Tag: Fuck You MAGA

My Theory On Dr. Ronny Jackson & The Sway Trump Has Otherwise Normal Human Beings


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Any discussion of the rise and rise of Trump has to be done in the context of America’s receding empire. Unlike ’30s German, America isn’t aggrieved, we’re just struck with a severe bout of existential malaise. In a sense, 9/11 marked the beginning of the end of America’s empire because we were to find ourselves in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan before it was over with.

By 2016, a huge segment of the American electorate was growing tired with empire — and with the liberal-progressive social changes of Obama’s second term — and the time was ripe for an autocrat.

And everyone assumed it would be ding-dong Trump who would ascend to power, turn the United States into an autocracy and that would be that. But ultimately, Trump was just an empty suit. He did have one specific autocratic ability, despite his laziness: once you got into his personality death cult, there was no going back.

But this leads to the question, why?

The answer on an individual basis for the whole clusterfuck can be found in the personal instance of Dr. Ronny “Feel Good” Jackson. All he had to do is lie and say Trump was not over 300 lbs, and therefore obese, and he would find himself with a nice, cushy — an safe — Republican seat in Texas delegation to Congress.

Just take that amount of power that Jackson got for selling his soul and expanded upon the broader US government, and you have a recipe for a seriously fucked up situation. By the time Trump got impeached the first time, the US government was totally off the rails. It was being run like TrumpOrg, which is, not very well. Everything was ad hoc and a lot of idiots who otherwise would never have any direct link to power were meeting with POTUS on a pretty regular basis.

So, in a sense, there was a direct link between Trump’s management style and him getting impeached the first time. When it began to sink in with people who knew better that Trump was treating the US government like TrumpOrg, he got impeached. He got impeached the second time because he his failings as an autocrat were put on display when he put all his chips on Mike Pence “doing the right thing,” (at least relative to Trump.)

This was all happening in the context of a derogation of democratic norms, institutions and beliefs within the broader society. So, next time, I think Trump is going to win fair and square (-ish) and the autocracy will be established quite peacefully.

But there is always a chance that, lulz, we have a civil war.

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


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Second Trump Political Miscalculation


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

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

Well, surprise, both sides were wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s Putin Up To With Ukraine & Trump?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve grown fascinated with the dynamic at work now between Putin, Ukraine and Trump. The reason is — ostensibly, it would make no sense for Putin to wait until AFTER Trump was out of office to invade Ukraine in a big way. In fact, one might say that leans into the Republican narrative Trump’s love of Russia is just a big “hoax” given this fact.

Then Trump opened his big mouth about where he stands on Ukraine and it all made a lot more sense to me.

Trump being in office in the United States — unless it was after a Constitutional Convention that made him a true autocrat — babbling about how great Putin was in the middle of a war between Ukraine and Russia would prove that the TrumpRussia scandal was real. That it wasn’t a hoax.

What’s more, Putin also has to deal with the possibility that there would be a Republican Civil War between a pro-Trump, pro-Russia faction and a anti-Russia faction. This, in turn, would potentially be a political bodyblow to the Russia-loving MAGA movement for at least an election cycle.

As such, it would make a lot of sense for Putin — if he’s going to do it — to make his move on Ukraine sooner rather than later. The reason — if Putin is going to attack Ukraine, it may be doing so under the assumption that he’s going to do something of a smash and grab operation.

The whole war would be so brief that by the time the 2022 and 2024 American elections rolled around, it would be like the Russo-Ukrainian Winter War was a long, long time ago.

But, as of the moment, it appears as though Putin may not even attack Ukraine in the first place. We’ll see.

Of Putin, Ukraine, Trump & A Potential Republican Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, before I begin, let me be clear that Republicans are on track to win in 2022 and 2024 and accomplish their final consolidation of white minority rule. So, even with the scenario I’m about to lay out, it’s doubtful American democracy survives.

But, if noting else, the context of its death might be different. As such, keep in the back of your mind the cold hard facts that through voter suppression, gerrymandering and Bannon’s administrative coup on the local level we’re an autocracy without an autocrat.

Another thing – Putin has yet to do any sort of invasion of Ukraine. It’s possible this is all a bluff. It’s possible that we’re all overthinking this and the United States will slip peacefully into autocracy, without a hitch.

Having said all that, let’s begin.

It appears as though either Putin is going into any war with Ukraine with modest, limited war aims or he believes that no matter what, any war he starts will be wrapped up early enough that by the time 2024 rolls around the Republican Party will go back to its monolithic personality death cult swirling around Donald Trump.

The Republican Party may face unprecedented division between itself and Donald Trump if there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, because Trump is such a fucking Putin toady that he buck 60 years of Republican political tradition and support the Russians against the Ukrainians.

A lot would depend, of course, on how bad any war between Russia and Ukraine became as well as if the war captured the popular domestic imagination. If the war got really bad and graphic images of the death and destruction of the war between Russia and Ukraine got so bad that Americans picked the Ukrainian side and Trump STILL sided with the Russians…well, Republicans might, finally, have a window opportunity to excise Trump, if not MAGA, from their body politic.

But it’s one of those things that is impossible to predict. There are just too many different variables. And, you know, of course, that Trump is so craven that he specifically for near-term political expediency, he might switch gears, only to go back to slobbing Putin’s knob the moment he was safely in the White House again.

Anyway, the point is — the moment any major war starts in Ukraine, we may all have to take a deep breath and reevaluate what might happen politically in the United States on a domestic basis because of it.

What Is Putin’s Endgame For Trump In The Context Of Ukraine?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The more I think about it, the more I realize that Putin’s relationship to Trump is not nearly as easy to figure out as any objective observer might want. We know that Putin wanted Trump to win in 2016. And we know that Putin probably early on made a political calculation that it would be dumb to invade, say, Ukraine in Trump’s first term given what a suck up Trump would be to Russia if it happened.

And, yet, when we turn to the present day, we encounter a conundrum.

It’s very possible that by definition, if Putin invades Ukraine in some sort of “general war” that he would severely damage the Republican Party by splitting it into the Pro-Russia MAGA faction and the more traditional anti-Russian faction. Depending on how bloody the war became, you could even see Trump finally getting a worthy primary opponent, one who would run specifically on being tough on the Russians who were destroying eastern Ukraine.

Which makes one wonder — why?

Why risk destroying the political career of one of the biggest geopolitical patsies in modern history when you could just sit back, wait for Trump to win re-election in 2024, get his Constitutional Convention and THEN strike Ukraine. Putin is a very patient man, he could very well do that and get everything he ever wanted with Ukraine and more.

So, there are a lot of contradictions in Putin and Trump’s relationship that don’t make any sense because we don’t know all that’s going on. But the case could be made, I guess, that something like this is going on — Trump was a combination Manchurian Candidate, Manhattan Project and very, very lucky asymmetrical political attack against the United States.

Even though Trump was a Russian toady and the most powerful man in the world in the palm of Putin’s hand for four years, now that he’s out of office, Putin sees a big chunk of Eastern Ukraine being something he craves so much that he’s willing to destroy the Operation Trump to obtain it.

Putin has made the geopolitical decision to strike now, even though doing so would be a make or break event for the Republican Party for at least one political cycle. And, yet, maybe I’m not giving Putin enough credit.

Maybe Putin is going into his winter war against Ukraine knowing that he intends to wrap it up by spring. If that’s the case, then by fall 2022, everything will be back to where it was. Trump will be the most powerful man in the Republican Party and Putin’s toady.

Meanwhile, Putin will control a huge swath of Ukraine.

But, at the same time, Putin is potentially making a pretty huge miscalculation. If Russia’s involvement in Ukraine lingers long enough to really catch the attention of the domestic American imagination then….things could get interesting for all involved.

Joe Rogan Is Becoming the Jon Stewart Of The Right — And That’s Bad For Everyone


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There was a point when Jon Stewart was, by proxy, one of the most influential political figures in American politics. But he always seemed very uncomfortable with taken so seriously. It got to the point where whenever he could not help himself and flexed his political clout, he would crack a fart joke to soften the blow.

Joe Rogan / The Internet

And, so, now, we are in a new era, the Joe Rogan Era, where he is in a similar situation to Stewart, only for the Right. The analogy isn’t one to one, but there’s enough similar to take note of it.

Rogan isn’t nearly as smart or engaging as Stewart, but he has garnered a lot of attention in the “alt Right lite” by having clear opinions that he’s will to defend. Up to a point, of course. Wrapping yourself up in an earnest masculinity will only get you so far. Rogan can be a big fucking idiot.

And that tendency to be an idiot has gotten worse as his political influence has increased. In fact, the case could be made that he is yet another cog in the massive, extensive permission structure that allows Traditionalists to make common cause with the MAGA New Right.

He’s part of the amorphous media blob of non-FOX News, non-OANN, non-NewsMax media outlets that water down and make palatable the putrid bullshit of Alex Jones, et. They do this so Traditionalists, who feel pushed up against a political wall because of negative polarization, are looking for any possible excuse not to make common cause with the center-Left in an effort to defeat the rise of fascism in the United States.

Joe Rogan is a pretty big player in all of this. And, you could plot out a counter-factual in which it was Rogan, not Trump, who ran for president in, say, 2020 if Trump had not run in 2016 (or lost.)

Meanwhile, just like Jon Stewart, if Rogan ever does something that causes a lot of pushback, he simply shrugs and says he’s a “comedian not a doctor” and why is everyone getting so upset.

Anyway, Rogan has a lot — a lot — of very passionate defenders who love his gruff, earnest masculine platitudes. No matter what we end up doing — having a civil war or turning into an autocracy, Rogan is likely to only grow in power until things reach some sort of stability again.

What that New Normal will look like is anyone’s guess.

Why Would Putin Wait To Attack Ukraine After His Toady Trump Was Out Of Office?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On paper, it seems as though Putin missed a golden opportunity to achieve his geopolitical goals by not attacking Ukraine while Donald “golden showers” Trump was still in office.

And, yet, if you look at Trump’s recent statements about Ukraine, one gets the sense that Putin had a very specific reason for not attacking Ukraine (or anywhere else) while Trump was in office. If he had, the jig would have been up as to how absolutely weak Trump was with Putin.

Trump was so beholden to Putin — for whatever fucking reason — that had Putin taken advantage of it while Trump was still in power then it would have been difficult for Trump to successfully stay popular enough to become the autocrat that Putin wants him to become.

Or, put another way, one could make the argument that Trump is too weak domestically for Putin to have walked all over the United States while Trump was president the first go round. If Trump had won a second term, then, probably at some point after he got his Constitutional Convention and secured his place as American’s first autocrat, THEN Putin might have attacked Ukraine knowing it would all be a domestic political lulz.

But now that Trump is out of power, Putin can attack Ukraine and pretty much it will be Biden’s problem and there’s nothing he can do in real terms without risking WW3.

At least, that’s all I got. It just makes a lot more sense to me for Putin to be thinking this than anything else.

The Agony & The Ecstasy of WGN’s ‘NewsNation’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The conservatives in my family love, love, love WGN’s “NewsNation” because they are ecstatic that it is “objective” unlike the “fake news” of MSNBC and CNN. They see the idea of it as a quick and easy way to square the circle of how divided the United States is right now.

(This is where I point out that NewsNation correspondent Kellie Meyer follows me on Twitter and I think she’s cute. So, there’s nothing personal in this post that she should be offended by — I hope.)

Anyway, this is how I address the issue whenever my conservative relatives get all excited about the existence of NewsNation — when one side of the political debate (MAGA) tells us the sky is green and the other side (everyone else) tells us it’s blue it’s not “objective” to hold the opinions of both political sides up as being “equal.”

NewsNation appears to tell us “objective” news.

They’re not.

MAGA is a fascist movement based on violence, racism and misogyny based on the lie of the “Great Replacement.” The other side isn’t perfect, but at least it tries to stay within the bounds of the truth.

But I understand why NewsNation is growing in popularity. It gives a lot of traditional conservatives who are fed up with the perceived biases of CNN and MSNBC an option for their news that isn’t as loaded in conversation as FOX News, NewsMax or OANN.

They can say they got their right wing talking points not from FOX News, NewsMax or OANN, but from the seemingly “objective” news source of NewsNation.

So, in the long run, this is just another sign that the thing we need to have happen to save our democratic republic — for traditionalists to momentarily make common cause with anti-MAGA forces — isn’t ever going to happen and we’re totally, completely fucked.

Get a passport. Figure out what you’re willing to risk your life and scared honor for in the real world.

We Know What Happened In The Lead Up To January 6th & Nobody Cares


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s growing quite comical how much we know about Trump’s involvement in the lead up to the “Stop The Steal” rally on January 6th and how little we, as a nation, care.

In fact, I don’t really even understand why we have put so much import on the January 6th Committee’s investigation. We know, in general terms, what Trump’s plot was on January 6th. What we don’t know is the detail that might convince people on the edges who grade Trump on such an absolute curve that it’s debatable that absolute proof would even be enough for them.

At the moment, the MAGA orthodoxy is that January 6th was a false flag operation perpetrated by a Deep State combination of the FBI and Antifa. Meanwhile, the other half of MAGA also absolutely believes that January 6th was organized by a fearless group of patriots who wanted to “stop the steal.”

If you call MAGA on this contradiction, they get very very VERY angry.

Which, of course, makes any discussion of politics with someone you disagree impossible. That’s exactly what the fucking fascists of MAGA want. The more divided we are, the more power they know they can accrue.

No one is going to save us. Get a passport. Know what you believe and what you’re willing risk your life for in the real world.