Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

Eyes Wide Shut: America Is Careening Towards ‘The Fourth Turning’ & No One Gives A Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is so curious that America’s lurch towards either MAGA-themed autocracy or civil war / revolution is happening in broad fucking daylight and no one seems very concerned. It’s all rather unsettling.

All I can compared it to is how apparently the Western Roman Empire just kind of gave up in its later years. An air of defeatism took over the collective and at one point it just become a matter of time before some barbarian put the Western Romans out of their misery.

I guess what I’m trying to say is there are some macro historical forces at work when it comes to the United States’ future. I can’t predict the future, so I have no idea what the fuck is going to happen. But, in general, I would posit that Something Big is going to happen in the world’s only hyperpower in late 2024, early 2025.

What that “Something Big” event might be….I just don’t know.

But, in general, all the conditions are there for a political event at least equal to WW2, if not the French Revolution. Something — whatever it is — that fundamentally changes not just American culture, but that of the entire world. It’s going to be scary and disruptive and there won’t be any ready endgame while it’s happening.

Good luck.

‘It’s All AI’ — #lyrics to a #pop song

It’s All AI
lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

words are scrambled
reality is just a thrill
in the end will it matter one bit
if my prompt is right or just a fit
help me won’t you understand
the future
it’s all AI

it’s all AI
is what they tell me
it’s all AI
is what we say to get by
it’s all AI
it’s all AI
it’s all AI

no one will care
or remember when AI makes us moot
but we still have time
to give it the boot
but AI is our friend
I suppose
until it brings the end.

it’s all AI
is what they tell me
it’s all AI
is what we say to get by
it’s all AI
it’s all AI
it’s all AI

(bridge)
give me natural life
something to bring delight
no need for machine intellegence
when we have love between us
someting to keep us cool
and have humanity rule

it’s all AI
is what they tell me
it’s all AI
is what we say to get by
it’s all AI
it’s all AI
it’s all AI

I Must Improve My Characterizations

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a lot — A LOT — of plot, but my characterizations in this novel continue to be wanting. Much to my chagrin, most of my characters remain just “moods” that have traits that come and go for simple expediency sake. That is something I need to change, big time.

That is probably — at the moment at least — the biggest difference between my novel and the stuff that my “teacher’ Stieg Larsson wrote. He was really good at drawing readers in by having really interesting and colorful characters that readers wanted to hang out with.

I’m getting there. My heroine is starting to come unto her own, especially given that I’ve made her have a “Barry”-like sharp dichotomy to her life. The whole thing is really interesting, even if I could see some members of the fucking “woke cancel culture mob” wanting to eat me alive for even doing it in the first place.

But, I get it. I’m a smell CIS white male. I can’t help that I’m not a transgendered undocumented immigrant. I am who I am and I just have to deal with the consequences.

Anyway. Things continue to move forward. I hope to get a lot — A LOT — of writing done on this third draft this weekend.

I Hope To Get A Lot of Writing Done On The Novel This Weekend

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the name of getting something done before I croak like Stieg Larsson did at my age, I plan on buckling down and write as much as I can this weekend. I often say this and then, lulz, I spend all my time either rearranging scenes or staring out into space.

But here’s hoping this time will be different.

One issue that is now at the forefront of my mind is my heroine’s personal ideology. People seem to really like that Lisbeth Salander had a very clear set of personal ethics and, as such, I want to imbue my heroine with something similar.

But I’m also very lazy and don’t want to do any research. And, yet, I think I’m going to have to just that. I can’t keep screwing around. I need my heroine to have some sharp edges. I need her to have a very clear set of morals and beliefs that the events of the novel challenge.

The most obvious way to do this would be to make her a Christian. But, lulz, even though I was raised in the Church, I’m not a Christian and I just don’t feel like having to look into such things. As such, I’ve given it some thought and I realize there’s another way I can accomplish my goal.

I think I may lean into her being a Third Wave Feminist some. Maybe. And, given what happens in the third act of the novel, I think if I made her a very strict secular humanist that maybe that might be enough to put a really interesting spin on things.

I hope. That’s the goal.

I’ve been using AI some to help with development. Sometimes it helps me lay out scene summaries really well. Other times — lulz. And don’t even try to use AI to help game out a “spicy” scene. It just locks up and says it can’t help you out.

I have rewritten and expanded the first act so much that I am going to have to give the entire rest of the novel some serious thought. I’ve introduced a lot of new, interesting elements to the novel that I am going to need to actually use rather than bring them up and then ignore them.

‘Hysterical (Speculative) Doom Shit:’ We’re In A DL Presidential Succession Crisis

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am prone to think up the most fucked up political scenarios and I’ve come up a new one. At the moment, we have an “acting” Speaker of the House. My question is — if the absolute worst happened, would Rep. Patrick McHenry be in the line of presidential succession? Or would it go directly to the Senate’s President Pro Temp?

The fact that that is not know for a fact one way or another is very unnerving. I remember how Al Haig made an ass out of himself after Reagan was shot by saying, “I am in charge,” even though he clearly wasn’t.

The only reason why I even bring it up is the longer we’re in this fucking up situation, the more likely it is that Something Bad might happen that would force the issue. And the last thing you want in a crisis situation is the massive uncertainty of who the fuck the president is.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the lingering issue of no one has challenged the Presidential Succession Act. I just don’t like the idea that America could be in some massive, earth shattering crisis and rather than address the issue at hand, we’ll all have to collective sit on our hands while we figure out if McHenry is POTUS or not.

Anyway, this is just more of my usual “hysterical doom shit.” Move along, there’s nothing to see here.

Pondering The Potential Impact of Google’s Coming Gemini AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though the next 18 months may be pretty fucking historic on both a technological and political basis. On the tech side, Google is set to release a new AI called Gemini. Given how impressive today’s first generation AI is, I’m a bit unnerved by what Gemini may bring.

It definitely seems as though 2024 will be the year when AI reaches the “just good enough” stage. This means we’ll be one severe recession away from the entire knowledge economy being upended and transformed. It could be that the 2024 presidential cycle will be the first time we start to take the notion of Universal Basic Income seriously.

I’m coming to believe that UBI is inevitable — a lot sooner than anyone might think. But I also think it will come at a price — probably all taxes will be replaced by a 30% VAT. Also, I think we’ll pay for a UBI by taxing the economic output of non-human actors.

If Gemini is anywhere near as powerful as is suggested, then we are probably in for some severe economic and social upheaval just as we careen towards the “Fourth Turning” of late 2024, early 2025.

I continue to believe that it’s at least possible that neo-Ludditism is the next logical evolution of MAGA. It makes a lot of sense if even blue collar jobs are not spared by AI. I suspect that soon enough something akin to androids will begin to take all the service jobs that aren’t knowledge economy jobs being taken by LLMs.

Regardless, things are very much up the air.

Worried About A Blind Item

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I only think about this again because the Speaker of the House spot is vacant for the time being. But there was a blind item on Tik-Tok some time ago that suggested there might be a sex tape of VP Harris getting it on with talk show host Montel.

That is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors at the moment, but I think it was Lenin who said a week sometimes has a the news of a decade crammed all into it all at once at times. So, imagine Biden shuffles off this mortal coil, Harris becomes POTUS and a sex tape leaks out and she has to resign.

Who would become POTUS at this point? Do we know? I guess it would be the president pro temp of the Senate, but I sure don’t like not knowing 100%.

Anyway, I’m sure I’m overthinking things and everything is going to work out just fine.

Right….Right????

Taking The Prospect Of ‘Speaker Trump’ Seriously

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that is both funny and dumb and dangerous all at the same time is the idea that Trump might become Speaker of the House now that Kevin McCarthy has been given the boot.

If Trump was a true “great man,” then, yes, it would make total sense. But Trump is such an idiot that he just doesn’t have the abstract thought abilities necessary to do such a thing. I MIGHT be able to see Trump find a handpicked proxy that he might use to do his bidding, but at the moment, I really struggle to imagine Trump himself being willing to be Speaker.

The only — ONLY — reason why I could maybe see him doing it is he would really get off on leading the impeachment of Biden. Otherwise, the man is so dumb and lazy that he just would not be willing to do any of the practical work necessary to be a Speaker of the House.

And, yet, Trump lacks any abstract thought abilities to the point that I really struggle to imagine him having the gumption to pick a proxy person to run the House for him. Trump is very, very, very dumb and lazy and, lulz, you would have to spell it out to him like he was a complete moron — which he is — to get him to find a proxy for him.

So, I think, for the time being, we’re pretty safe. I can’t predict the future, but I seriously doubt Trump will be the next Speaker of the House.

MAGA As American Nazism

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The most recent Pod Save America is really great. But I do find it interesting that the PSA guys seem to have a blind spot when it comes to what’s going on with American politics. They keep wondering how it is that we find ourselves in this situation and how we can deal with Trump.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021.

The problem is not only is America now an anocracy rather than democracy, there is a sizable portion of the population who hates democracy and crave an autocratic white Christian ethnostate of blood and soil. There comes a point when you have to accept how existential the 2024 election is going to be for the fate of the United States.

If every election a democracy has is existential, then you’re really not a democracy anymore. We have to accept that a lot of white Christian conservative (males) feel disenfranchised to the point that they would rather we throw up our hands and give up on our founding principles.

I just don’t have any hope anymore. We have to prepare for some sort of monumental events to happen starting in late 2024, early 2025. I have no idea what might happen, but things aren’t looking great at the moment. In fact, they look rather dire.

There are no easy answers or solutions. I do believe that MAGA will one day be viewed as just as bad as the Nazis, with all the foreboding and evil that that assumes about what they will do the next time they have power.

MAGA Is Going Septic — We Have To Plan Accordingly

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though late 2024, early 2025 will be It. Something Big is going to happen one way or another. Either we slip into MAGA-themed autocracy or have a civil war (Reds) or a revolution (Blues.) I just don’t see us punting our problems down the road again.

MAGA wants to establish an autocratic white Christian ethnostate of blood and soil. And, remember, that is the orthodoxy of the Republican Party, not just Trump. So the next time we have a Republican president, that’s what we’re going to transform into — unless we have some sort of “Resistance Revolution” that forces some significant political reforms.

I can’t predict that future, so I suppose it’s possible that we might punt things down the road again. And I suppose it’s possible that rather than growing more hateful and angry if that happens — or starting a civil war — that MAGA might gradually lose political power.

But I have my doubts.

The key issue is how much the insane rhetoric on the part of MAGA is just that — a bunch of talk. Are they really willing to destroy the United States to keep Trump out of prison? That is kind of the issue of the moment — or at least of late 2024, early 2025.

Again — I can’t predict the future. No fate but what we make and all that. But I do know that 2024 will be the most significant event in domestic political history since that of 1860.