Category: Tsar-A-Largo

Phone Polling Adventures


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As we lurch towards Trump finalizing his fascist consolidation of power in the United States, I find myself becoming a sucker for political phone polls. Something about this small — but important — aspect of recently bygone era when what the population of the country actually thought is appealing.

One thing I’ve noticed is most of the polls I’m getting are obviously from Republicans. All of the polls I’ve taken recently were pretty fucking warped. They don’t seem like polls at all, but rather being used as a focus group for Republican oppo research.

But none of it matters.

The Durham Investigation is going to indict Biden in late October. If that doesn’t work, the slowing of the mail will. And if THAT doesn’t work, the Russians will live up to their part of the bargain associated with Trump removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany and hack directly into our election systems.

As I keep saying, we really, really need to accept that the United States is now a fascist state. The whole snatching people off the street will soon enough be pushing people out of windows.

There is no hope.

Fascist America: Everyone Needs To Do A Gut Check



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The fascists have won. I say that because Trump is assembling about a dozen different ways he’s going to steal the 2020 Election. If it’s not the Durham Investigation indicting Joe Biden the weekend before the election, it’ll be the post office essentially becoming an arm of the Trump Campaign. And those are just the most obvious ones. There will not be a free and fair election.

And, even if somehow Trump manages to self-own to such an extent that Biden actually does manage to be win the electoral vote, Trump is going to challenge the certification of the popular vote at ever stage. In the end, his criminality and his insanity will fuse and, well, lulz, he’s not going anywhere.

So, with that in mind, if you’re not MAGA, you need to do a gut check as to what you believe. It is very, very easy to write a witty tweet that goes viral. But it’s going to be a lot different when ICE starts snatching people off the street or pushing people out windows in the real world.

What do you believe on an existential level? Are you really willing to face indefinite incarceration in an ICE camp or the risk of simply being pushed out a window for your opposition to Trump’s fascist tyranny? Nearly everyone can talk a good talk on social media, but when you’re shoved into an unmarked van by a member of PACT or ICE, you might simply turn into a quivering mess.

There’s going to come a moment very, very soon — probably in 2021 — when we’re going to find out who is willing to pledge their “lives and scared honor” for the America that existed for about 240 years before Trump. While a few bonkers people like me, with nothing to lose, will take a stand and tell Trump’s goons to fuck off — and be murdered accordingly — most people are going to take the advice of MAGA people who will tell them, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up.”

I don’t have any easy answers for you. I can’t tell you in practical terms what to do or how to prevent the inevitable from happening. I hate violence and I hate guns. Usually, it takes a war of some sort to end a fascist regime. There’s no one to invade us. I mean, who’s going to do it? The EU?

All I can tell you is the final official transformation of the United States into a fascist state is going to happen in fits and starts and then EXTREMELY RAPIDLY. Get out of the country if you can. Start thinking about where you might hide.

But the issue is — ranting on social media about Trump simply isn’t going to cut it anymore. You’re going to have to think about your career, your life and your family in the real world. Fascism is the ultimate “cancel culture,” if you will.

Darkness has fallen. There’s no going back. If it’s not Trump who does it, it’ll be Mike Pomepo or Tom Cotton. The macro trends simply aren’t on our side. And while there may be rolling political violence this fall and winter, I just don’t see there being any type of organized civil war. Though, I would note the only way we’re ever, EVER getting rid of Trump is the country will have to be on the verge of a revolution. That’s the only way I can think of that the political fault lines might shift just long enough to physically frog walk Trump out of the Oval Office.

Even then, this would be only a brief reprieve. Trump would immediately become a political martyr in the eyes of MAGA and he’ll find some fascist ghost writer to write his own “Mien Kampf.”

We’ve reached the end of the United States as we’ve known it.

Countdown To American Fascism: ‘Vichy America’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When major macro historical events happen, it’s often very difficult for the people living through them to understand what’s going on. This is the case with what’s happening in the United States. Several existential macro trends are happening all at once in American society, such that what’s really happening is almost complete obscured to us on an everyday basis.

The only thing I can compare modern America to is Vichy France. The French leadership in 1940 decided they would rather be “brown than red” and simply gave up when confronted with defeat at the hands of the Nazis. It makes a lot of sense now, but at the time, I suspect a lot your average Frenchmen were astonished at what was going on around them.

The key to understanding these macro trends is Trump. He’s the Rosetta stone for the fall of the American Republic. That Trump continues to have a base of about 40% is all you need to know about the rise of American Fascism. Trump is America’s Putin to an eerie extent. Or, put another way, if he’s not America Putin, he’s the guy who broke the seal on tyranny and allowed that person to come to power.

Really, the only thing stopping Trump from attaining the level of power that Putin has in Russia is, well, Trump. Trump is such a incompetent moron that all he can do is destroy the norms necessary to get us to the point that Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton turns us into a fascist authoritarian “managed democracy.” On a macro level this is an absolute. Our fate is sealed. There’s no turning back.

What this means is, the Republican Party no longer sees democracy as legitimate and while Democrats are thinking of killer memes that “destroy” Trump on Twitter, the Republicans are assembling all the real-world tools they need to destroy democracy for the next 30 to 40 years, if not forever. It’s possible that this is it — whatever democracy arises from the ashes of the United States won’t be called the United States.

And, really, there’s very little we can do at this point. It’s all over but the shouting, as they say. Trump is going to brazenly steal the 2020 Election, call for a Constitutional Convention and then start pushing people out of windows in quick succession.

Something about Obama’s second term turned the Republican Party into rabid fascists. All you have to do is turn on Fox News any night and the level vitriol directed against anyone who stands in the way of The Dear Leader is pretty astonishing. Twitter liberals too often clutch their pearls and say, “Oh, that would never happen” because they have deluded themselves into thinking Republicans give a shit about anything but power and greed.

As I keep saying, we have to wait until the demographic trends of the Graying of American crosses the Browning of America at some point in the next 20 to 40 years before we have a chance to do anything about American Fascism. Fascism is here in America now. We’re a fascist state for no other reason than one of the two major political parties IS FASCIST.

I wish Republicans would embrace their status as fascists. Such unexpected honesty would make life easier for everyone involved. Then we wouldn’t have to quibble about what they really mean when they say the United States is a “Constitutional Republic.”

On a practical level, because of the Overton Window, what’s probably going to happen is Trump’s brazen theft of the 2020 Election will be seen as the final dead knell of the United States, even though the American textbooks of the future will likely say this happened when Trump was acquitted by the Senate. Once Trump realized he could get away with anything, the rest took care of itself.

Darkness has fallen. Really, at this point it’s just an issue of how long it takes before ICE begins pushing people out of windows like the Russians do. I predict that will begin to happen no later than 2023 if Trump doesn’t finally lose his shit. And maybe about 2025 if we have to wait until Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton finishes the job Trump started.

I can’t predict the future, but the macro trends in the United States say this is absolutely going to happen. It’s cold hard fact of life. There’s no going back now.

Of The Coming Constitutional Convention



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Again, form follows function. Trump calls his good buddy Putin about once every two weeks these days, so it’s safe to say that if the bullshit Durham Investigation doesn’t help Trump steal the 2020 Election, the Russians will.

We therefore have to accept that it’s an absolute fact of life that Trump is going to “win” re-election by stealing it in a rather dramatic fashion. There will be a lot of angry tweets by the so-called “Resistance” but not a lot is going to happen where it actually matters — real life.

For months, twitter “thought leaders” will fight over what, exactly, allowed Trump to win. While all that’s happening, of course, Trump is going to start ranting about how big the budget deficit is and how we ABSOLUTELY have to call a Constitutional Convention to solve that problem.

We will then go through what is now the routine. At first, Trump will tweet about it and everyone will be shocked. Republicans will universally say Trump’s just joking and we’ve all fallen for his “master troll.” There will be a lot of talk about how people like me are being hysterical, as usual and that “Orange Man Bad” is all I have to contribute to the conversation. Then, of course, Trump will make it absolutely clear that he’s very, very serious about this proposal.

This will lead to a lot of ever-so-serious discussion about the need to balance the budget and how the only way to enact this long-needed addition to the Constitution is via a Constitutional Convention. The Fox News propaganda machine will be all in. While Twitter Liberals gnash their teeth about what a bad idea a Constitutional Convention would be, Fox New’s will articulate a very simple case for why it’s needed.

The momentum will begin to build in the mainstream press. Soon, there will be talk of the possible liberal benefits of such a Convention. Who knows, maybe the ERA will be passed! There will be a pitched battle for much of 2021 as to if this is a good idea or not. Maggie Haberman will coo about what a brilliant political mind Trump is.

Ultimately, of course, we’ll get the 5(?) state legislatures we need to have it called up. As I understand it, precedent would suggest that delegates to this Convention will be surprise! picked by state legislatures which are overwhelmingly MAGA Republicans.

The moment the convention assembles, it goes rouge. Some of that might be from Trump ranting at it everyday on Twitter and some of it may be just Republicans, by definition, hate liberal democracy. When the process is completed a slew of American Enabling Acts are drawn up. Birthright citizenship will be eliminated. Trump will be able to run for as many terms as he likes. Hell, maybe they’ll figure out a way that Trump can simply rule by decree because, lulz, nothing matters.

After a lot of debate, 3/4’s of the State legislatures pass these American Enabling Acts and House Trump’s power is codified into law.

That’s it. That’s our future.

Trump’s Coming Second Term Purge of Late Night Hosts


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Form follows function, so it would make a lot of sense that once Trump brazenly steals a second term that one of the first things he’s going to do is purge late night of all the hosts he doesn’t like.

Remember, by this point, Trump will have crossed a number of Rubicons in his successful efforts to steal the 2020 election, so he’s going to do some pretty jawdropping things that even he might not have thought about doing before. There are two ways I could see him getting rid of late show hosts he didn’t like.

One would be direct — he tells the heads of the majors media companies to do it or else. He’ll take their broadcasting license or whatever. This probably will happen behind the scenes, but when the boom is dropped it will happen very rapidly. We’ll all find out what he did, but lulz, nothing matters.

There’s another way he might do it — he might convince “German Industrialists” to buy up stock in various media companies and get them to pressure media execs to get rid of the hosts that way.

Whenever this happens — and it WILL happen — there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth by media types. We’ll learn all about the Smothers Brothers and LBJ. There might be some isolated protests. Many a “successful” meme will be launched on social media that “destroys” Trump. (Ugh.) But, in the end, nothing will happen. Absolutely nothing. Trump will win and there will be a new crop of late night hosts. It could be a number of these new hosts will be women or minorities in a sop liberals. But, oddly, none of these new hosts will talk about politics at all.

Meanwhile, the purged late night hosts will get new deals on Netflix or Disney+. They will all start a number of successful podcasts.

But an era will be over.

Soon enough, a similar purge will take place in TV newsrooms across the country. It’s even possible that Rupert Murdoch will be encouraged to buy The New York Times and or CNN. By the time Trump ramps up his efforts to get a Constitutional Convention called up to “pass a balanced budget amendment” the media in the United States will be nothing more than a lap dog to House Trump.

I believe barring a pretty enormous self-own on the part of Trump himself (which is obviously always possible) this is our future. It’s an absolute law of nature at this point.

A Liberal Fever Dream About A House Trump ‘Interregnum’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me stress that Trump is never leaving office for any reason. Or, if he does, the level of bloodshed involved in actually physically removing Trump from the White House will be so severe as to be a 9/11-level tragedy.

I say this because autocrats never lose. Also, for Trump to remain this popular after all his bullshit is a self-evident sign that there are some deep, deep existential flaws in the American body politic. At this point, we’re doomed to an autocratic “managed democracy” one way or another, it’s just a matter of who does it and how. Trump’s just the guy who crashed through the norms to get us to this point.

So, instead of any House Trump “Interregnum,” we’re far more likely to have either a mini-civil war, rolling political violence or maybe even some sort of “Unity Government” meant to punt the crisis down the road until the 2022 mid-terms. I’m being absolutely serious. House Trump is a reality and, baring something like Trump bungling a limited nuclear exchange with the DPRK, it’s ultimate dream of an illiberal white entho state is going to become a reality at some point in the next decade. It’s an absolute law of political science at this now, at least on the macro level.

But, let’s just imagine there is an Interregnum. How would it play out?

Well, I’m going to work on the assumption that what ultimately forces Trump out of office is Trump loses in a massive landslide so huge that it’s difficult for the Russians to pull off a hack of our election systems without someone noticing. So, while there will be violence and law suits and Trump ranting at the top of his lungs that he’s still president no matter what, at some point around Christmas, Senate Republicans realize not so much that they have any backbone, but the mood of the country is such that the U. S Military isn’t going to support their efforts to keep Trump in office. They begin to make it clear that Trump needs to leave office. We still have to frog walk him out of the Oval Office, but we do, in fact, manage to get him physically out of the building after a few weeks of tense negotiation.

What happens next is MAGA doesn’t blink an eye. The same bullshit echochamber that kept Trump at 40% of the electorate will now rant constantly about how Biden is an illegitimate president. Republicans will stonewall anything the Biden Administration does and begin to plot how to regain control of the House so they can impeach Biden (and his Veep.)

Now, it’s not too difficult to sketch out a scenario where MAGA continues to be so absolute in its support of The Dear Leader that when they do finally take control of the House, they name him Speaker and then do everything in their power to remove Biden and his veep from office so Trump can become president again. They will demand they both resign at every opportunity. They will scream that Biden “stole” the election and pound to table that the entire administration is based on a lie and has to be removed.

And, so, that’s what’s going to happen.

Either they push Biden and his veep out of off somehow and Trump becomes president again, or they spend the next two years screams at the top of their lungs about any possible thing the Biden Administration might have done wrong. If necessary they’ll simply lie about whatever they need to lie about.

In 2024, Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton is the Republican nominee and they win, thus able to do everything that Trump would have done in his second term.

The End.

Let’s Address #MAGA Talking Points


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some of the current MAGA talking points as best I can determine. I’ll try to address them as best I can.

“We’re A Constitutional Republic, Not A Democracy’
If someone is using this to defend Trump, what they’re really saying is when Trump brazenly steals the election in the fall, all that matters is he stays in power and fuck you. In fact, I would go so far as to say this is something of a fallback position while they think of some other bullshit reason to defend the indefensible. They want to get into a squabble over terminology and not address the issues at hand.

As always, Trump himself does them no favors when he tweets out a suggestion that the fall election be “delayed.” This goes beyond simply laying the groundwork for being cool with Trump outright stealing the election because “we’re a constitutional republic and not a democracy” straight to outright fascist thuggery. Usually, when you bring such things up, they say Trump is “just joking” and you’ve fallen for his trolling again, libtard.

Trump As Master Troll
For this to work, you have to essentially posit that nothing Trump says should be taken seriously, even after he makes it clear it IS meant to be taken seriously. Trump does this constantly to his supporters. They call you a fool for falling for Trump’s trolling then he turns around and makes it absolutely clear that he was not joking. In fact, he doubles down, triples down in all seriousness the thing that his followers throw in your face as simply a “troll” that has “triggered” you. Remember, all MAGA talking points are based on the concept of “owning the moment” on a tactical level. Strategically, they could care less. Fuck you. This leads them to some pretty astonishing self-owns on a strategic level, but lulz, they have no shame and don’t care about anything but power and greed.

“Trump Is Protecting My Family From Violent Communists And Anarchists“
This is straight out of the fascist playbook. Fascists want to draw the lines of political debate so absolutely on an abstract level that there is absolutely no room for compromise or debate. This is why Trump sent his Little Green Men to Portland — he wanted to feature the resulting violence in campaign ads.

MAGA wants to conflate violent protests with peaceful protests. It’s like whenever gun control is brought up, gun rights advocates immediately go insane with notions that you want to “take” their guns not “control” them. There are plenty of valid concerns that conservative-but-not-MAGA people about how swiftly perceptions have changed about some things. Usually, this is more a result of them being zoned out because they’re so busy raising their kids and paying their mortgage that they “don’t have time for politics.” When that bubble is pierced by this or that thing on Fox News, they get all upset and pretty much are so overwhelmed with their abstract fears about what MIGHT happen, that it’s difficult — if not impossible — to talk to them about the actual fascist behavior of Trump.

Projection
This is another tried and true form of gas-lighting on the part of MAGA these days. What they want is to have a big argument about what Biden has — or hasn’t done — so you spend a lot of time fighting over this and not the very concrete fuckups that Trump has done. That’s why Hunter Biden and the Durham Investigation are so existential to MAGA — they want to distract the average person who “doesn’t have time for politics” with the things that Biden may have done wrong, so there’s no time left over for the obscene amount of things that House Trump has, in fact, done.

“You’re Going To Have To Learn Chinese And Russian If Biden Is Elected”
This talking point is so delusional and beyond any basis in fact as to be darkly comical. Now, I will admit that over the last five years, I’ve probably come across as rather hysterical about our march towards fascism. But, in hindsight, I wasn’t wrong, I was just wrong about chronology. That and Trump simply is too stupid, incompetent and lay to do much of the stuff he obviously wants to do. And, lulz, he always has a stolen second term to do all the stuff I’ve feared he would do in his first. All the indicators are pointing in a very, very dark direction

But the point of this talking point, I guess, is that Biden is soft on Russia and China. This talking point, like so many of MAGA’s talking points, is meant to either make you so angry that you just start screaming at each other, or to muddle the waters while you attempt to explain that, if anything, it’s Trump who is extremely “soft” on both China and Russia. Trump begged President Xi to help him win re-election and said he was cool with concentration camps. Meanwhile, Trump has always been soft on Russia and has called him about every two weeks since March. But by the time everything gets sorted out, they either walk away, have attacked you personally, or have pull some other bullshit out of their ass

Lastly, there’s The Big Lie
This talking point reminds you that the lines have been drawn and there’s no going back. This talking point is pretty much just “Fuck you” dressed up in any number of extremely stupid or surreal gross misinterpretations of facts that are pretty much just “I’m scared of the Browning of America” said with different words.

In the end, there’s simply nothing you can do with MAGA people. There are some extremely complicated, existential flaws in the American political system that aren’t going anywhere. And demographic trends don’t suggest liberal democracy in the United States is going to survive MAGA.

Countdown To American Fascism: Trump’s ‘Plan’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For a variety of reasons, I believe that right now, Trump is still in the “abstract fear” phase of his efforts to brazenly steal the election. He knows that he’s assembled a dozen different things that in conjunction will help him steal the election in such a way that Twitter liberals will squabble amongst themselves for a decade as to which one, specifically, did the trick.

So, in a vague sense, Trump simply wants to win. He really doesn’t care how it happens, as long as he wins and is sworn in on Jan 20th, 2021. He’s willing to burn everything — EVERYTHING — to the ground to accomplish this goal. Though it’s unlikely he’s actually articulated to himself yet, he’s even willing to have blood run in the streets.

But as has been mentioned on Twitter by others, it definitely seems as though his basic fail safe at the moment is to announce his victory Election Night (no matter where things stand) then denounce anything after that as fraudulent. Remember, as I understand it, election results have to be certified a number of times before the Electors vote. It seems pretty obvious that if the half-dozen different things Trump is doing to steal the election don’t work by the Election, that he will pressure Red State legislatures to not certify election results, or if they do, do so in his favor. (I think Pence, acting as the president of the Senate also has to certify the votes near the end of the process.)

Anyway, all Trump wants to do is win, so fuck you. Even if everyone, EVERYONE knows that what is happening is wrong, Trump won’t care. All he cares is staying in power and so Twitter liberals can rant all they want to on Twitter, in the end, Trump gets sworn in and people start getting pushed out of windows as part of Trump’s stolen second term.

The absolute fall back position Trump vaguely has in his mind at this point is to sow such doubt in the public’s mind as to the nature of Biden’s victory –should it somehow happen despite Trump’s skulduggery — that Republicans can make the case that the entire Biden Administration is illegitimate. This is something people like me think about the Trump Administration and, as such, MAGA is going to absolutely believe this no matter what.

How this absolute belief in the “illegitimacy” of the Biden Administration on the part of MAGA expresses itself is a huge question. It’s very likely that the first 100 days of any Biden Administration would be simply struggling to keep the country together. There could be rolling political violence across the country as MAGA people of all stripes freak the fuck out that The Dear Leader has been “overthrown” by Godless Communist progressive liberals.

There are a number of scenarios where things grow so dire that there is some sort of “Unity Government” formed out of desperation, maybe negotiated by the U.S. Military. The aim of this would be to simply punt the near-civil war the country was at because of Trump’s thuggish behavior for about two years until they’re another election.

I could see a scenario where there’s a huge conference where it’s decided that Electors might vote for Biden as POTUS and Pence (or whomever) as Veep and the cabinet would be made up of both Democrats and Republicans. This would not work, of course, because Republicans want to murder Democrats in cold blood by this point.

But we might try.

The point is, Trump wants, at the very least, MAGA to not see the Biden Administration as legitimate so the Republican Party can run on that in two years. Things could grow extremely surreal if Republicans win the House and then name Trump as Speaker of the House so Trump would be in the line of succession.

Don’t laugh. This could really happen.

What Fresh Hell Will August Bring



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

August is the worst month of the year, in large part because all the “powerful people” are out to lunch on vacation. So, as fate has it nearly every year, some huge breaking news happens while they’re sipping margaritas somewhere remote and secluded that forces them to pay attention again.

Slate has an article they re-publish every year about this very thing. They propose abolishing the month altogether it’s so bad.

Anyway, let’s think up some bonkers scenarios for August.

War
While Trump is obviously going to ultimately steal the election in an extremely brazen fashion, he’s such an insecure idiot — and self-own artist — that it would be very easy to see him go way out of his way to provoke a war with either the DPRK or Iran. The conventional wisdom is that as long as a war with the DPRK didn’t go nuclear, the whole thing could be wrapped up in about three months — which would place us at just about when Election Day happens. People would be humming Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA” on their way to the polls and Trump breezes towards an easy (legitimate) victory. Iran is a lot trickier and less likely to be wrapped up in time. The DPRK is so crazy, of course, that they could very well engage in a limited nuclear exchange with the US which Trump might be blamed for and, well, that might help his re-election chances. There is the long shot chance that the United States and China might go at it, but that’s a pretty scary proposition.

World War III
In this scenario, it’s not just the United States and the DPRK or Iran who have at it, it’s the entire world. One way this might happen is the Russians, fearing Trump might somehow magically lose despite their best efforts to help him steal the election, decide to grab as much of Ukraine as they can while the going’s good. This destabilizes the world in general and some major hotspots flair up all at the same time. Several regional wars happening at the same time would be marketed as WWIII by the press. This is a very unlikely scenario — I mean, the Russians know they’re going to be successful hacking our election — so, lulz. But you never know. It is interesting, of course, to speculate on what the reaction among Americans would be to a general war between the Russians and the Ukrainians — would people even notice?

The Durham Investigation
Republicans have absolute bloodlust when it comes to the Durham Investigation into the origins of the TrumpRussia probe. They get all excited just thinking about it. What they want, of course, is a repeat of 2016 when there was an air of criminality surrounding Hillary Clinton for various reasons. While Durham is a good little thug and will likely wait until the weekend before the election to indict the entire Obama Administration including Biden, there’s a chance he might drop that particular turd in August to let it linger in the national consciousness for a few months.

The Second Great Depression Officially Starts
As you may know, the Republicans are dicks and simply refused to do anything about propping up the economy because, lulz, Trump’s going to indict Biden anyway, so fuck you. But there’s a chance, at least, that the economy, which has struggled the last few months (to say the least) will finally crater because of the lack of an extra $600 in the unemployed’s pockets, no $1,200 stimulus check and lack of eviction protection. It could be that by the end of August, the economy will finally be so bad that the mouthbreathing knuckle draggers of MAGA might, at last, sit up and take notice. If Trump’s approval rating begins to drift down towards 30-25% on a consistent basis, when the Russians hack our election systems as part of Trump’s quid pro quo with them (his part being removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany) the disparity between the polls and votes might be so dramatic that someone, somewhere might begin to ask questions. (This is, of course, a lulz, because fuck you, Bill Barr is going to make sure that’s not an issue and House Trump is able to consolidate power through a second term Constitutional Convention.)

Trump Finally Snaps
This, in a sense, is the absolute worst case scenario. But just as death be not proud, going bonkers be not proud. It’s not like when someone goes bonkers that they say, “Well, this is really going to hurt Republicans, so I’ll go bonkers now.” Nope. While, in general, I believe Trump will, in fact, inevitably go bonkers, it could be well into his stolen second term when it happens. But if this happened in August, just about the time he’s set to be formally nominated by the Republicans, it would be a political crisis of an unprecedented nature. The system is simply not designed for something that dramatic this late in the process. The issue about Trump going bonkers is at first we wouldn’t even notice it because he’s generally bonkers as it is. If he finally snapped, it would have to be REALLY BAD. So bad, so depraved, so offensive, that the entire country would grind to a halt while we figured out what to do. CNN would be giving us minute-by-minute updates as to what was going on. With this one, there’s simply no known endgame. It’s very possible that after about 24 hours of silence, Republicans would bounce to his defense, no matter what. They’re a death cult and they honestly would rather Trump nuke us all to hell than risk the abstract dangers of Communist progressive liberals attacking the sanctity of marriage. If Trump’s bonkers behavior go so absolutely bad at some point in August that Republicans simply, at last, had no defense of Trump other than “fuck you,” well, who knows what might happen.

Something REALLY Bad — And Unexpected — Happens
This would be something I simply can’t predict. Something so jaw-dropping that all the fucked up things that have happened so far in 2020 pale in comparison. I’m thinking things like either Trump or Biden grow gravely ill (physically) ill for some reason. The Senate Republicans finally figure out a way to knock Biden out of the race through their investigations of Hunter Biden or, I don’t know, COVID19 mutates and becomes far, far more deadly.

Countdown To American Fascism: Republicans Don’t Believe In Democracy



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since 1800, Americans have enjoyed the peaceful transfer of power. That tradition will end with the 2020 election. In the end, we may have the first instance in American history where brute force determines the presidency, not the will of the people.

But a lot — A LOT — has to go wrong for Republicans for that to be an issue. Trump and his Republican enablers have assembled about a dozen different ways, in conjunction, that will make impossible for Biden to win. There won’t be one single thing that we can point to that we can get upset with, but a variety of things that make sure House Trump stays in power.

If it’s not slowing the mail down, it’s going to be the Durham Investigation. If it’s not the Durham Investigation, it will be the Russians hacking directly into our election systems. The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on. The point is, of course, that Republicans no longer believe in democracy. It’s surreal that Twitter liberals aren’t more alarmed by this.

What Republicans want is to pull a fast one on us all, so different people think different things were responsible for Biden’s loss. They want no consensus to form so while we’re all fighting over how it happened, they’re busy pushing people out of windows. Or purging late night hosts, or whatever. The point is they want if not absolute power, something akin to what is found in modern day Russia.

And, sad to say, the macro trends simply are not going to American democracy’s favor. Not until the Graying of American crosses the Browning of America will things begin to go back to “normal,” but even then it’s debatable. It could be that this is it — America will finally cross the Rubicon into tyranny in 2020.

This is how I could see it happening — a series of things go wrong for House Trump and their last battle is the 9/10ths of the law rule — I’m in the White House and I’m not leaving. I could see a scenario whereby MAGA supporters stage coups on the state and local level and hold those governments hostage. They say — unless you keep Trump president, we’re going to start murdering people, or start a civil war.

In the end, the center-Left buckles and Trump, lulz, stays in power. In quick succession House Trump consolidates power and for the next few decades a succession of either Trumps or fucking cocksucker fascists tight with House Trump accrue more and more power. ICE becomes the state police and the QAnon fucktards finally get their wish of any number of prominent Obama Administration simply going poof!

Now, remember, if we’ve gotten this far down the road towards tyranny, any “victory” over House Trump is going to be painfully short lived. The macro trends that led to the rise of House Trump aren’t going anywhere. There are at least a dozen would-be younger, more focused Trumps lurking in the political darkness who are prepared to finish the job Trump started. Some of them, like Sen. Tom Cotton, are rather giddy at the prospect of how much power they will be able to obtain once in power.

Now, there are a few wildcards that I can’t predict. One, the most important one, is Trump himself. He’s a massive self-own artist and there’s a reasonable chance that all of his plans to “flood the zone” with ratfucking won’t work because of his own political stupidity. If that happened, the country could be on the cusp of either revolution or civil war and finally his MAGA enablers in the Senate might finally tell him he needs to obey the Constitution and leave office. Though, who am I kidding –that will never happen. Maybe the revolution or civil war will happen and we’ll all have to pick sides in the Real World instead of trying score points on Twitter.

Another wildcard I can’t predict is the military. It might come down to who the military supports. But the military itself might be divided at that point between officers and enlisted so they aren’t very effective in keeping the peace. There is the slight possibility that there might, MIGHT be some sort of “Unity Government” whereby Biden is allowed to become president only under the condition that his Veep is Pence (or whomever) and Trump gets a full pardon. I could see House Trump indicting Biden at some point and if that doesn’t work, they demand Trump get off scot free in exchange for dropping the charges against him.

The point of all of this is Republicans no longer believe in democracy and they would rather have bloodshed that follow the will of the people. And they’re going to win because the center-Left simply is too clueless to realize what they’re up against.

House Trump isn’t going anywhere — ever. They are going to turn the United States in to a first-world Venezuela and we just have to start figuring out real-world contingency plans. And, remember, things would have to go wrong for House Trump on a pretty spectacular fashion for us to even get to the point where they weren’t able to brazenly steal the election.

So, I generally believe the likelihood of Trump leaving office for any reason is equal to the likelihood that the Senate would convict him: 0.