What Happens When There’s A National Abortion Ban?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A national abortion ban is coming. And if you don’t believe that, sorry, but you’re a fool.

And, what’s more, abortion has always been a firebreak for a whole host of other rights. So, once there is a nation wide abortion ban, a ban on any form of birth control is definitely a very real possibility.

All of this will be extremely unpopular, to the point that either it’s looked back upon as a death rattle for America’s Democratic Republic or…yet another bolt popping off the country as we careen towards something akin to a civil war. A military junta is another possibility, but not nearly as likely.

So, if there is a national abortion ban, one of two things happens. People shrug and wealthy men simply go to Canada to get abortions for their mistresses because, lulz, or Blues begin to get woke to the very real possibility that maybe they shouldn’t bend a knee to MAGA fascism.

Let me be clear — I hate violence. I can barely handle conflict. But in a very abstract manner, Blues have to begin to think out what we’re going to do when we’re all but pushed out of the Union by deranged, crazed fascist MAGA cocksuckers.

Are we going to bend a knee and let the whole country live under the yoke of MAGA fascism, or are we not? Are we going to do something about it, specifically, leaving the Union to start a new nation that remains a traditional liberal democracy?

Again — don’t want a civil war, but Blues have to take the threat of MAGA fascism seriously. Otherwise, in late 2024, early 2025 we’re going to get sucker punched to the point that fascism will take over the country without us even really realizing what’s going on.

Is Trump America’s Hitler?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ahh, the curious case of one Donald J. Trump in the context of America’s inevitable slouch towards autocracy. It is easy to see Trump as “America’s Hitler” but the more I read up on Hitler, the more I have my doubts. Hitler was a Great Man of History. He bent history to his will and road it like a tamed tiger to great heights.

Reasons why we may have a civil war.

  1. Republicans have come to glorify political violence
    Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
  2. Republicans no longer believe in democracy
    It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
  3. Trump 2024
    Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
  4. Steve K Bannon.
    Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that we use to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
  5. Extreme negative polarization
    We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
  6. A lack of shared values
    As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
  7. A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans
    It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
  8. SCOTUS sides with MAGA on the “Independent Legislature” concept.
    I really don’t know that much about this idea other than it would pretty much give MAGA free reign to ignore the popular vote and use its power over state legislatures to deny Democrats the White House for, well, forever. Once it dawns on Blues that they simply will never be allowed to take the White House again, that might be the final breaking point.

Meanwhile, ding-dong Trump is too lazy and stupid to do even the most basic of Great Man plays. I mean, if Trump really was America’s Hitler he would currently be working on his plans for his third term in office and rounding up people like me so we could be put in an ever-burgeoning camp system.

While Hitler was a Great man of History, Trump just limps along, being a vessel, an avatar for the rage of your typical white Christian who is fed up with the so-called “woke cancel culture mob.” He doesn’t do anything. Yeah, he almost destroyed American democracy in 2021, but he was so vague and half-assed in his efforts — waiting until the very, very last possible moment to stay in power — that he was bound to fail.

I would like to take moment to note that one a macro level, it definitely seems as though January 6th, 2021 was the high point of MAGA. Or, if nothing else, it was the one moment when Trump actually had a chance to break the back of American democracy once and for all and effective rule as a dictator, at least on a political level.

We came so close to the end of our democratic republic. So. Very. Close.

Trump’s second term after January 6th would have been violent and chaotic, with the country constantly being on the edge of civil war as Trump consolidated power.

But being a lazy idiot, Trump blew it and so here we are. I think the question we should be asking ourselves is not “Is Trump America’s Hitler” but, “Who will be America’s Putin?”

That’s because it’s more likely at this point that the United States is going to become an “illiberal democracy” like found in Russia as opposed to some MAGA themed Nazi state. Although MAGA becoming American Nazism is still a very real possibility for various reasons because of America’s original sin of race….I think we’re probably going to just slide into autocracy without a shot being fired.

Gradually at first, then more rapidly, someone like DeSantis — or name a Republican — throttle what’s left of American democracy and that will be that. Millions of wealth Blues will flee the country for various parts of the globe. The Constitution will be changed with the addition of MAGA-themed Enabling Acts and away we go.

Some 20 years from now, we’ll wake up and DeSantis — or someone like him — will still be a MAGA POTUS and he’ll be explaining to us why we absolutely have to “deNazify” Canada for this or that reason. I wish I was joking. I’m not. That definitely seems to be our immutable fate at the moment

In fact, the only wild card is, and always has been, Trump himself. If we’re going to have a civil war it will be because either Trump and his allies steal the 2024 election in a rather brazen manner, or their incoming agenda is so fascist in nature that Blue states begin to leave the Union.

And there is, of course, the issue of the “Independent Legislature” concept that SCOUTS is going to take up on December 7th. If they agree with that radical, bonkers concept…the idea that Blues might leave the Union in late 2024, early 2025 grows exponentially more likely.

At the moment, of course, all that sounds bonkers. And maybe it is. But it’s definitely something to think about going forward as we careen as a nation towards a very turbulent and dark future.

Now In The Third Act

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After a little bit of a creative panic, I am now far more comfortable with the direction of the third act of this first draft of this first novel. The learning curve for finally writing a decent first novel has been far, far more difficult than I could possibly have imagined.

Maybe this podcast will talk about a movie adaptation of one of my novels one day.

But once I finish this first novel, I will have a solid cornerstone for what I hope with be six novels in the same universe. And, not only will readers of this project know way, way, way, too much about my personal life (in a way) I hope to put a new female action-thriller character on the stage for Hollywood to play with on the silver screen.

I would prefer, of course, not to drop dead of a widowmaker heart attack at any point during this process. I want the cool stuff. I will be 20 odd years too old to swing with 24 year olds in “Dimes Square” in NYC, but I find the success I believe I can, I will at least be as interesting a person as Thomas Wolfe. He’s the kind of guy I could see myself immulating in my later years while I run around being interesting as everyone else my age checks their watch and contemplates retirement.

I just can’t help that I’m a late bloomer and I’m 20 years too old for anything. I should just lie in my bed with the lights out, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for death. That’s what society believes I should be doing, at least. I have, as always, come to the party too late and everyone is grabbing their coats and heading for the doors.

Me at 50.

“But I just got here!” is what I’ll say if I become a success at this point.

And, yet, that’s just my lot in life.

Of course, the above is very delusional. Selling a novel is not only like winning the lottery, but also no assurance of any great success. If do manage to get what I want — a breakout novel on a par with Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” I’m probably going to become a hypochondriac because I’m going to assume I simply won’t be able to enjoy the fruits of all my hard work given how fucking old I will be.

Anyway, wish me luck. I’ll put a move on you….

I Fucking Hate MAGA & Some Of The People On My Side Really Try My Nerves

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. I guess a lot of what I’m about to write comes from how I’m not a Leftist. I’m anti-MAGA. And, as such, sometimes the more Leftist members of the broad anti-MAGA coalition that I’m a member of attack me from the Left and I don’t quite know how to respond because I’m on their side!

But that’s not really what is bothering me at the moment.

What is bothering me right now is how preening and dumb so many “resistance” Twitter accounts are on Twitter. I mean, come the fuck on. Just shut up. What really, really bothers me is so many people — especially otherwise well meaning retired busybody liberal Boomers — seem stuck in a spring 2017 mentality when we thought it was possible that we could actually do anything about Trump just by collectively being really angry about him on Twitter.

Jesus, were we naive.

Trump is above the law and always will be. It won’t be until we have a Second American Civil War were real people get hurt because of their politics will Trump ever face any accountability.

I’m not saying I want that, but any liberal Boomer who thinks just by getting really mad about Trump on afternoon on Twitter is going to do anything…well, they have another thing coming. They need to start thinking about the real world implications of the rise of MAGA fascism.

They won’t, of course, because that would mean leaving their comfort zone where they talk about this or that person being a “resistor.” It’s not about how many followers you have, or how active someone is on Twitter — it’s about realizing how totally fucked we are as a nation in late 2024, early 2025.

IN THE REAL WORLD.

But no one listens to me, which is probably a good thing. If I had the means, I would already be back in South Korea teaching English. But I’m flat broke, so I’m stuck in America as we careen towards a very, very dark future.

‘But…Therefore’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Ugh. I have a third act crisis on my hands in the sense that I thought everything was going to be wrapped up soon…and now not only do I have a huge gaping hole in my outline, I realize I’m going to have to keep working just as hard as I have been since the beginning of this draft.

So, here I am.

I saw on Tik-Tok that the South Park writing team suggests that when you’re having a writing problem two words should come to the forefront of your mind: “But…therefore.”

So, instead of just going then and then and then and then, you switch things up by saying “but…therefore.”

And that’s what I’m going to do. In the empty spaces in my outline for the third act, I’m going to keep thinking “but…therefore” until I think of something, anything to fill those spaces.

It’s just annoying that it could be Christmas before I finish this first draft, when I thought I might be able to wrap it all up by the end of November. Ugh.

Psyching Myself Up For The Querying Process In Fall 2023

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I haven’t finished the first draft of my first novel, but it’s my nature to think a few steps ahead and, as such, I find myself thinking about how tough it’s going to be to query a literary agent in the fall of 2023.

Stieg Larsson, my literary idol.

My biggest fear is, of course, that I’m such a kook — and have been so conspicuous in my drunk kookiness online — that it won’t matter how good the actual novel is. Any literary agent worth their salt will take one look at what a drunk, eccentric kook I am and they won’t go any further than that.

That’s my fear.

My fear is, I suppose, that I have more of a screenwriter’s personality than a novelist personality. All I know is, if the novel I’m working on is anywhere near as successful as I believe it should be, I’m going to be a real public figure character. I’m going to be like Thomas Wolfe and dress funny and generally be as interesting as possible to the general public.

But that is really being delusional.

I have to gird my loins for a lot and I mean A LOT of failure once I start to test out the waters of getting real people with real money and careers to take my little dream seriously.

I just have to believe in myself. I haven’t even finished the first draft yet. But once I finish the SECOND draft…then the whole dynamic of this project will change in a pretty dramatic fashion.

My Hot Take On Trump Being Reinstated To Twitter

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I suppose it was inevitable that Trump would be let back on Twitter. But it was still something of a shock when I saw it was happening. I suppose the only thing we don’t know at the moment is if Trump will tweet something memorable and faux profound for his first tweet, or if he will just go back to his usual hate and rage without skipping a beat.

I suppose that will be answered any moment now, huh.

But bringing back Trump to Twitter is a double edged sword for everyone involved. It’s a double edged sword for Trump because he will just remind everyone why they didn’t like him to begin with. Meanwhile, it will hurt everyone else because Trump will go back to his usual asshole behavior that got him banned in the first place.

He claims that he will stay on Truth Social,but that’s a lie. He’s going to ditch that like a wife.

The big question is, of course, will he be able to control the “attention economy” like he did before from 2015 to 2021. Or has that moment passed? Is Trump a low energy political hasbeen? And the real issue is, will reality catch up in time to allow DeSantis be the 2024 Republican POTUS nominee?

That, at the moment, is something of a mystery.

We’ll see, I guess. Fuck Trump. Fuck MAGA. And fuck you if you support either one of them. Wink.

Twitter Killer Use Case: ‘Advertisers’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, let’s go through how an advertiser might use this Twitter killer that I’ve come up with. To me, the main appeal of this hypothetical service is you have a lot more freedom in what type of ads you push into the platform because they can pretty much be the same size as a Webpage. AND you have the option of using traditional banner ad sizes within Posts in the system as well.

Groups
Anyone would be able to create a Group about anything you liked. It would be attached to your account ID, which would allow for redundancy, which would allow for scalability. This is a very flexible nature of the service — at least in this specific aspect. You would have to have a robust discovery feature for that to work, of course.
Threads
These would be presented much like a traditional blog inside of a Group. This would allow for huge page-sized advertisement. There would also be a subthread feature which would be pretty cool.
Posts
What would be interesting about this would be you would have inline, collaborative editing like you might find with a Google Doc. You would have, say, six people able to inline edit a Post before a new Post in the Thread is spawned because you would run out of colors.

So, here’s how an advertiser might use my Twitter Killer.

Remember, using their account, they can create as many different Groups as they like about whatever aspect of the service or widget that they’re selling. AND, what’s more, they can control who can Post into the Groups they’ve created.

So, if you were a major advertiser, you could have a variety of Groups devoted to discussion about any number of not just a widget, but an element of a widget that you felt people might really want to talk about. And also remember there would be an Excerpt feature that would work with a Feed feature like you might see with Facebook or Twitter, which would cut through the service to allow people to know when a new Thread or Post was created in Groups they might be monitoring that were run by people they might be monitoring.

This is a far more powerful brand tool than either Reddit or Usenet — or even Facebook, for that matter.

I’m Willing To Give Elon Musk The Benefit Of The Doubt…But…

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Elon Musk is he’s so erratic that it seems within the realm of possibility that he might just pull the plug on Twitter and walk away in a huff — hence all the tweets by people on Twitter talking like the service is about to go under.

Elon Musk

But there are a lot of reasons to believe that while possible, that’s just not going to happen. The biggest issue is, of course, banks. Because of the whole bank situation, it’s far more likely that Musk will find someone to run Twitter for him THEN walk away.

And, yet, there is the issue of not only all the money that Twitter is losing but also how it is going to survive long-term without any advertising. What if is just stops working for 24 to 48 hours? Would that be enough for people to stop using the service en masse?

I doubt it. I think, in the end, Musk might actually pull off a pretty interesting turn around of Twitter or, at least, take credit for it. And I think that’s really his ultimate goal — he wants to take credit for saving Twitter from itself, even if he’s not the one who does it.

Would-Be Autocrat, Mike Pompeo

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel a personal distaste for Mike Pompeo because I know, just know, that should he ever become POTUS that I am exactly the type of person he would sick ICE on. He hates the press and is the worst of the various would-be autocrats America faces in that regard.

You’ll always be a fat fuck in my heart, Mike.

One thing about him I’ve always found both hilarious and sad is how he clung on to Trump to the very, very end, to the point that he embarrassed himself — and America — by having to turn around his airplane in the middle of the skys of the Atlantic when it became clear that even if he did not want to face reality that the rest of the world was. They just wouldn’t meet with him anymore because, lulz, Trump fucking loss.

Flash forward a few years and who should be sniping at Trump on Twitter but his old Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. A lot of people dismiss Pompeo as not having a chance to be POTUS, but I’m not so sure. I could see Trump picking him as his veep for 2024 and then becoming president that way.

Regardless, I have no personal vendetta against him. Whatever. To me, he’s just one of a dozen other would-be autocrats I have to worry about. But just strikes me as a big old dickhead who hates democracy and would put me — and people like me — in a camp if he had the power to do so.