Who ‘Owns’ Tay-Tay?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since Tik-Tok apparently reads my mind, I was recently pushed a video by the service of a young woman complaining about “male Taylornators.” This leads me to wonder — who “owns” Taylor Swift?

It’s comical what a cliché Tay-Tay’s fanbase is. In general, Tay-Tay is the Donald Trump of servicing her base. Her sweet spot is a well educated liberal woman who talks a good game about “slaying the patriarchy” but in the end settles down and pops out a few kids, anyway.

As such, the idea that Tay-Tay would have to suffer the slings and arrows of the dreading male gaze is something that makes her fan base freak out. Tay-Tay is ethereal and eternal. She’s sexless and yet sexual. Tay-Tay would never betray her fan base by, say, doing a sex scene in a Hollywood movie to further her career. (Playing a horny cat — ok.) Tay-Tay has a boyfriend but her heart belongs to Karlie Klose. (Or something.) She talks about “romance” in her songs but nothing as dirty as lust.

While it would be a push to call me a “Taylornator,” I do think Tay-Tay is a good-to-great song writer and singer. And I’m a red blooded American male — when I see Taylor Swift, I see a hot blonde. It does not escape my attention that she’s very modest and even her most reveling attire looks like it would be the swim attire of a middle age housewife.

The surreal thing about all of this is the existential predicament to places Tay-Tay in. As far as I can determine, Tay-Tay is extremely sensitive. So, I can’t imagine she would devastate her rabid fanbase by letting slip a little T&A in service of her Hollywood career. Hand in hand with this is — it’s very unlikely Tay-Tay would team up with someone like Megan Thee Stallion or Lizzo while screaming at the top of her lungs about her banjo picking WAP.

I’m not suggesting Tay-Tay change. She’s quite successful as she is. I know I’m an interloper in the over estroneated hot house that is Tay-Tay’s fan base. It’s not my place to tell her what to do with her career. I guess it’s just mildly sad that Tay-Tay will never, ever take her Hollywood career to the next level by letting lechrous men like me see a peek of a bit more skin than she has to date.

Let’s Run The ‘China Attacks Taiwan’ Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

August is careening towards us. And we all know that August sucks as a month. If something shitty is going to happen in 2021 – it’s probably going to happen in August.

So, let’s say it’s China going to war against Taiwan.

First, let me say, I have no expertise in this subject, so this is just a rough back-of-the-envelope scenario. But let’s suppose at some time in August, 2021, we find ourselves with a major East Asian war. What happens?

Well, at first, the United States would freak out. There would be a lot of rallying around the flag and Biden’s approval rating would skyrocket. And…then…once it became clear that the US wasn’t going, to, uh, blow the world up to save Taiwan, everything would go back to normal.

The center-Left would support Biden’s thoughtful, reserved approach, while the MAGA New Right would would suggest that what they believed all along — that Biden is “soft” on China — was right and why isn’t Trump president since he really won?

The other thing that would happen is such a huge event in the world would great destabilize everything. Flashpoints across the world would likely heatup for no other reason than a governments with an itch for conflict would say, “Well, China is scratching their itch, why can’t we do it?”

The DPRK is the country I would be most concerned with. It’s easy for me to imagine that as part of this scenario, that the DPRK would attack the ROK as some sort of Communist brothers-in-arms thing. In fact, I could even seen the PROC gently goading the DPRK into doing just that as a way of distracting the US so it could successfully secure Formosa.

Anyway, the whole thing would be a fucking clusterfuck. If China was cocky enough to attack Taiwan, then we really would be in a New Era. The entire post-WW2 liberal order would collapse and who knows what would replace it.

You Know All This MAGA New Right Bullshit Ends With Them Coming After Jews, Right?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m not Jewish, but I empathize with anyone who is attacked for being different. As such, when I was growing up, I always wanted to be black or Jewish. Anyway, one of the many pink MAGA New Right elephants in the room is the moment we turn into the autocracy they apparently crave so much, some pretty dark forces are going to pop out of our national psyche.

If historical form follows historical function, one of the things that is going to happen as we transition into America First’s Fortress America is there will be a growing collective attack on the Jewish community. And I can even tell you how it will happen — Qanon.

It’s easy to imagine some sort of MAGA New Right American autocracy being eaten up by Qanon people to the point where they go after the “liberal elites” that they think are doing all these horrific, bad things. And, strangely enough, a lot of those “liberal elites” are going to be Jewish.

So we get a replay of Nazi Germany, only in the United States.

What’s more, depending on how things work out, there could also be significant crimes against humanity against the American black and brown communities. And don’t get me started on what would happen if we go down the civil war road instead of autocracy.

Anyway. The point is — if you’re Jewish, I suggest you scream bloody murder about the growing influence of the MAGA New Right in the United States.

The Dangerous, Malevolent Magical Thinking Of The MAGA New Right


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A lot of metrics in modern American politics indicate that we’re at the end of an era. A Big Decision is going to confront the United States very soon: autocracy or civil war. Things just can’t keep going the way they are now. Something’s gotta give.

One of the many political metrics that have me thinking seriously about getting a passport is the surreal magical thinking of the MAGA New Right when it comes to Trump’s immediate political future. American politics is being warped by something to the point that the MAGA New Right would rather concoct not just a false media narrative for themselves, but a completely imaginary reality. What, exactly is the origin of that warp is something I struggle with a lot these days. Is it race? Is it vast income inequality? What is it that is causing, in aggregate, one of the two major political parties in the United States — the Republican Party — to have been driven completely fucking insane.

They just can’t believe that Trump wasn’t REALLY re-elected. They are willing to pin their hopes on any possible idiotic conspiracy theory to further their goal of having Trump become president as soon as possible. That the MAGA New Right is so deranged that they have wrapped themselves up in the idea of Trump to the point that their entire existence is predicated on “owning the libs” is extremely disturbing shit.

But here we are.

I would note, in passing, that the MAGA New Right grift gravy train is still out there. If you want a get-rich-quick scheme that might actually work, just be a college educated (blonde) woman willing to give a cogent explanation on TV as to why Trump is still president.

One of the many reasons why I’m enraged by the MAGA New Right — besides the fact that they’re a bunch of fucking fascists — is they deny reality. They ‘re a violent personality cult that is born of racism and misogyny. I hate that. What I see as a craven idiotic ding-dong that is Trump, the MAGA New Right somehow sees as a veritable second coming of Jesus Fucking Christ. It’s surreal and extremely fucking dangerous.

At its core, this magical thinking on the part of the MAGA New Right is really a hatred of the usual ebb and flow of a liberal democracy. They want there to be A One True Way — their way — any divergence from it must be the result of fraud or some sort of Deep State conspiracy.

It’s all very, very aggravating.

I still don’t know if we’re going to drift peacefully into a MAGA New Right autocracy or if we’re going to civil war. The jury is still out on that one.

Take A Deep Breath: Maricopa County ‘Audit’ Results Begin To Come In Today


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, apparently, there will be a press conference today by Arizonian Republicans about the first results of their “audit” of Maricopa County. This is a moment of truth, in a sense, because even though this is just the first ping of the results, it will give us a first indication of how our political system will react to “proof” that there was “fraud” there.

If Trump goes hysterical and, most importantly, transactional, on this little bit of fake information alone, then we will know we’re in deep, deep trouble should the “audit” ultimately “prove” that Trump “won” Arizona. Also, if not only does Trump go transactional, but his hysterics get some traction among other Republican controlled states then…oh boy. Things are going to get bumpy by about August.

It’s possible that I’m really overestimating things and all that will happen is the MAGA New Right will harp on all of this forever within their own echo chamber. They will use the total bullshit “proof” that Trump “won” Arizona as something to piviot to whenever people like me start talking about what a fucking insane, racist fascist Trump is. “But Trump won Arizona!” they’ll say.

But everything is up in the air.

It would go either way. We could be looking at a severe political crisis, or it will be nothing but a lulz because no one will take the next step of trying to “nullify” the Biden Administration and “reinstate” Trump by August.

One thing I do know is given how fragile our political system is, having the entire Republican Party have what they believe is “proof” that Trump “won” the 2020 election is not great.

The U.S. Military Is The Wildcard When America Faces Its Existential Choice Of Autocracy Or Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While ostensibly Trump’s soft, chaotic coup attempt after election night 2020 was as close as we’ve ever come to a real coup in our nation’s history, it could have been far, far worse. The thing about Trump is, people like me constantly give him a level of guile and willingness to do basic autocratic things that he obviously doesn’t have.

In short, with just the barest amount of autocratic work Trump could have easily stolen the 2020 election. It was his to take. But what he didn’t do was far more astonishing than the idiotic things he did do. He never invoked the Insurrection Act, even though he wanted to and his followers came to believe it was magic coup pixie dust — which it isn’t.

He didn’t think up some reason to arrest Hunter of Joe Biden at any number of critical moments in 2020. He ranted about a lot autocratic moves all throughout 2020 and early 2021, but for the large part he sat on his hands and let the natural democratic momentum associated with an American election to do its thing.

The failsafe during Trump’s rhetorical and half hearted coup attempt in late 2020 and early 2021 was, of course, the U.S. Military. Two things are absolute about the U.S. Military — it’s apolitical to a fault and it won’t follow an illegal order. Those two things, given how obvious and ham-handed Trump was post election night 2020 made the endgame to Trump’s long term soft coup a forgone conclusion — failure.

But we may not be as lucky next time. Whenever the next MAGA New Right POTUS is elected, he or she is likely to make sure that their actions are “legal” and, as such, the military won’t have anything to worry about.

Where things grow frightening is is a MAGA New Right POTUS bungles that transition — or Trump himself jumps the gun and tries to turn us into autocracy. So, you have one scenario where the U.S. Military at last steps in sometime around January 2025 because the country implodes on a political level because MAGA controls Congress and refuses to certify a Joe Biden win. (Yes, there is the throw-the-election-into-the House gambit that MAGA might try to keep things legal, but let’s say they don’t manage to pull that off.)

The other scenario is we have a nullification crisis that turns into a secession crisis after Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona. Then it would be the Biden Administration having to put down a MAGA New Right insurrection. In a sense, if it’s inevitable that we have a civil war, I’d rather it happen sooner rather than later so at least the U.S. Military will be under the control of democratic forces.

But what the U.S. Military ultimately decides to do when we’re faced with the existential choice of autocracy or civil war may be it — it may be the even that transitions us into something different than we’re used to. If the American military has to step in and we no longer enjoy civilian rule (acting President James Mattis, anyone?) then the United States really will be just another country, just another republic that has transitioned to its final form of empire.

The Abstract Paranoia Over ‘Cancel Culture’ & ‘Critical Race Theory’ As The MAGA New Right’s Rearguard Action In The Culture Wars


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

By all accounts, the MAGA New Right has lost the culture wars. America is browning. The Republican Party’s policies are extremely unpopular and it refuses to have any sort of re-calibration. And there’s an entire media bullshit infrastructure design to protect the Republican Party from any sort of introspection.

So, it was inevitable that the MAGA New Right would circle the drain down to the crack hit that is simple abstract fears on the part of white Christians about “cancel culture” or Critical Race Theory.

Let’s take Cancel Culture. Here’s my best attempt at some sort of definition, from the point of view of Republicans — “Cancel Culture:’ The ruining of a conservative’s life for being conservative, usually associated with a public event or comment being recorded by smartphone that goes viral.”

Ironically, the definition has drifted considerably from what it might have been around the time of #MeToo. During that era, a lot of very powerful men — usually white — were being “canceled” for legitimately doing shitty things. There was the occasional odd excess as the revolution made its way through culture and different industries — Aziz Ansari being a prime example — but, over all, bad men did bad things and they got “canceled.”

But here we are in the post #MeTo Era and Republicans have latched on Cancel Culture because just its invocation is enough to strike terror in the hearts of evangelical white Christian women in the suburbs. From my experience, people in that particular demo live in existential terror of themselves doing something “conservative” that evil liberals record and it proceeds to go viral. They will lose their jobs and be publicly shamed just for being conservative.

Another, similar, thing that really bugs the conservatives I know is “woke” corporate culture. I think what is really going on is the MAGA New Right has lost the culture wars and, as such, corporate trainers are doing a mop up operation — shooting the survivors, if you will. But if you’re a bed rock conservative whose self-perception is “I don’t see race” (read: systemic racism) if you have to go through any type of sensitivity training you get really, really, upset.

In fact “woke” corporate culture is probably the main source of the rage against Big Tech. While I have a lot of concrete, fact-based fears about MAGA New Right POTUS Mike Pompeo throwing me in an ICE camp, my conservative relatives have abstract fears that one day Google will listen to their conversations via their phone and turn them in to the evil libtards of the Deep State.

The specific instance of someone being “canceled” that comes to mind is the police officer in the Hampton Roads are of Virginia who lost his job after an online leak of a Kyle Rittenhouse’s donation effort reveled he had contributed $20 to his defense fund.

To me, the guy got what he deserved — Rittenhouse is a deranged triple murderer. I don’t care if we found out because of a leak — if you’re on a police force, you shouldn’t be contributing any money to Rittenhouse’s defense. But that’s not how my conservative relative saw the situation. He was upset that the police officer got in trouble because of a leak. And he was upset that it was just $20.

The fact that Rittenhouse went WAY out of his way to murder people for political reasons was a lulz.

The point of all of this is the reason why Republican’s attempts to keep the base enraged by screaming hysterically about “cancel culture” or “Critical Race Theory” are so successful is the center-Right and center-Left now rarely actually ever interact with each other. In 2016, I often got into it with MAGA people about Trump. Now, this almost never happens. As such, the two sides have an exaggerated sense of what the other believes.

At the core of all of this, of course, are the some pretty potent macro trends. In general, the nation is growing browner, more secular and more open minded about more “modern” sexual mores. All these changes are happening at an alarming rate — at least for conservatives — but they don’t even really know what, exactly, bothers them so much.

FOX News, OAN and NewsMax know this on an existential level, so they give conservatives a media narrative that helps them make sense of their general unease.

All of this is very corrosive, of course. But there are no easy answers. It definitely seems, at least to me, that as I keep saying, that all of these abstract fears will cause a very concrete choice to face America soon: autocracy or civil war.

The Coming Sino-Taiwanese Singularity War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love to run scenarios in my mind. Some of these mental games grow very elaborate and span decades of mental energy. But when I was in Seoul, I came up with a pretty bonkers scenario for how China could strike Taiwan — build a land bridge to the island using nanotechnology.

This is an extremely fanciful (at the moment) idea, but it’s just the kind of thing that would stun the world. Take something we know in theory could happen, then say, “What if it happened NOW?”

I would say this idea would make for a great movie, but, lulz, Hollywood is so beholden to the China audience this would never happen.

But if I were to guess about what kind of really shocking thing was going to rock the world in the 2020s, something like China building a land bridge to Taiwan using nanotechnology would be it.

August Sucks: Fresh Hell Scenarios For August, 2021


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The reason why August is such a sucky month is it’s the nadir of the year for most normal people who work at the big media companies. Huge swaths of the newsroom leave town for this or that pleasant vacation retreat, leaving the fate of any reporting on a breaking news event to a bunch of wet behind the ears cub reporters.

As such, huge news events are drawn to August.

Everyone has to leave their vacation at a moment’s notice to cover this or that huge news event. So, that leaves the question — what will it be this year? Here are my guesses.

Cyber Ninjas “Prove” Trump “Won”
It’s my impression that not only does Trump think he will somehow be magically re-instated in August, but Cyber Ninjas will finally come out with the results of their dumb sham audit. If they come through for Trump and “prove” he “won” Arizona, either that in itself starts some sort of secession crisis by the end of the year, or it begins a process that leads to House Speaker Trump telling Senate Democrats to convict Biden and Harris or risk a civil war.
Someone Drops Dead
A lot of old people are in powerful positions. If any number of 70+ powerful people dropped dead, that, in itself could be The Thing that we think of what made August 2021 suck so bad.
The DPRK Does Something Stupid (Or Implodes)
The DPRK has been pretty quiet since the pandemic hit. August 2021 seems like just the right moment for them to pop out and scare the shit out of us all one way or another. Or implode. You name it. Anything could happen.
Iran Does Something Stupid
It’s easy to imagine a situation where Iran and Israel have at it suddenly and before you know it, WW3 has started.
China Does Something Stupid
A lot of people talk about China going after Taiwan by about 2027. What if China struck in August 2021? Then what?
Russia Does Something Stupid
It’s easy to imagine Russia starting some sort of late summer general war against Ukraine.

Wildcard: a major domestic terrorist attack.
Trump is doing everything in his power to destabilize the United States with his dumb nearly-transactional rhetoric. What if there was a large scale, coordinated MAGA New Right terrorist attack all across the country in some sort of proto-coup effort. How would we handle that?

Wildcard: Cuba
It’s within the realm of possibility that of possibility that Cuba could implode in August, given the massive protests there right now.

The Coming American Diaspora


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know anything about stocks, but I would vaguely suggest you long any stock of a company that might benefit from a huge exodus of Americans starting at some point in the near future. Say, by the end of the decade.

I say this because if you assume, like I do, that the United States is going to soon face the existential choice of civil war or autocracy, there are going to be winners and losers, no matter which one we ultimately decide to do.

Off the top of my head, it seems like Canada, Australia and New Zealand would have the most to gain if 30 million Americans bounced from the country all of a sudden. If it’s a liberal exodus, then the economies of Canada and Australia would likely benefit the most. Perth — which, as I understand it, is a very colorful and creative place, even if it’s in the middle of nowhere — could become a new Hollywood. (Or something.)

Meanwhile, if it’s the MAGA New Right that up and leaves, maybe Great Britain (or whatever is left of it by that point) would benefit?

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is we’re all seriously, existentially fucked a lot sooner than you might realize. The 2020s are shaping up to suck.