Month: January 2021

We’re In A Severe Constitutional Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As someone smarter than me said on Twitter, “Post-factual is pre-fascist.” So, the next few days will be crucial in deciding the fate of the United States. The reason why I say that is Republicans are beginning to pull some pretty spectacular scenarios out of their asses in an absolute last-gasp effort to keep Trump in office.

The latest scenario is the creation of the bullshit commission that Ted “Born In Canada” Cruz has suggested would delay the certification 10 days so Republicans can have a lot more time for mischief. Even thought the Electoral Count Act exists to prevent a replay of the 1876 situation, that Cruz is even suggesting such a thing indicates we’re now in a significant Constitutional Crisis.

The biggest reason is it seems pretty obvious that while Ted Cruz and other seditious members of Congress are playing politics, Trump is pretty much thinking only in terms of self-preservation. The disconnect between these two mindsets has otherwise normal people playing into the hands of a madman. Trump just wants to stay in power, no matter what (for various reasons) and, as such, he has thought no further than simply “I don’t want to leave office.”

A lot of people on the Republican side involved in this clusterfuck who should know better are playing along because they don’t want Mad King Trump to demand they be primaried in 2022 or 2024. So, they, too, aren’t really thinking beyond the short-term goal of sucking up to Trump and not making him mad. They really haven’t given any thought to what happens if they pull this stunt off? They don’t think they will and so they see no downside in going as far as possible with Trump’s bullshit.

So it’s up to people like me to think about what happens if they “catch the car.” Well, as I keep saying, it would be a “political 9/11.” But even then, the whole thing would be problematic for House Trump for a number of reasons. This is Trump we’re talking about and he is a massive self-own artist. He’s already self-owned in a massive way by not doing his autocrat “homework” of stealing the election outright in a way that would otherwise give him necessary façade of legality that would allow him to consolidate power in his second term.

He’s not an autocrat, he’s just a deranged idiot who was nothing more than an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system. That’s it. He has zero leadership skills, so he wasn’t even able to do the bare minimum necessary to “not lose” the 2020 election when the time came.

So, here we are.

Now we have a number of different potentially pretty bad scenarios ahead of us. Trump could essentially stage a coup via the “Pence Card” gambit that would, in effect, be supported by about 38% of the electorate. All things being equal, that’s probably enough for him to stay in power. But I keep thinking about how American civil society would process such an event. Sort of a, “how do you explain it to the kids” kind of thing.

People on Twitter talk a good talk about what they might do if a Pence Card Gambit coup took place, but I have my doubts. It could be that there’s significant grumbling, but since Trump would have at least a thin veneer of legality that he would get away with it.

That would break the back of American democracy once and for all and House Trump would formally be founded. But for the moment, there’s no end game. That’s why we’re in a crisis. Any number of different things might happen in the end.

The Abstract Rage Of Rep. Louie Gohmert


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s look at what’s going on with Rep. Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit against Mike Pence of all people. It seems to me there are a few reasons — in his mind — for the lawsuit.

  1. Catch Pence’s Attention
    Gohmert’s suit is about, in part, simply catching Pence’s attention and reminding him of what he might be able to do if he was so inclined. While Pence could be a dick and throw the nation into chaos, up until fairly recently, he was a pretty traditional — if far Right — politician. So, for him to do something crazy on January 6th would at least appear to be out of character.
  2. Remind Pence of his Duty
    By bringing attention to what Pence’s responsibilities are, Gohmert is attempting to put pressure on Pence to fuck things up. Again, Pence came up through the ranks as a pretty “normal” politician, so it would really be wild for him to do what Gohmert and others want.
  3. Make Everyone Talk About What Pence Could Do
    Another aspect to the suit is to get everyone talking about what Pence may — or may not — do when the opportunities arises. This is where the suit has been the most successful, by far — I mean, I’m talking about it right now.

    Now, let’s talk about how bonkers all of this is to begin with. Gohmert is definitely ahead of the curve in the whole fascist take over of America. And, if he would just fucking be patient, he would definitely get what he wanted. America is a center-Right nation and obviously had Trump in 2016 been the “guy from The Apprentice” then we would be an autocratic, managed democracy right now. Our democracy would, at last, be dead and we would just have House Trump in power for the foreseeable future.

    But there’s a problem — Trump.

    Trump is just a very lucky ding-dong — and now a very lucky DERANGED ding-dong — and so it’s possible that Trump could do something so fucking insane between now and January 20th that we don’t just punt Gohmert’s fascist dreams down the road one election cycle, but for a generation.

    I don’t know. Everything is still very much up in the air. Not until around January 6th will we have a better understanding of what, if anything, is going to happen with all of this.

No, You Fucking Right Wing Nutjobs, You Aren’t Going To Start A Revolution


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Looking at my Webstats, I definitely get the sense that there’s a lot of talk out there in Right Wing circles about some sort of Revolution if They Don’t Get Their Way and Trump stays in power despite him losing the election.

While it’s easy to imagine some sort of major political violence in, say, about four years, if the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of fucking Right Wing cocksuckers right NOW, it will be in vain. The far Right has an abstract rage against “libtards” but I honestly don’t understand what, exactly, they think they would get out of any sort of “revolution” at the moment.

Americans, in general, are pretty copacetic and there’s a quantum leap from having an abstract rage against people who disagree with you politically and actually running around murdering them. There would be real-world consequences to doing so and I don’t think the far Right is prepared to have to deal with that — yet.

Give them four years for the Proud Boys to turn into the SA / SS and the Republican Party to turn into the National Socialist American Worker’s Party and we can talk. When you’re REALLY willing to risk dying or spending the rest of your life in prison because of the vague notion that you might be “canceled” by the evil globalist cuck overlords then, well, I’ll take you seriously.

Now, though, meh. You fucking cowards.

The absolute craziest part of all of this is it may be Trump, himself, who destroys any possibility of a Right Wing “revolution” anytime soon. Trump is not fucking well mentally and it definitely seems as though he is on the cusp of forcing the issue of some sort of coup very, very soon.

Or, put another way, it’s possible that Trump could do something so insane in the waning days of his administration that he kind of slices the boil when it comes to such matters and the whole decent into revolution and civil war that an alarming number of Republicans seem to be looking forward to will be punted down the road a generation.

But, as I keep saying, for that to happen, Trump would extract a pound of political flesh from us. It would be horrific. It would be a quantum leap beyond what happened on 9/11. It would be a New Era for a number of reasons.

The issue is — we’re now entering a very unstable moment in our nations history. If we can just make it past January 20th without Trump nuking us all into the stone age, then we worry about if fucking Right Wing nutjob cocksucker shitheads will get their “revolution” or not.

Four Days That May Shake The World


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I’m always wrong. Always. I make all these wild predictions and then…nothing. But the following is, if nothing else, entertaining in its own dark, disturbing manner. It’s possible that Jan 3rd to January 6th may be some of the most eventful in American history.

Here’s why:

The one year anniversary of the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani is on January 3rd. It’s easy to imagine Iran striking either in the Middle East or the American homeland in retaliation. Depending on what exactly occurred, that, in itself, could be Trump’s “Reichstag Fire” that makes him a wartime president.

Trump is already extremely unhinged right now, and it’s easy to see him wagging the dog right before Congress is set to certify the Electoral College vote on January 6th.

If you throw in Proud Boys in DC flipping out and causing a lot of mayhem in DC on or about January 6th as well, that’s the excuse Trump might need to invoke the Insurrection Act in DC. Additionally, as all of this chaos is going on, Pence might REALLY take things to the next level and nullify the certification vote by not doing him job.

That would really destabilize the country and…then…I don’t know. There are some basic elements of a successful coup that Trump hasn’t done. He hasn’t done his autocratic homework, if you will. So, in a sense, he’s thrashing about in desperation, making everyone else’s life hell because he’s not an autocrat at all, but a deranged ding-dong.

Ugh.

As such, while in the abstract it gives the Far Right a boner to think about how they can overturn the results of the election this way, the moment they actually do anything…it definitely seems everything will fall apart. For no other reason than Trump isn’t even an autocrat, but just a very lucky ding-dong. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat. We need to marinate in our pre-fascist juices for about one more election cycle before we finally descend into a Russian-style managed democracy.

But there’s one thing to keep in mind — Trump is no longer thinking in political terms, but rather strictly in terms of self-preservation. So it’s possible Trump is so deranged that he might force the issue of some sort of coup well before we’re ready and not even the rotting rage found within our political system will be enough to save him.

He may so enrage the 60% of the electorate who don’t support MAGA that all the people who have totally invested in Trump’s rise to power over the last five years might, at last, find him a lability and cut him loose. But what’s more likely to happen is we’re just going to punt all these problems down the road one election cycle and someone like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley or Mike Pompeo will be the one to finally strangle traditional American democracy.

Trump is not an autocrat.

It’s a very curious situation we’re in for the next few days. And, really, if we make it past January 6th, that’s just the end of the beginning of this shitshow. It’s possible that once Trump doesn’t have ANY hope of overturning the election, he just explodes mentally and things grow extremely dire. So dire, in fact, that we might have some sort of snap impeachment and conviction of Trump, but not without him extracting one last pound of political flesh from the nation on his way out the door.

My fear, of course, is things grow really, really dark. That Trump goes the literal Hitler-in-the-bunker route. I hate to even think about the implications of that, but if we were honest with ourselves, it’s something we would begin to game out.

The Conditions Exist For A Severe Political Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

No one listens to me and they probably shouldn’t. But I would like to note that it’s self-evident that the most powerful country in the world is careening towards an unprecedented political crisis.

It’s going to be abrupt, it’s going to be severe and it’s going to scare the shit out of everyone.

Now, let’s break things down a little bit. A number of macro trends are all coming to a head at the same time and it’s only a matter of if they come crashing down on us now or in, say, the 2024 timeframe. Given that it’s self-evident that Trump has totally lost his fucking mind and, is, as such goading otherwise sane people to do bonkers things, it definitely seem as though our “political 9/11” is going to happen NOW, not later.

A huge amount of what’s going on doesn’t make any sense politically and that’s because the person who is forcing this issue isn’t sane — Trump is thinking now not about about his political future but cold, hard self-preservation. So, he’s willing to take risks and do things that could blow up in his face first because he’s not thinking clearly and two he doesn’t care — he just wants to stay in power so he doesn’t risk going to prison. You could also speculate he’s a fucking traitor and he’s doing all of this at the behest of Putin, but lulz, nothing matters.

It’s easy to imagine something like this happening in the next few days — there’s a major domestic terror attack on the part of Iranians for the assassination of Soleimani on January 3rd. This, in turn, gives Trump the opportunity to bomb the hell out of Iran and, as a “war president” take “total control.”

It’s easy to imagine a situation that in the context of the Proud Boys causing problems in D.C. on January 6th just a Congress is meeting to certify the vote, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act thinking it’s some sort of fascist panacea (it’s not) and all his problems will go away.

Now, this is when Trump’s tenuous connection to reality would smash up against some pretty cold, hard facts. The U. S. Military isn’t going to follow an illegal order. And even though I consider SCOTUS controlled by a bunch of MAGA hacks, it’s a dubious supposition to imagine them throwing their lot entirely with a tyrant when he needed them in such a massive Constitutional crisis.

But we have to be clear — the conditions are there, at least, for not only rolling political violence between January 3 and January 20th (and beyond) but Trump, having completely fucking lost his mind, pushing the Constitution to its limit and scaring the shit out of all of us when he starts to grow not only transactional on Twitter, but extremely passive aggressive.

Let me be clear — I can’t predict the future. I’m just talking about the conditions for a severe political crisis. I’m almost always wrong and it could be that this whole thing is going to — thankfully — be a dud. But when you have someone as crazy as Trump feeling like a caged rat for a few weeks with zero accountability, anything and I mean ANYTHING is possible.

A Surreal — And Ironic — Moment In American History


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two different things are happening at the same time right now. On one hand, we are an autocracy without an autocrat. At the same time, the last bit of the Trump Era narrative has yet to be told — does Trump do something at the very end that changes the context of the whole thing?

I don’t think people appreciate how the only thing stopping the United States from being an autocracy is the absence of an autocrat to do anything about it. Yes, Trump broke the seal on autocracy, but he, himself, can’t — to date — actually pull of an autocracy.

The issue for me is — is it possible he could entice Republicans to be seditious, attempt a coup — then fail? There are a number of scenarios I could map out where that very thing happens. But as I keep saying, it wouldn’t be some sort of liberal fever dream. It would really, really suck and probably involve Trump completely losing his mind and scaring the shit out of not just the United States, but the entire world.

It would happen very abruptly and be looked back upon as something of a “political 9/11.”

But, really, I’m wrong so much that all of this could be a very big dud, for the better. We’ll just drift into the Biden Era and be in political neutral until Biden gets impeached the moment the House flips.