There are some ominous storm clouds circling in the geopolitical stratosphere, and being between two presidencies is like running for cover in an open field. Safety is in sight, and you’ll probably be fine, but if you are going to be struck by lighting, it will be very, very soon.

Hillary Clinton has been itching for a war with Russia for a while. She has ties to arms dealers, and has been shown beyond dispute to have moved, along with her husband, between stated values and allegiances like a fish through currents, and not merely on things as relatively unimportant as gay marriage.  She demonstrates all the traits of the dark triad, pathologically lying to cover for personal gains, laughing as much at getting off a presumably guilty rapist as at the killing of a foreign head of state. In short, there is no reason not to believe that Clinton would do exactly as she’s done before: make a decision from which she benefits personally, and then blame Republicans, Russians, or some other scapegoats for whatever fallout comes from the decision.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Introductory quotation in No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton by Christopher Hitchens

Now, after promising to treat cyber attacks as declarations of war, and after declaring that Russia hacked the American election, president Obama has promised retaliation, despite no actual evidence being offered for the hacking.

But of course, Sargon of Akkad is correct. No one in the DNC is challenging the truth of the information revealed by the alleged hacking, merely the manner in which it was acquired. In other words, Russia is being charged with the crime of investigative journalism, and anyone who disagrees will be accused of being swayed by, or perhaps even being, “fake news.”

There are many people like myself who swore an oath to defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. In the context of a military oath of enlistment, this means with physical, lethal force. Make no mistake, the political establishment, especially but not exclusively the Democratic Party, is declaring that just such a threat against the Constitution has taken place. And yet all of the evidence from WikiLeaks and from Project Veritas demonstrates—with indisputable evidence—that the DNC and the Hillary campaigns were themselves guilty of everything that they are accusing Russia of and more.

Not only does Hillary—and the establishment powers she represents, including our current president—have the means and the motive to escalate this into a war; she has something nearly approaching necessity. By her own standard of martial justification, she herself presents a conspiracy against the democratic process of the United States of America, by threatening the prospect of war to prevent a transition of power to a new regime (which would not protect them from prosecution). They have not only matched, but surpassed the degree of betrayal normally reserved for those who turn against their own country in time of war. It would be no surprise if the allegations of a post-election emotional breakdown in which Clinton worries they’ll “all hang from nooses” proves to be true.

This does not mean that war with Russia, or a Civil War, is imminent. It is a very real possibility, however, and one which, if it is averted, will only be averted because personal success appears impossible to the relevant actors (Clinton, Obama, Podesta, et al.).

Millenials like myself have grown up in a time of relative peace, and machinations of this sort are, consequently, often difficult for people to believe possible, let alone likely or happening. But there is a precedent for this. There is the challenged but plausible narrative that Nixon betrayed the 1968 peace talks in order to win re-election. There have been proven high-ranking traitors like Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and the Rosenbergs, whose motivations are universal enough to allow a narcissistic, Machiavellian sociopath like Clinton among their ranks. Large-scale conspiracies of betrayal can happen too, like that which the much-maligned but recently vindicated senator McCarthy warred against. And of course, who can forget the most infamous American traitor of all.

I think the best analogue of the present situation, however, doesn’t lie within American history, or even within recent history.

I refer to the conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catiline.

Catiline had been an unsuccessful contender for consul (the Roman equivalent of the President), and decided to resort to subterfuge and violence in an attempt to seize the power of the state instead. It is hard to know if Catiline believed in justice, or if he too was a sociopath, but the crime of hubris was committed in either case: he felt he deserved the consulship, perhaps was owed it. If his nation did not give him what he deserved, then to hell with his nation.

“As for Mrs. Clinton, look, as for all she’s done for us, after all she’s suffered on our behalf, she feels she’s owed the presidency. And who could possibly disagree? Her life is meaningless if she doesn’t get at least a shot, and one can only sympathize. Unless you think—as I do—that people should be distrusted who are running for therapeutic reasons. Because the presidency doesn’t calm those demons, as her husband has already proved.”
—Christopher Hitchens

Since I have endured, and many other Trump supporters have endured, some of the most malicious and nasty slanders en masse from the left in this last election cycle, you’ll have to permit me one violation of Godwin’s law, and observe that when the Germans did not fulfill all of Hitler’s expectations of them, Hitler became spiteful and resentful of the Germans more than anyone else, Jew or Gentile. As Dr. Jordan Peterson says, there is no reason to assume that Hitler, blowing his brains out in a bunker under a burning city, failed in his ultimate mission. For narcissists like Catiline or Hitler, the consequences of failure feel universal, and if you’re going down, you may as well take the whole ship down with you.

Again, the circumstances are no guarantee of even a coup attempt, let alone a successful one, or a declaration of war with Russia (which is probably the more likely option). President-elect Trump already has three generals in his cabinet, and he’s a sharp enough guy to understand human motivations, and the degrees of desperation they will be willing to go to when they’re backed into a corner. It would be a mistake to underestimate Clinton however, especially when her team includes a sitting president of the United States. Things could get very dicey in the next month, and it will be too early to exhale until after January 20th, no matter how smoothly the official electoral college vote happens to go.