It’s Too Late

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I fear it’s just too late. There’s simply nothing that can be done — barring something I can’t predict — to prevent political catastrophe starting in late 2024, early 2025.

I mean, when headlines like this:

…do nothing to stop Trump from being 60,000 votes in five swing states away from being POTUS again….we got a problem.

As such, I think all I can ask of my Traditionalist relatives — whom I love dearly — at this point is that they will give me material support should the country collapse and we find ourselves on opposite ends of the sudden very real political divide in a country torn asunder.

That’s it. That’s all I got.

The Fire Next Time: ‘Implosion’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue with Trump going full tyrant should he be re-elected is there is a real chance that the whole political infection that is MAGA is the risk it might go septic, that it might cause a real fucking catastrophe.

So, let’s think about how that might play out. We’re going to go most likely to least likely when it comes to people MAGA might try to put in Trump-branded camps.

Undocumented People
This is the gimmie. This is the thing that Trump will use as cover to build out the infrastructure for all the OTHER bad things to happen. But, remember, Trump is dumb and lazy so there will be a window of opportunity between the time he says he’s going to round everyone up and when he actually does it.

Gay People
If you just follow the current trends of the Gay Scare that the US is undergoing, it seems logical that gay and transgender people will eventually, inevitably, be rounded up and put in the camps that were originally built for undocumented people.

Various Other People
I think, in the end, because of Trump’s personal prejudices, that MAGA will soon enough come after the mentally ill, alcoholics and the handicapped. It’s all a matter of time.

The big question of course, is what the reaction by Blues will be to such tyrannical behavior. That, I’m afraid, I can’t answer at the moment.

I’m Growing Worried About My Personal Safety In Late 2024, Early 2025 Because Of National Political Turmoil

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I am well aware of how hysterical this sounds, but here goes — I’m afraid I’m going to be driven out of my home in late 2024, early 2025 because my politics don’t jibe with my part of my state. I live in a deep, deep Red part of my state and every time I see some ultra-MAGA bumper sticker, I wonder if that’s a portent of things to come.

They say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once, and so my fear is everything will be normal until at some point after the 2024 Election and then….blammo…some beefy, armed redneck will knock on my door and tell me to get the hell out of town because I’m Blue.

And, yet, now in early 2024, that type of talk really does seem rather hysterical. But I’m kind of paranoid (obviously) and, as such, I like to game out what I will do should the absolute worst happens. A lot depends on the specifics of me being driven out.

There is a big difference between being driven out peacefully and having to flee because the whole country is collapsing into revolution and or civil war. But I suppose there’s only so much I can do right now.

That Time I Met Arthur Sulzberger Jr In Seoul

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Many moons ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was a lowly hawgan teacher in Incheon. It was my first year in South Korea, so it had to be at some point between late 2004 and late 2005. Anyway, I learned that the World Association of Newspapers was having a conference in Seoul.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr

So, I did what every failed journalists who doesn’t realize his career is over does — I engaged in a bit of light fraud and, using some credentials faked via my membership in the Society of Professional Journalists, got myself into the event.

This is where I mention that, in general, I’ve had fairly good interactions with New York Times people to date, those few times I’ve actually interacted with them. But I don’t know how much of that graciousness was simply humoring a drunk loser and how much of it was genuine.

I will note that Jennifer 8. Lee was superficially gracious to me when I met her in Seoul, but I fear that to this day she may mention what a freaky loser I was to her high end cocktail party friends — to this day, occasionally someone will show up in my Webstats wanting to read my account of meeting Lee and her friend Tomoko in Seoul. (I presume to gawk at what a fucking loser I am.)

So the day of the event, I traveled all the way from Incheon to the center of Seoul and went to the WAN event. It was all a bit overwhelming. I think it was at this point that I saw the President of Korea. I would be a lot more calm and collected now if I went to such an event, but then, about 20 years ago, I was a ball of nervous energy.

Anyway, I went to one event and kept staring straight at Arthur Sulzberger Jr and, to his credit, rather than having the guards escort me out for being weird, after the event was over he made a beeline to me. That was a very memorable event for me.

I was supposed to spend, like, an hour with him and a small group of people talking about Very Important Things, but I had to go back to work in Incheon. I think that was probably for the best. I kind of dodged a bullet on that one, I think. That could have been very, very ackward.

Anyway, no harm no foul. It was a one of the more surreal experiences of my time in South Korea.

When MAGA Fascism Becomes Personal

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Talking to my conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — I am taken aback by how while in general they’re all-in for rounding up 20 million undocumented people and their families and forcibly removing them from the country, they…really haven’t thought through the implications of doing such a thing.

They just, in general, want brown people out of the country so white people can be on top again. Or something. Something like that. I have tried my best — to little success — to make this extremely abstract issue (in their minds) as concrete and personal as possible. I point out that a lot of the people who would be deported would have adult children who are Americans and they just wave this concern away.

“Oh, I haven’t really thought about the specifics,” is what they tell me.

And Trump has specifically said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship as soon as he’s in office again. I’ve pinned my conservative relatives down NOW to establish that at least as of early 2024, they believe that if you’re born in America, you’re an American citizen.

I have a feeling despite having done that, that once the MAGA propaganda and talking points of the issue are issued once Trump does do away with birthright citizenship, they will just chuckle and not answer when I point out that they have had a change of heart.

The ONLY THING that gives me some hope is how ill-thought out much of the tyrannical MAGA agenda is. First and foremost, there’s no MAGA SA. And any of the various options that MAGA might use to create such stormtroopers will take time to build out. Also, the moment people married to brown men and women find themselves stopped an interrogated about the citizen status of their mate….there is going to be a lot of hell to pay.

As I keep saying, maybe some Black Swan event will give us an exit ramp that allows us to not to have to worry about MAGA fascism in the United States…but I dunno. I’m just not one to not at least game out various scenarios. I like to make my abstract fears, concrete.

Blues Need To Get ‘Woke’ About The Dangers of MAGA Fascism In The USA

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that it’s mainstream Republican orthodoxy that the insurrectionists of January 6th are “hostages,” I wish members of the center Left would gird their loins for the battle royale we face. My fear is that it won’t be until Trump is re-elected and he goes full tyrant that a lot of center Left people will stop being keyboard warriors and start to think about how they can address MAGA fascism in the real world.

I’m not advocating anything. I hate violence. I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas. But I am saying that just telling people to “vote” or “pass it on” on Twitter won’t mean jackshit when 500,000 armed, weaponized ICE agents are running around snatching people off the street if they don’t have their “papers” or if they’re “an enemy of the people” because they wrote that Donald Trump can suck their cock on their little blog that no one reads.

I just want center Left people to get “woke” in the real sense of the word — they need to change their mental frame of reference. Center Left people need to realize that we may be going to the show in the sense that all my hysterical doom shit may be just….the reality that we’re going to have to live with in just a few months.

How likely is all that? I don’t know. I can’t predict the future. All I know is the center Left can’t allow itself to be sucker punched in January 2025 when Trump does exactly what he has been saying he will do for years now — become a tyrannical dictator who rules over Blue portions of the country as a king.

The Hypocrisy Of The Right

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. But, let’s try. The issue is because of “vibes” the American Right thinks the world is out to get them. They see any possible slight against their movement as The End Times. They are, in short, a bunch of fucking snowflake crybabies.

But the thing to remember about the Right is at their core is a willingness to be hypocrites without blinking an eye. Take, for instance, how Republicans are “free speech absolutists” when it gives them the two-fer of “owning the libs” AND demanding all their mistaken-for-Nazi rhetoric is allowed to spew forth online like just so much sludge.

Then, the moment they feel that clamping down on free speech will help their never-ending efforts to establish a fascist white Christian ethnostate, suddenly, it’s all, “Lulz, can’t have THAT speech be free, now can we?”

They do this all the fucking time! On every subject! They pick the most extreme position possible, then when someone calls them out on how using their own logic they’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites they just hand wave the issue away and piviot to how “the big guy” sold out America to Chinese interests in the name of his son. UGH. (Even though we know for a fact from recent reporting that ding-dong Trump did the very thing the Right screams at the top of their lungs that Biden did!)

It’s all very aggravating.

And, at its heart, the issue is just “vibes.” White Christian (men) are spooked by how America, in general, is becoming more brown, female controlled and secular and it freaks them the fuck out. So much so that they would hand the American birthright of democracy to a malignant ding-dong like Trump so he can snuff it out.

As I keep saying, I’m not so much interested in what Tyrant Trump will do should he become POTUS again as I am what the REACTION to such tyrannical behavior will be on the part of the “center” that usually doesn’t really care about politics and when pressed they “both sides” any controversial issue into oblivion.

If Trump really does try to deport 20 million people out of the country and he literally starts to snatch people off the street in broad daylight….will these so-called “centrists” take notice? Will they even care? Or will they be just fine as long as brown kids are back in cages, screaming because they’ve been separated from their parents?

Will only be when things get personal for them, specifically, that “centrists” get woke and decide to do something in the real world about the Red King? What they might do, I have no idea. But I’m a little unease as to how unstable the United States MIGHT grow to be in late 2024, early 2025.

Did Video Games Kill The Rock Star?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Consider the curious case of rock music. There was a moment in time when male driven rock was pop, by definition. But no more. Sisters are doin’ it for themselves and most pop music is sung by young, hot women. Which makes you wonder, what happened?

While I really enjoy female singers, I also think there needs to be some balance. It is eerie how most popular male singers are either troubadours or rap singers. There’s just not a lot of male-sung rock and punk music that is popular these days.

Which makes me wonder why the change? I think there are plenty of historical, economic and cultural reasons for why this has happened. But I also think it’s at least POSSIBLE that a lot of the creative energy that young men would have otherwise thrown into rock and punk are now used to play video games. I’m not saying video games are bad, just that it’s possible they have changed society in some unexpected ways.

I mean, whatever happened to some snot nose boy getting his heart broken, picking up a guitar and writing an angry song in his room? Now, I suppose, he would just shrug and play an extra 100 hours of MineCraft. Or something. Something like that.

This discussion makes me feel very, very old for a number of reasons. But who knows.

Revamping The ‘Fun & Games’ Portion of The Novel For The Third Draft

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has occurred to me that I have changed so much of the first act of the novel that I have to change the rest of the novel to accommodate those changes. As such, I am trying to give each of the investigators in the story that have a POV a “beat” that they cover.

This really helps clear things up a great deal and keeps the novel focused on a structural basis. But doing so means I pretty much have to start the Fun & Games portion of the novel (the first half of the second act) from scratch. I have some general ideas from the Second Draft, but the Third Draft is going to be, in some respects, radically different just because of all the changes I’ve made in the first act.

But, in general, I’m really pleased with what I’ve come up with in the transition from Second to Third Draft. Yet I do think I’m going to kind of chill out for a day or so to think about the exact nature of the Fun & Games part of the novel. I need to make this story a lot more clear, focused and engaging if I have any chance of pitching it to a literary agent.

At least I see the problems that exist, instead of making a fool out of myself when I try to query.

Imagining The Implosion Of Virginia Starting In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I often say, Virginia is actually two states — one Red, one Blue — fused together who hate each other. The divide is pretty much rural versus metropolitan. The thing about a National Divorce, should it happen starting in late 2024, or early 2025, is what happens to states like Virginia?

If Red States really do start to leave the Union, there will be a massive rush from rural MAGA counties for Virginia to follow suit. Meanwhile, the urban areas of the Commonwealth will remain loyal to the Union. I think we would see coups and counter coups in Richmond if the things really got bad.

On a practical basis, if Virginia imploded, I would have to figure out what I would do on a personal basis. I think I would head to Richmond where I have some relatives. But that would probably be just a makeshift solution. Even Richmond would not be safe to stay in very long. I would, I fear, have to leave Virginia altogether for a more stable state north of the Mason – Dixon line.

I would like to think an infrastructure will have been built out by the point that I have to leave RVA, but, who knows. I know I can’t predict the future, so it’s very possible that all of this is just me and my usual hysterical doom shit. But who knows.

All I do know is the United States is a lot less politically stable than we would like to to think. The MAGA Right grows more and more radical by the day and should the time come, I have no doubt that states where MAGA Republicans control the governments will begin the process of leaving the Union.

I suppose what will happen is roadblocks will begin to pop up between Red and Blue states as the process of collapse begins in force. I suppose that Red States — who at this point I think will be the ones leaving the Union — will issue their own passports. And the new Trumplandia government will have to attempt to seek recognition from other countries, probably with our enemies like China and Russia being the first to rush to do so.

But, again, let me stress, all I’m trying to do is make my abstract fears concrete. It could be that some sort of Black Swan event will happen and we’ll simply punt our severe structural political problems down the road another four years. But I do believe, in general, that our next Republican president — whomever that might be — will ben autocrat.