Category: The Resistance

The Coming Of Trump’s Tyranny Has An Air Of Inevitability To It At the Moment

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As of late 2023, at least, it seems we’re doomed. Trump will win in 2024, consolidate power in 2025 and that’s it — we’re a hybrid of autocracy and direct military dictatorship.

What I think we’re feeling is the culmination of any number of macro political and economic trends that none of us have any control over. This is it. We’re just about to reach the “then all at once” part of the Hemmingway quote about going bankrupt.

Or, if you want to be REALLY OPTIMISTIC, you could say that “chaos is a ladder” and there is now a chance that all of reforms that we need to implement could happen once we somehow, through a lot of hard work depose Trump at some point in 2025. (Not that I’m advocating anything!)

So, I suppose anything is possible. No one can predict the future, least of all me. Keep the faith.

King Trump For a Day

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What are we to make of this? There are two things to take into consideration. One, Trump lies all the time, so it seems as though it may be more than just “one day’ that he wants to be a tyrant.

Meanwhile, in the past at least, Trump was too dumb and lazy to actually do some pretty basic autocratic things. That may have changed, however, for various reasons. It could be that Trump could very well do all the autocratic things that he promises to do — “on day one.”

This brings up the issue of my own personal exposure. While I think I’m *fairly* safe — at least at first — my concern if we really are transitioned into a military dictatorship that things could get…hot…for me where I live. I could become one of millions of American who flee my home to somewhere that better fits my own personal politics.

But, it gets worse.

Virginia where I live is actually two states one Blue, one Red, fused together who hate each other. If there is any sort of “National Divorce” or even a “Glorious Revolution” Virginia is going to implode into intra-state civil war. The whole thing would be a massive clusterfuck with no ready endgame.

And, yet, here we are — it definitely seems as the moment that a Trump second term, with all its hellscape elements, is now inevitable.

Trump’s Destruction of The Free Press May End Not With A Bang, But With a Whimper

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Trump is he is easy to both overestimate and underestimate. You just never quite know what the fucking tyrant is going to do. It’s the same way with the free press. It could be that he is able to rub his two brain cells together in such a way that the average person won’t even notice that the United States no longer has a free press.

Behind the scenes, he will use a combination of plutocrat shenanigans and pressure to subtly shift the tenor of American press coverage of his tyrannical administration. We’ll just wake up one day and late night talk shows will have been purged and strangely the new hosts wont talk about politics in their monologues anymore and if they do, they simply sound like something you might see on Fox News. SNL will be cancelled simply because Lorne Michaels has retired and that will be that.

That’s if we’re lucky.

If we’re NOT lucky, Tyrant Trump will be far more direct and ham-handed in his attack on the free press. If Tyrant Trump goes about things THAT way, then…oh boy. We’re going to the show. Because to attack the free press in a direct way would bump up against American self-perception of “living in a free country” AND it would provide ready media-friendly martyrs.

Remember, all of this would be happening the context of Trump strangling lady liberty in an already rather brazen manner. So…lulz? I don’t know what to tell you, folks. Keep the faith. Things could get pretty bumpy starting in late 2024, early 2025.

What If Trump Just Refuses To Leave Office?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All of this is extremely speculative — Trump hasn’t even become president again — but it is clear that he wants to rule the United States has nothing short of a military dictator given the opportunity. Even though he will be old as hell by the end of his second term, he is so stupid and so lazy he could still destroy the country by simply living long enough to destroy the Constitution.

If we’re lucky, he will at least demand a Constitutional Convention to enshrine America First agenda in a legal way. If we’re not lucky, he will simply do whatever the fuck he wants and use his pardon power on himself and others to get away with it.

This is the point where MAGA people call me insane and tell me to “stop drinking varnish.” I will note that such MAGA people seem to want it both ways. They support a man who tells us all in no uncertain terms what tyrannical things he wants to do…then they get upset when people like me take him both literally and seriously.

Don’t quite know what to do about that.

But the issue remains — a second Trump Administration could be the thing that single handedly not only destroys America, but causes WW3 to happen. I’m not kidding. That is a real possibility. Trump could be responsible for the death of at least 1 billion people if any number of nuclear-tipped regional conflicts went hot.

I stand by my belief that one day Trump and MAGA will be just as loaded and controversial as Hitler and the Nazis.

America’s Hybrid Political Future Under Tyrant Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Tyrant Trump plans to rule America under a hybrid of autocracy and military dictatorship. Receptive Red States will be governed under autocracy, while Blue portions of the country will get the full force of the military rod.

But there are a lot of problems with all of this, no matter how much Trump’s toadies may think they have everything figured out.

The key thing is, none of this is going to happen in a political vacuum. Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act all he wants to, but, in the end, the U.S. Military is not the Nazi SA and isn’t going to act as such. At its heart, the U.S. Military is made up of men and women who believe in democracy.

As such, there’s every reason to believe that if push comes to shove that not even the U.S. Military will be spared a cleaving between MAGA and Blues. It could be that Trump is such a malignant dumbass that he manages to destroy every single nation-wide institution in the United States, even the U.S. Military. That’s pretty deep, but also looking very possible.

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. American democracy either transitions into a hybrid of autocracy and direct military dictatorship….or Biden wins? Or something else happens I can’t predict? Maybe 2024 will be like 2020 and we manage to punt our problems down the road another four years.

At the moment, however, we’re in a “Not great, Bob,” situation.

I Have Not Felt This Amount Of Momentum For MAGA Since 2016

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I remember what it was like in 2015-2016. There was real excitement and momentum when it came to MAGA. And, sadly, I feel that same way now. There is real excitement, momentum on the part of MAGA. There is a lot of energy on the side of people who want…fascism, autocracy.

So, lulz?

It definitely seems as though This Is It. The End. We’re fucked. Now, there is a lot of Known Unknowns. There are plenty of things that could give us an off ramp and allow us to punt our structural problems down the road another four years.

But at the same time, it definitely seems we’re careening towards a hybrid autocracy – military dictatorship demanding on where you live in the United States. I think we have to accept that we need to recalibrate our expectations for life in the United States post-Trump swearing in.

We. Are. So. Fucked.

A lot of angry white angry people want a white Christian ethnostate. They are willing to give up their American birthright of living in a free country simply because they hate brown people, trans people and women with economic agency more.

The future fucking sucks. There are no easy answers. There is no endgame. We just have to figure out how to survive.

The Blue Meanie Vision Thing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is very, very silly, but it’s a fun twist on a very, very serious issue — what the fuck are we going to do about Tyrant Trump? I’ve gotten it into my head that rather than calling people who oppose Trump “Blues” or “NeverTrumpers” you could use the rubric “Blue Meanies.”

I like this because even though the Blue Meanies are ultimately defeated by the The Beatles in the movie, they’re pretty cool and they get shit done. They instill fear in their opponents, too. I like using this term because there is an whole iconography you could tap into.

So, technically, you could wear, say, a Blue Meanie lapel pin and no one would — at least initially — would know the political significance. But I think that while this is a cool idea, it’s just too silly for anyone to be willing to embrace it. It is fun to think about, however.

I like the idea of otherwise serious people thinking of themselves as “Blue Meanies” hell bent not on destroying Pepperland, but, rather saving America’s birthright of democracy. They’re only “mean” because they’re pissed off at Tyrant Trump and his ilk and they want things to go back to normal.

Anyway. Barring some indication that anyone cares about this idea, I’m going to try — TRY — to not mention it again because I’m afraid I’m making a fool out of myself.

I’m Worried About 2025

How Worried, Really, Should We Be About Trump’s Second Term?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s telling how different the two sides see the prospect of a Trump second term. The Right thinks the Left is completely nuts for worrying about it at all. And, yet, it definitely SEEMS from all available evidence that we should be extremely worried about a second Trump term.

The key issue being, Trump seems to think the Insurrection Act is magic fascist pixie dust that he can use from day one to impose his will on Blues who don’t want to live in a white Christian ethnostate. The key thin is, if you live in the rural part of a Red States, life is unlikely to change all that much for you in a Trump second term.

But for anyone living in either a Blue State, a Blue City in a Red State or the Blue part of a Purple State — holy shit, should you be worried. I think this because it seems as though Trump wants to rule those parts of the country as not just an autocratic thug, but as an actual military dictator.

Him doing that would be a very unstable, volatile situation with no ready endgame. We could see a MAGA counter revolution, then a coup then a National Divorce then a civil war / revolution. Or not. Maybe the Right has it all figured out and I’m bonkers to worry so much.

Only time will tell. No one can predict the future — especially me.

Video: Idle Rambling About The ‘Blue Meanie’ Concept