Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

The Rise of MAGA Republican ‘Frothers’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Whenever I think about MAGA Republican “frothers” I think about if I had had the foresight, I could have done an epic meta troll and been on of them. If I had had the proper foresight in, say, 2015, I could have been a mole in the MAGA movement and become very, very successful being something of a “Stephen Colbert” type character within their ranks.

But, no. I wasn’t able to predict the huge success of MAGA Republican “frothers’ and, as such, missed out on the fame, power and glory that I might have otherwise had.

Let’s talk about people like Jesse Kelly. The thing about Kelly is he’s the quintessential MAGA Republican frother. He says stupid shit in the guise of a “joke” that if he gets any pushback for, he’s just shrugs and says, “can’t you take a joke.”

But the underlying fascist message remains. I really don’t understand where frothers like Kelly are coming from. Kelly really seems to hate women for some strange reason and he always frames his frothy hot takes in such a way that he has an out should he get called on it.

Anyway. He’s popular with his audience and I’m a nobody. I can look myself in the mirror in the morning, however and I wonder how he’s still able to do so.

My Hot Take On Dennis Prager

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue with Dennis Prager is he always frames whatever he’s talking about in such a fucking annoying manner that strokes the MAGA base while enraging people like me.

From what I see on Twitter about Prager, he’s just another one of those MAGA “thought leaders” who takes great pains to frame any discussion in a way that leans into the confirmation basis of your typical middle brow MAGA Republican. In a sense, he’s much like Joe Rogan in that respect.

Both men traffic in MAGA Republican outrage porn hidden behind a vague, conflated mentality of aggrievement that MAGA loves to wallow in. Their very argument is bad faith and frame in such a way that when your Traditionalist relative uses one of their talking points while you’re having Thanksgiving dinner it’s very difficult not to grow extremely angry.

And, what’s worse is, all of this bullshit is extremely corrosive. It’s why people in the same family can’t talk about politics anymore. When you have Prager or Rogan getting all bent out of shape about the stupidest shit that they claim is “woke” then there’s not much you can do about it.

If you do try to engage your MAGA Republican relative, then they say the facts you cite are “bogus” or they just get really mad an engage in debate nullification.

The main point is we’re fucked. That people like Dennis Prager get such traction is a very ominous sign. I don’t have any ready answer for you.

Elon Music, Twitter Is Useless

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key problem with Twitter is it’s just a gusher of information. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with a cacophony of disjoined, unconnected information that blasts towards you. Yes, there are “Twitter Lists” that you can use to try to control things but few people use or understand them.

So, for the average user, a lot depends on who you follow to the point that it’s almost better to create specific accounts for specific interests you might have. As such, I have long thought about how Usenet, 25 years ago, was, in its own way far more feature rich than Twitter is today.

Now, obviously, Reddit pretty much fills the space that Usenet did a long time ago. And there are some serious problems with Usenet / Reddit paradigm that you have to overcome. It’s easy one for a “group / reddit” to grow too large to be usable and two there is the problem of a very, very specific culture developing within any specific group / reddit to the point that you have to create a FAQ to answer all the questions that newbies to a group may have.

And that is probably the biggest advantage of that Twitter has. The average person can just jump into Twitter and start using it, no FAQ required.

I have given this particular problem way, way, way too much thought and I think I have a solution.

What you do is, if you wanted the best of both worlds — Twitter and Usenet — what you do is you force every user of your service to create groups as part of their on boarding. As such, EVERY user would create Groups devoted to the personal and the public.

If everyone can create, in essence, an endless number of reddits for whatever happens to be going on in their lives, then that opens up a lot of opportunities that simply don’t exist at the moment.

In my imagination, instead of having a Twitter timeline, the user would see a stream of individual Posts to different Groups they were subscribed to that people they were interested in had created. You see a Post in your timeline or newsfeed and you click on it and respond. Then you could see that Post in the context of a Group, rather than just being yet another tweet in a flood of tweets.

Now, I’m very well aware that all of this is very moot. We’re all talking about AR and VR as opposed to social media and so, lulz. But it is my impression that Elon Musk is interested in turning the X.com domain name that he owns into a rival to Twitter and, as such…maybe he might think about using the general principles of Usenet for a social media service that would sort of be a combination of Twitter and Reddit?

But no one listens to me, so luz.

An Unexploited Podcast Space

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, just checking my personal Webstats here, I can tell you that there is a huge market for celebrity news. And, as far as I know, while there are a lot of podcasts that deal with celebrity news, it seems like if you assembled an early-Gawker like team that you might be able to find some success.

You get a bunch of young, just out of college people to produce a series of different podcasts about different elements of the celebrity world then use whatever attention you get from doing that to direct the audience to a 2004-like Gawker. That’s how you would be able to bootstrap your site to success, even though the blog industry is very, very mature at this point.

Or, put another way, the aesthetic of the old Gawker doesn’t really exist in modern media. Most of the vibe of the early days of Gawker has drifted to Twitter to the point that we don’t even think about it. The average Twitter user is bombarded on a daily basis with crowdsourced snark.

But I do think if you could replicate the snark of Spy, Late Night With David Letterman and the original Gawker with a new podcasting network that you would find success. I just think that if you sort of had a Buzzfeed meets Gawker type podcast network then maybe there would be an audience. You draw people in to your podcast network by obsessing over celebrity then once people are listening or reading, you throw in some more serious reporting.

And, yet, it could be that my lingering obsession with the old Gawker is showing in the sense that, lulz, the old Gawker just isn’t coming back. No amount of me pining for it is going to make it happen.

So, I don’t know. I think that no amount of complaining on my part is going to change anything. Just like rock music is dead, it’s possible that the cool snarky content that I really enjoyed during a dark time in my life a long time ago simply isn’t going to come back.

Wild Speculation About What’s Wrong With Cara Delevingne

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what is going on with supermodel Cara Delevingne, but I am honestly worried about her. Whatever is wrong with her seems to have accelerated after she came back from Burning Man.

While she’d been acting really weird before then, something apparently seems to have happened while she was at Burning Man to make her go from just acting eccentric to having some sort of serious mental crisis.

So, it makes me wonder if maybe she sorta cracked her mind using a little too much LSD or some other mind altering substance while she was in the desert. It’s really rare for women — especially famous women — to lose their minds in such a public way.

I hope Ms. Delevingne is getting the help she needs. Hopefully, all she has to do is dry out and the rest will take care of itself. She apparently is in the care of people who love her so I suppose all the rest of us can do is hope for the best.

Gaming Out An American Military Junta in Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I write a lot about the possibility of autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025. And, yet, there is a third option that I’ve written about some, too: military junta.

How exactly what that happen? Well, it’s still too far to game out, but one possibility would be that Blue States begin the process of leaving the Union and the military finally steps in to kind of cool things down until, maybe, a Constitutional Convention can be called.

The other scenario is, of course, is the U.S. Military is forced to step in because, well, lulz, we have no idea who POTUS is — or, at least, can’t agree using political means who should be POTUS.

I think we have to give the idea of a military junta serious thought because history has shown us that that is often the route that modern democracies go when they finally fail. It happened with the French in the 1960s and it could happen here in a few years.

In my fevered imagination, I could see someone like James Mattis being named “acting POTUS” for a few months while we sort out exactly what we’re going to do about a National Divorce / secession crisis / certification crisis. The U.S. Military is the only remaining institution in America that would have the means to keep the country together if there was a severe political crisis.

And it would make sense, given how respected the U. S. Military is across the political spectrum for them to control the country through some sort of bi-partisan military junta made up of military and political leaders. A military junta might, in the end, be the only thing that stops either civil war or autocracy from happening.

But. And this is a big but — it could be that not even the American military would be able to avoid buckling should the time come. Generally, the officer corp still believes in democracy, while the enlisted are far more likely to support MAGA.

Which reminds me of the coup attempt that Turkey had a few years ago that ultimately did nothing more than allow their autocrat to consolidate power. So, again, I think in the end, America is just going to become an autocracy. Or, to make ourselves feel better, we’re going to pretend we’re a traditional Western democracy when, in fact, everyone and I mean EVERYONE will know that we’re simply another illiberal democracy like Hungary or Turkey.

The only question I have, of course, is — will I cross ICE and endup in a Trump branded concentration camp?

Twitter Liberals Keep Making The Liberal Progressive Case For A National Divorce

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I constantly see Blue Check Twitter liberals thinking out loud about things I’ve been writing about for some time now. What’s so darkly amusing is they pretty much make the liberal progressive case for a National Divorce without even realizing it. What they’re realizing, of course, is something that has been very clear to me for a long time — MAGA Republicans are ascendant and if there’s going to be a civil war it’s going to be because Blues start it, not Reds.

Now, we’re still to far out for me to know exactly how a Second American Civil War might actually play out. And I still don’t think we’re even going to have one. But as long as Trump continues to be a major American political figure, the risk of a modern day American civil war is very, very real.

It could be that by the time late 2024 rolls around, Blue States — probably starting with California — will simply refuse to “bend a knee” to the autocratic, fascist MAGA Republicans how have stolen the 2024 election and there will be a popular ground swell with Blues for Blue States to leave the Union and start their own country. (There is of course, the possibility that there might ultimately be some mission creep as such a possible war progresses and Blue goals would be to “liberate” Trumplandia as well.)

Of course, there is also the possibility that rather than seeing that they’re making the liberal progressive argument for a National Divorce that wealthy Twitter liberals will see these very same arguments as a reason to leave the fucking country.

And, at the moment, I think that’s what’s going to happen, no matter what.

MAGA Republicans steal the 2024 election and, rather than leading any sort of National Divorce, Twitter liberals will simply vote with their feet in pretty astonishing numbers. To the point that Fox News will stop being hysterical about scary brown people and their caravans and start to bitch and complain about a “brain drain” by “unpatriotic liberals.”

But what’s going on in Federal court about Trump stealing Top Secret documents in front a corrupt MAGA hack judge is all part of how the United States is careening towards a very, very dark future. We can’t keep punting this particular crisis down the road forever. Something’s gotta give. And the only question is — autocracy or civil war?

Battle Royale: DeSantis’ Trump Conundrum

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All things considered, Ron DeSantis is going to be America’s first autocrat. He’s Trump without Trump and my Traditionalist relatives are waiting with baited breath to “vote for him three times.” DeSantis is the ideal person to consolidate autocratic power that will ultimately lead to a Constitutional Convention. We’ll wake up in 20 years and President DeSantis will be invading Canada for some autocratic reason.

But then there’s Trump.

He simply will not get out of the way. Trump’s a fighter and even if he’s indicted, he’s still going to run for president. Of course, there are things I can’t predict. But for the time being, it definitely seems as though Trump is running again in 2024.

And, as such, DeSantis finds himself in something of a pickle. He is so close to the brass ring of being America’s autocrat — amazing power and wealth — and yet dingus Trump is in his way. The question is, will he bend a knee to Trump to be his veep or will he charge him directly?

At the moment, I just don’t know. But there’s one thing to remember — if DeSantis somehow gets the nomination, there’s no reason to believe Trump won’t simply bolt and join, say, the Patriot Party. Then DeSantis would still have to compete direction against Trump in a three way race.

So. I don’t know. It could go either way. But we have to accept that the United States is far less stable than we might otherwise believe.

Of Ageism & Novel Writing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s really taking a lot, lot, lot longer than I imagined to write this first novel. A lot of the delay comes from how I’ve been drifting towards my goal, rather than setting any clear deadlines. I suppose I just am reluctant to make this a chore. Writing a novel is supposed to be fun, not something you dread.

But I’m just not getting any younger.

I have to at least try to be more organized, focused and driven with this project. My current goal is to start querying in the fall of 2023. But to do that, I’m going to have to write two drafts then have beta readers then get someone to edit the copy THEN querying it.

As such, I probably need to have my second draft done in early 2023. I’m well on my way to making that a reality, but I have to stop daydreaming so much. I have to focus. I really want to at least have a second draft done in early 2023 that I can be proud of.

Then I can try to figure out how to get some beta readers in the summer of 2023 and begin the process of querying in the autumn of 2023. I have no idea if the novel will be good enough to catch the interest of a literary agent, but at least I will have achieved my goal — go through the entire process of writing a novel and trying to get it published in the traditional manner.

And, what’s more, I will know how *I* develop and write a novel. And that will help me a great deal when it comes to writing my second novel. When you reach my age, you are forced to prioritize for no other reason than if you don’t get something, anything done, you’ll be in your 60s and it will be very comical that you’re STILL trying to “make it big.”

The existential change in what you can actually achieve in life once you reach a certain age is something I’m growing very unhappy with. Is this a mid-life crisis?

Anyway, I have to keep believing in myself. But I also have to realize that if I get what I want, I won’t get what I want. It’s not like I can “make it big,” move to NYC and act like I’ve live there all my life. Even if I stick the landing, and sell a pop novel that is huge — I’m still going to be an old man who can’t date 24 year old women. And if I tried, it would be really creepy.

I just need to stop deluding myself and start to think a bit more clear eyed about what my immediate future is.

DeSantis’ Dick Move About Undocumented Immigrants Is Ominous

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Besides having an overarching abstract fear of being “canceled” by the “woke cancel culture mob” simply for being conservative, the other pressing issue for a lot of MAGA Republicans is the “border crisis.” This is, in a sense, the original sin of the MAGA Republican movement.

The problem with addressing the alarm that MAGA Republicans have about the border crisis is, well, people like me can’t address the pink MAGA elephant in the room. The reason why MAGA Republicans are so alarmed about the border crisis is, of course, that they’re bigots. But it’s nearly impossible to say that in the course of any debate with a MAGA Republican because they will get really mad and simply engage in debate nullifcation.

As such, there’s no much point in talking about it with them because they a very comfortable, well thought out media narrative that they can fall back upon. If you challenge it in anyway, they just say it’s “bogus” because the information you point them to is just, in their eyes, liberal propaganda. They want “secure borders” — to the point of building a very pointless wall (which isn’t even a wall, but rather a fence) — and there’s absolutely nothing you can say to them that is going to change their mind.

And now we have the added development of several border state Republicans shipping undocumented immigrants to various Blue State places in an effort to remind them of the “crisis” at the border. This is a dick move on their part, but the base loves, loves, loves it so there’s not much to be done about it. It helps these governors secure their fucking racist, bigoted base and that’s that.

If such a fucking dick move isn’t a sign that we’re careening towards either autocracy or civil war between now and spring 2025, I don’t know what does. When states start to turn on each other like this, that’s a very, very bad sign on a macro level.

And, what’s more the “crisis on the border” is probably going to be one of several reasons why Biden will be impeached, should Republicans take the House. The will put the country through yet another extremely divisive impeachment because they want to hurt Biden politically and they want to draw as much attention as possible to their hysterical, bigoted fears about the browning of America.

I honestly don’t know what to tell you. It definitely seems like we’re fucking doomed. Prove me wrong, America.