Category: Tsar-A-Largo

Future History: The Omega Variant


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My fear at the moment is we’re not looking at the COVID19 pandemic in the right way. In fact, we need to readjust what we think the endgame may be. What if, in a sense, we’re all lulled into a false sense of security by COVID19 gradually being considered endemic.

And then, a year or two years from now, largely because of people refusing to vaccinated, it’s possible that really, really deadly version of COVID19 — the Omega Variant — might pop out. So, while everyone keeps taking about how “next time” will be a lot worse, it could be the Fire Next Time is nothing more than the Fire This Time rebooted.

So, not only could this be The New Normal, but it’s also possible that all of this is the set up for a far darker situation at some point in the future. And should the Omega Variant happen, it would happen with no notice. We would just wake up one day to news that the number of people dying from COVID has jumped from 2,000 a day to 10,000 (or more) a day.

And away we go.

If we were talking 10,000+ people dying a day in the United States of a COVID19 variant, it would freak everyone out and greatly change the political equation. Now, a lot of this would obviously depend on vaccines and therapeutics not working. If vaccines were really working and it was 10,000+ UNvaccinated people dying a day…oh boy.

Anyway, I suggest we reflect on what’s going on and COVID19 and maybe change our expectations some.

Please, Gonzo Texas Mercenaries, Descend On Ukraine — They Need You


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love Ukraine because, as a nation, they’ve been shit on by the Russians, then Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Soviets again and have managed to maintain their culture and honor. In fact, Ukraine is somewhere I would love to live long-term at some point just to drink a huge amount of vodka and trade stories about stupid shit we’ve all done while drunk.

Anyway, the point is — it’s my impression that there is this amorphous blob of Texas-based mercenaries who go to hot spots all over the globe and kick ass. Now, for political reasons, most of these guys (and gals?) would probably hate my guts, but on a personal basis, I think we would get along pretty well. I’ve had plenty of bonkers MAGA people as friends in the past. (I will note that this was before Trump became president, but, lulz.)

The point is — I hope some of those Texas cowboys are in Ukraine right now. Things could get desperate for the people of Ukraine if, say, 175,000 Russians crash into the country and it sure would help if a few thousand highly trained Texans were to go First Blood on the Russians in eastern Ukraine as they try to consolidate power.

Let’s rock.

Some ‘What’s The Craic?’ #Podcast Episodes

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some of my recent podcasts.

How The Russo-Ukrainian Winter War Might Play Out


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a nobody. I don’t know anything. But I like to run scenarios. And I know enough about what’s going on between Russia and Ukraine to get myself in trouble. So, here goes.

Stage 1
I imagine what would happen is there would be a huge artillery barrage to soften up the front line. The footage of this happening would scare the shit out of the domestic American audience and be the thing that pushed everything else off the front page for a few days (months? forever?)

Stage 2
This is would be make or break for Ukraine. If after 24-48 hours of artillery attack they weren’t able to prove their mettle in the first encounters with the Russians, it’s possible the Russians might make a break for Kiev. The logic would be — capture Kiev and force the Ukrainians to sue for peace. If, however, the Ukrainians do a good job, then, Russians probably will settle for a smash-and-grab operation that has far more modest objectives.

Stage 3
Now we come to the stage where long term, the Russians just can’t win and makes you wonder what the fuck they’re up to. History and human nature tells us that even if the Russians get all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper River and all of Novorossiya as part of a comprehensive peace treaty after taking Kiev, there’s a good chance that there would be a long term pitched battle on a massive scale. It would be just like Afghanistan in the 80s, only with a huge population in a far more strategic location.

I’m at a loss as to why Putin can’t see the implications of Stage 3. It’s a mystery.

Dec 7th — The Day Putin Could Be A Real Dick


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know anything. I’m a nobody. But it seems at least possible that President Biden’s phone call with Putin tomorrow, Dec. 7th, is something of a trap.

Here’s how it would go: the two men have a phone call and it ends. Almost immediately, things begin to change dramatically on the ground in Ukraine. The Russians are in a hurry to attack for some reason.

Joe Rogan would be surprised.

They attack so it’s still Dec. 7th USA time and everyone blames Biden for screwing up the phone call on Dec. 7th, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

But that is just one possibility. More likely, the whole thing will be a lulz and we can move on to welcoming 2022.

A Major Russian War Against Ukraine Would End The Covid19 Pandemic Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I’m not predicting that people will stop dying of COVID should there be a major war between Russia and Ukraine, I am suggesting that our perception of COVID19 will change dramatically.

But one big caveat — I don’t think there’s going to be a war between the Russians and Ukrainians. Or, at least, not a big one. All of this is just another very expensive power play on Putin’s part to get a summit with Biden. He’s getting that summit on Tuesday and so, lulz, everything should calm down after that.

And, yet, let’s imagine that didn’t happen.

Let’s imagine that a huge war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine. We need to appreciate that it’s possible that COVID19 would go from being seeing a unique pandemic to a regular part of life — or endemic. A lot of this would depend on how big the war was, how long it lasted and what it’s endgame turned out to be.

But there is a finite amount of media attention. If the eyes of the world are on a big chunk of Ukraine being eaten by Russia, it’s inevitable that the sexxy COVID19 pandemic would be seen as simply endemic and something we have to put up with from here on out.

The only way this would change in the future would be if a REALLY BAD new variant of COVID popped out and we were talking about millions, not thousands dying from it at any particular moment.

I guess the whole point of this is — a major regional war in Europe would jiggle everything in a big way. Everything from the January 6th insurrection investigation to all of the other Trump crimes we’re looking into to the COVID19 pandemic would be pushed off the front page in favor of a huge war.

But none of that has happened yet. We’ll have to wait and see if it does.

Of NATO, Ukraine & Putin’s Metrics For Invasion


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One theory floating around Twitter is Putin is about to engage in a massive, risky war against Ukraine because he wants to stop the country from joining NATO.

I struggle to imagine this being true, for a lot of reasons.

The biggest is — if all Putin wants to do is ensure that Ukraine doesn’t join NATO, all he has to do is a modest smash-and-grab operation connecting Donbass to Odessa. Have enough of a lingering “frozen conflict” endgame to it that NATO just doesn’t want to risk letting Ukraine join.

And all of the other metrics presented to me can be swatted away. Putin is old, they say. And I say, so what. Putin is an autocrat and all autocrats think they’re going to live forever. The list goes on.

You can’t escape some cold hard facts. It’s sexy to think of a big war between Ukraine and Russia, but you can’t escape how small Russia’s economy is. You can’t escape the stress such a huge, potentially long-term, war against Ukraine that has a fair sized population would have on Russia’s economy and overall stability.

The point is — what metrics is Putin using that would cause him to believe a general war against Ukraine would be a good idea? What the hell is he thinking? Because it would make a lot more sense if this was all just a very expensive bit of saber rattling meant to get a face-to-face sit down IRL with Biden.

And he can do that because he’s an autocrat. So, for the time being, that’s what I think is happening. When something changes, I’ll revise my assessment.

TrumpRussia 2.0


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is really bonkers. But it’s entertaining to mull this possibility, so here we go. We all know how much Trump loves to suck Putin’s cock, so it would make a lot of sense if those two guys continue to chat like school girls. And we know that Trump never met a quid pro quo that he didn’t like.

So, what if Putin told Trump — hey, it’s not the House flipping you have to slow walk January 6th things in the courts to, it’s a point this December.

Trump wouldn’t know when, exactly, but he would know that the eyes of the world would turn rather abruptly to Ukraine soon. So much so, that we would wake up in six months and look at each other, shocked that Congress’ January 6th investigation has mysteriously faded into nothingness.

Now, obviously, this kooky idea falls part after this because the Republican Party could very well collapse into two waring camps if Putin misjudges the willingness of Ukrainians to fight for their nation. The longer the war lasts, the more Putin-loving Trump will begin to tear away from the rest of the Republican Party.

But Trump, obviously, doesn’t have the mental ability to do that second and third level political thinking — he’s more of a grunt kind of guy –so, it’s possible this informal quid pro quo might happen.

Or not. I have no proof and it sounds kind of bonkers even to me.

I note that The Washington Post is reporting that evidence suggests that Russia may attack Ukraine early next year with 175,000 troops.

So, if there is any discussion between TrumpWorld and Putin that would mean the there are any number of other, less nefarious explanations for why they’re slow walking everything — that’s just Trump people do. The whole Russia thing could very well be happening totally independent of what’s going on in the States with Trump and January 6th.

But the war starts early, like, say between now and Dec. 16, then, that would be really spook, because December 16th is the date TrumpWorld lawyer Jeff Clark pushed his Congressional testimony to.

A Republican Civil War Over Ukraine As 2022 – 2024’s COVID19


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me be clear, I’m only even continuing to talk about this because I’m smarting over being so wrong over 2020. It seemed a political absolute in the fall of 2019 that Trump was going to win re-election through hook or through crook. When he didn’t I was in shock and struggled to figure out how I could have possibly gotten things so wrong.

But I’m being too hard on myself — no one could have predicted that a combination of Trump being a lazy idiot, the COVID19 pandemic and Biden being a lucky, good candidate would happen all in quick succession.

As such, I scramble for what could make me look like a fool again. What could possibly stop Trump and MAGA from wining in 2022 and 2024 outright because autocracy is popular? Well, it seems as though at the moment, Trump’s love of Russia might be it.

It could be that both Putin miscalculates and Trump miscalculates and not only does any war between Russia and Ukraine escalate, but the war lingers and captures the imagination of American public such that two factions would be established.

Trump’s pro-Russia MAGA faction and everyone else.

But a LOT would have to go wrong for both Trump and Putin for things to get that bad. More likely, everything will be very muddled and, lulz, the United States will become an autocracy as predicted on schedule.

Our Second Trump Political Miscalculation


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The big miscalculation everyone made about Trump in 2016 was he was an autocrat. Everyone — on both sides — thought Trump was going to be a real, honest-to-God autocrat. In fact, I came to tell who would listen to me that Trump was going to “not lose” the 2020 election because “autocrats never lose.”

Well, surprise, both sides were wrong.

All Trump turned out to be was an empty suit. And dumb and lazy one at that. So, he was all talk. This led both the people who voted for him and the people who opposed him to make huge misjudgments about what to expect from Trump going forward.

This tendency for Trump to be a lazy idiot that came out in full force around January 6th. He knew what he wanted — to stay in power via a coup — but he was just too lazy and stupid to pull it off. So, virtually anyone else in his position could have stolen the 2020 election in broad day light and gotten away with it.

But he was too much of an addled lazy fool to put even the most barest of work necessary to do it.

Anyway, now I think we’re doing it again with Trump. Now, everyone is freaking out about how Trump is going to steal the 2024 election via Bannon’s “administrative coup.” Meanwhile, everyone on the Right is gearing up to steal the 2022 and 2024 elections in a pretty brazen manner.

Everything I see, however, indicates that this is all going to be a lulz. Autocracy is so popular in the United States at the moment that we’re an autocracy without an autocracy.

For all the hard work on both sides, in the end, Trump is likely to win fair and square. Then, of course, the huge battle will be on who will play Putin to his Yelstin. And about a dozen would be American Putins within the Republican Party know that right now and there’s a huge amount of political bloodlust within the different Republicans who want the chance to grow both amazingly powerful and wealthy like Putin.

And all I’m saying is, in the end, our transition to autocracy will likely to be peaceful and something of a dud. But as I keep writing, it ain’t happened yet. There is, I guess, a greater than zero chance of a civil war

We’re too far out, however, for me to know for sure one way or another. I definitely am leaning in favor of the United States simply slipping peacefully into autocracy.

If we actually did have a civil war, then you have WW3 on your hands and a “Great Reset” not seen since the end of WW2.