merchandise to the parishioners. Online, conspiracies were already being generated that claimed Trump had been assassinated by the Democrats, or that he was only faking an illness in yet another clever subterfuge to remain free from prosecution, or that Trump was fine and the entire news cycle was another attempt by Democrats to steal an election. The Trump family and the country would get the real news around 6am the morning after the election: Donald Trump had suffered a major stroke and showed little to no brain activity. The MAGA camp refused to believe that their self-appointed savior was brain dead and the Trump family were all to willing to exploit their delusions, calling in a quack doctor to provide a second opinion. The line from the Trumps was that the family patriarch had fallen into a coma, but could and would recover. In the meantime, this effectively left Don Jr. as the successor to the MAGA dynasty.
The Howling ‘20s
The final weeks of 2024 were beset by partisan violence and vigilantism from MAGA supporters who remained convinced that the 2024 election had been stolen and that Trump Sr. was the victim of an assassination plot. Bomb threats, mass shootings, and attacks on electrical substations rose to new heights while Republican politicians all too happily fueled the conspiracy spiral to undermine the Biden administration. Despite opposition from Congressional Republicans, the White House ordered heightened security around the official vote of the Electoral College on December 14, the certification of the election on January 6, and the 60th Inauguration Day ceremonies on January 20, 2025. While an unruly mob of far-right partisans marched on Washington, there would be no repeat of the attempted putsch of January 6, 2021.
While Republican partisans impotently flailed against the Democratic process, state Republicans sought a more effective solution to what they saw as the potential collapse of their party. Yes, Republicans retook the Senate by a single seat in 2024, but it was no secret that this was the result of voter disenfranchisement or direct manipulation of the vote in Ohio, Texas, and Florida. To keep their grip on power, state Republicans sought to expand anti-Democratic policies and more importantly, their ability to enforce those policies. In advance of the 2026 midterms, Republican controlled state legislatures backed an unprecedented expansion of State Defense Forces, private armies loyal not to the President or the US military, but to their Governors.
Justified by Red State governors as a necessary response to otherwise peaceful demonstrations by activists during the election, the expansion or reactivation of State Defense Forces began in Florida, Texas, and Idaho before expanding nationally over the next 18 months. State and local police forces were provincialized, becoming the officer corps and NCOs of these state-run armies. Some states went so far as to pass measures giving their governors control of National Guard Units, although the legality of this was hotly debated. In some states, the officer corps was made up of retired members of the regular Army, and in some cases mercenary soldiers, with Idaho gaining international infamy after hiring ex-Wagner Group soldiers to serve as advisors.
To pay for their new military forces, Republicans passed higher property taxes and cut public services across the board. To hold onto power, a series of harsher felony and even misdemeanor disenfranchisement laws were passed, while most forms of protest were effectively criminalized. The transition to overt fascism by the Republican party gave most commentators whiplash, and the media struggled to find any way to normalize an objectively dangerous trend. Congress was paralyzed by gridlock, and could only impotently subpoena state officials and launch lawsuits against state governments that simply refused to comply. The Biden administration’s timidity towards radicalized Republicans was becoming harder to ignore, even with the President constantly attempting to redirect popular attention toward major policy victories like the reshoring of manufacturing and the launch of NATO’s nuclear non-proliferation mission to the former Russian Federation. Unfortunately, as the country advanced towards the 2026 midterms, tragedy struck the White House.
At 83 years old, Joe Biden died peacefully in his sleep in April 2026. Kamala Harris was sworn in as the 47th President and around the world leaders mourned the passing of the man who rallied NATO to support Ukraine's war against Russia, and organized the largest international peacekeeping mission in history. His legacy fell to Kamala Harris, and she was seen by most as entirely unfit for the task. Her first national address is perfunctory and stilted. Her policies were identical to those of Joe Biden, its just that people were already losing patience with that set of policies and Harris’s uninspired leadership made her a convenient scapegoat to the public.
Harris would spend the next two years presiding over a nation that was becoming increasingly sectionally divided. Red States further radicalized as State Defense Forces served as the hand-picked gestapo of Republican governors. Women were denied denied the rights of free and unmolested travel within their home states, as were children and even adults seeking gender affirming care. LGBT couples were increasingly blocked from accessing marriage licenses, health insurance, and survivor’s benefits. And all of this would be defended by a court system that most Americans had completely lost faith in. Meanwhile the Blue States sought ever more progressive policies, often times just to spite Republicans. This divide would grow only more intense after the midterm election of 2026 vaulted the Progressive Caucus to dominance over the House Democratic Caucus.