Category: Trumplandia

The Demise Of The Republic & The #Novel I’m Developing & #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel rather powerless these days. It seems virtually everyone I know is willfully accepting the rise of tyranny in the United States. It definitively seems as though my worse nightmares from Election Night 2016 are coming true. As such, I have a lot of bent up frustration in me that needs to go somewhere. So it’s going into the novel I’m developing and writing.

The last time I was this focused on something was in 2006 – 2007 when I was working on ROKon magazine. It totally consumed me and ultimately pretty much destroyed me. What makes this different is it’s just me. I don’t have a “tribe” I have to “feed” by publishing the magazine each month. I only have to worry about myself. I keep trying to move forward with development and churning out copy.

My focus grows more intense every day when I have mind-boggling conversations with people who make “Good Germans” like progressives. They have either stopped believing in democracy or they are so short sighted they are indifferent to the red lights blinking that Trump isn’t going to allow free and fair elections in the fall.

As I’ve said before, it seems as though after Trump has brazenly stolen the 2020 election, there will be a lot of people who will want to read about the Trump Era in the form that I have come up with. Though events in Portland involving American Little Green Men make some of the previously outrageous parts of the novel I’m working on seem almost real. (Or maybe eventually real for sooner than you might have expected.)

The point is — I’m working so hard not to make this simply Resistance fanfiction and reality is changing so dramatically that for the worse that I’m feeling a lot better about the scenario I’ve come up with.

Well, At Least This #Novel May Be More Popular As Fascism Arrives In The United States


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As America lurches more rapidly into fascism, at least I can take solace in the fact that there’s a good chance this will aid in my novel’s ultimate success. I’m a very abstract, allegorical personal in general and my novel is no exception. I couldn’t help myself — I constructed the canon of this novel in such a way that a lot of the abstract issues of the Trump Era are made concrete.

The thriller part of the plot is simply an excuse to have people run around the allegorical universe I’ve constructed.

That’s the thing about developing a novel — you’re pretty much just rushing into the void. You have no idea what the world will look like when you try to sell it.

Anyway, this novel definitely is, well, ME. It’s very much a reflection of my personal history and personality. I’m trying to make it difficult — at least in the text –to figure out what my politics are, but it’s really tough sometimes. The best I can do at this point is to put all my unpopular opinions, the ones that don’t fit the narrative — in the mouths of the bad guys.

But I am honestly trying to make this story (two novels, one story) a critique of the entirety of the Trump Era, not just the parts I don’t like. I think the center-Left is pathetic in the United States because too often it’s more interested in scoring points on Twitter than doing anything about the rise of fascism in the country.

Fascism has come to America and the real question — at least for me — is how much will I be allowed to get away with in this novel. Freedom of speech will likely be the last thing to go in the United States and maybe I’ll be able to publish this thing in the window of opportunity that will exist in the early months of Trump’s ill-gotten second term.

Things Continue To Move Quickly With The First Draft of The #Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that the Trump Administration is simply snatching people off the street, the rage I have against it that is helping me develop and write this novel grows ever more powerful. Also, my general belief that Trump is never leaving office for any reason seems ever more accurate and, as such, the idea that at some point early in his ill-gotten second term people are going to want to read an allegorical take on this fucked up era seems ever more accurate as well.

So, I’m going to bifurcate this weekend — if I’m not developing and writing, I’m reading. If I’m not reading, I’m developing and writing.

I hope to wrap up the tactical development of my next chapter no later than the end of this weekend. I have a rhythm now and so that — combined with my white hot rage against the Trump Administration — things are really moving along.

As I’ve said before, my rage against the Trump Administration is meant to be so diffused in this novel that you won’t really notice it. You should be able to read the novel if your conservative and not really have an issue with it. There are some existential parts of the plot that you may quibble with, but I’m not changing them.

Anyway, there is still so much that could go wrong. I feel very much like a first time father, worried about my unborn child. All I can do is give this thing all my genetic information and hope for the best. This novel is very personal and specific, but as things like Fleabag show, that’s often something that people find appealing.

I have a lot of work to do.

Choreographing A Scene #AmWriting


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While the nation I love is being burned to the ground by a bunch of fucking incompetent idiots, I find myself working on a more complex scene in the novel I’m working on.

All I can say is it’s times like this when the white hot rage I feel towards the Trump Administration comes in handy. I have a scene I’m working on that requires a lot of work because it has one or two extra people in it. It’s an important scene because a lot of information is being conveyed within it meant to push the plot forward.

I have come up with a unique way to address the #MeToo movement that I think a lot of men will enjoy. The point of telling a story with a message is that, like, people actually enjoy enough to consume it. That was the big problem with the movie Booksmart — I hated that movie, even though I was empathetic to its message because it insulted me.

With the novel I’m working on, I want everyone (expect maybe fucking shithead MAGA people) to have a good time. If you’re just a regular old conservative, I really hope you’ll find something to hang your hat on. I want my protagonist to be more conservative than I am, but it’s a struggle. It’s difficult — given how fetid MAGA has made the conservative movement — for me to figure out how square the circle on that one. But I’m trying, at least.

One thing about this novel, at least in the first draft, is it’s not dark and scary. It’s no Gone Girl. It’s no The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’m just not that type of person. But it’s the first draft still. The point of this draft is to just get the story down. In the second draft I’m going to work on tone more. I think having a dark and scary prologue will do a lot to set the tone of the novel from the beginning.

But anyway. I have a huge amount of work to do on this scene. My rage against the Trump Administration is dragging me by the collar. I’m absolutely focused — obsessed, if you will — with using what little talent I have to lay out an indictment of this fucked up moment in our nation’s history.

My #Novel & The #Trump Era Endgame


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about working on a novel seriously, especially the type I’m working on, is you pretty much are flying blind into the future. I have no idea what is going to happen with Trump, who flies by the plot of the novel like a blackhole.

I believe absolutely that Trump is never leaving office. Never. He will steal the 2020 election then demand a Constitutional Convention that will allow him to never, ever leave office.

As such, this fills me with an absolute existential rage and I have no way to express it other than creatively. That generates the massive amount of motivation needed to develop and write a novel the way I feel is required. I have a very brutal personal editor and it’s only been gradually over the last two years that I’ve finally figured out how to tell the story I want to tell the way I want to tell it.

Of course, there’s always that .0000000000000000000000000001% chance that I’m wrong and somehow we manage to physically remove President Bonkers out of the Oval Office without him blowing the world up. In that case, I think people will still want to read this novel, but for a different reason — it will be a great way to have a macro review of the just-concluded era.

Anyway, things are moving really fast with development and writing for the moment. I’m just about to start writing Part 2 which is meat and bones of the first act. I still have a tone-setting prelude I think I want to write, but I’ll probably save that when the mood strikes me.

My Prediction For The Republican Party In A Post-Trump America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue when thinking about the extremely unlikely possibility that we’ll actually physically get Trump out of the White House (no matter the outcome in the fall) is people think anything matters.

MAGA Republicans have gotten what they have wanted for 20 years — a big tax cut and a massive influx of young, hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench for 20 to 40 years. So, really, that’s what they’re going to focus about Trump going forward. That’s what they’ll pivot to.

Remember, we have about 20 years before the Graying of America crosses the Browning of America. As such, House Trump — even if somehow the lying, cheating and stealing they plan to do in the fall isn’t enough to keep them in power — will probably bounce back quite quickly. Trump will still have a Twitter account and a Rolodex of powerful people he can use after four years in office. He will, in effect, continue to be a one man Republican primary process.

And, remember, it was only six years from Nixon leaving office in 1974 to the Reagan Revolution of 1980. Six years. So, it seems pretty logical that MAGA is here to stay on a macro level, no matter what happens. When one of a democracy’s major parties doesn’t believe in democracy, well, that’s not something that is helpful to a liberal democracy at all.

Also, lurking in the darkness is a long-term goal on the part of the far Right to call up a Constitutional Convention so they can fuck everything up for good. It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of details at this point. Either it happens in Trump’s second term, or it happens during Tucker Carlson’s first term. Or whomever.

My absolute certainty as to how doomed we are — and my absolute inability to do anything about it — is the source of the energy needed for me to develop and write a novel about how fucked up everything is right now.

Trump Continues To Enrage Me & Inspire Me To Write



by Shelt Garner
@shetgarner

I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas.

I also feel extremely powerless right now. Trump is burning the country I love to the ground and, really, all I got is the ability to tell a good story. That’s the origin of me working on this novel for two years.

Every time I feel a bit uninspired or discouraged, Trump and MAGA do something that so enrages me that I redouble my efforts to explicate the Trump Era in an allegorical thriller. Though, to be honest, to call this an “allegorical” thriller is more how-the-sausage-is-made talk than anything else.

I *see* it as an “allegorical thriller” when, in fact, if I do my job right you, the audience, will simply see it as a thriller with an interesting conceit and that will be that.

I do need to hurry up with this thing, though. I simply have no idea what the context will be when I try to sell it. It will be a lot different if Trump is still in office than if he’s not. And there is the issue of setting. This is not “A Confederacy of Dunces” — my sister can’t sell it 11 years after my death.

This thing needs to be sold sooner rather than later. If it isn’t, then I will simply self-publish, finish the second book in the story and then, I dunno, maybe write a screenplay?

Flipping The Script On #MAGA’s Paranoid Delusional Canon Of Bonkers Conspiracy Theories In The #Novel I’m Developing & #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Say what you will about MAGA shitheads, they definitely are creative in their sheer insane, bonkers views on the world. So, in the novel I’m developing I actively flip the script on some of their favorite talking points.

It’s worked out quite well, if I do say so myself.

I like the idea of taking their insane fucktard conspiracies seriously and then turning them against them. So one of their favorite talking points — the existence of a Deep State — is a central plot point in this novel. In fact, it’s such a rich vein of surreal insanity that the more I think about it, the more I realize how great it is. It’s really a matter of simply figure out how to flesh it all out so it makes as much sense as possible.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me in my head, but putting it down on paper is a different matter altogether.

It’s just so funny to me. In fact, if I work hard enough, it’s possible I might hook some MAGA cocksuckers into reading the novel for no other reason than it strokes their fucking whacked out conspiracy theory needs. I must say in passing that I think the late Stieg Larsson was in to conspiracy theories, so given how influenced my work is by his stuff, it would be an appropriate homage to his novels to do this, even if it is mean to be DL ironic in nature.

As I said, the more I think about it, the more it works. If I could get MAGA people to read the novel for no other reason than I take seriously their paranoid fucking insane ideas, then, well, that would be pretty cool. The whole thing is done on the sly, though. I take is seriously, but with an eye cocked at the audience like, “Can you believe this shit?”

Anyway. It all makes sense in the context of the story. It has taken me two years to get to this point and it’s such a relief to finally reach land. I’ve finally figured out the infrastructure so I can lay out my vision for the canon of this novel. Now comes the hard part of seeing if my writing is up to the task.

Of #TrumpTaxes & The Allegorical Thriller About The Trump Era I’m Writing #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s hard to properly convey how much rage I feel towards the Trump Administration these days. With the punt on the part of SCOTUS in regards to Trump’s taxes, it seem pretty obvious that Trump is going to cruise into a stolen second term.

On the bright side, now I can throw my heart into the novel I’m writing which is meant to be one epic rant about the surreal excesses of the Trump Era. I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas but I also feel extremely powerless to do anything about Trump. So, all I can do is use my native storytelling ability to hopefully get people thinking about what a fucking monsters Trump and his enablers are. The goal is for that rant to be so diffused, however, that it won’t be preachy. It is designed, however, from the ground up to be able to lay out an indictment of extremism on both sides of the political spectrum.

The story is set in the immediate past, right before the pandemic. The second book is likely going to end just about the moment in early 2020 when it became clear that COVID19 was about to strike the United States. I also, for what its worth, do some down low ranting about people being oblivious to global climate change for good measure.

Anyway, as I have said before, I hope to have something of a personal writer’s retreat this weekend. I need some time to just stare out into space, recharge my batteries and maybe drink and read a lot.

I’ve come up with a very unique way to rant about the Trump Era. All systems are go right now to start writing on the first draft sometime after I get back from my writer’s retreat. I still have a huge amount of reading to do. So much reading. But it’s worth it.

Having a novel to develop and write distracts me from being enraged over how Trump and his minions are turning the nation I love into a managed democracy like Russia.

Ugh.

The Great Unknown That Is Trump’s Taxes



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The more I mull it, the more doesn’t seem to make any sense that Trump’s taxes will, ultimately, but the existential issue that we all hope it might be, should they be released. First and foremost, I don’t think we’ll ever see them, or if we do it’ll be long after it’s politically relevant, but let’s play pretend.

If Trump can get away lulzing the Russians putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers, do we really think his taxes will be any different? If you’re that 38% of the electorate that’s MAGA, I honestly can’t think of anything in the taxes that would shake your faith in either Q or Trump. If Trump isn’t very liquid and not really a billionaire….lulz? Trump has proven to the faithful whatever racist fucking thing they wanted from him in the first place. They’re not really thinking about how wealthy is really is at this point.

And even if or worst fears were true and it was extremely obvious that Trump was beholden directly to the Russians from a financial standpoint…so what? I mean, yeah, the usual silence in regards to Trump from the Republican ranks might be even more quiet than usual…but so what. They’ve thrown their lot with him come what may.

In a sense, I think Trump’s taxes are much like the Iraqi WMD issue. Saddam REALLY didn’t want us to poke around his country in a big way, even though he did not, in fact have WMD. Which, of course, led to his downfall anyway. So, in a sense, Trump’s taxes — no matter what we discover in them — will be a big old fat dud.

All I can say is Trump’s poll numbers would have to sink down into the 20s, like, NOW for anything to matter. If the economy tanked in a big way in, say, August-September, then we might be in for a little bit of a crisis. But not an existential one. We’re just too close to the election. Trump’s going to get a pass until Election Day and then the Russians are going to hack into our election systems…and Trump wins.

And it’ll be a solid 18 months before we can have another go at impeaching him, no matter what else happens.