American Zelensky: Jon Stewart, 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Reading Ben Smith’s “Traffic” book, I am struck by how social media companies had a sense of the popularity of both Obama and Trump long before anyone else did.

Jon Stewart

As such, if I had a choice of for a “Black Swan” event during the 2024 presidential cycle it would be that Something Happened so there was a brokered Democratic convention and Jon Stewart threw his hat into the ring — and won. I think he would be very, very popular.

Now, obviously, there are some problems with this daydream.

One — I don’t want anything to happen to Biden.

Two, ding-dong Trump was SUCH a fucking HORRIBLE POTUS, that a LOT of people would justifiably be very reluctant to vote for another celebrity to be POTUS. And, yet, as Ukraine’s Zelensky has proven, someone like Stewart can, in fact, be a great leader.

And from all the evidence I’ve seen about Stewart’s leadership abilities, he really would be a great POTUS.

But, alas, for some very corrosive and dumb macro reasons, it definitely seems as though the United States is simply going to slouch its way into autocracy. And, really, at this point, in a cruel twist of historical fate, it could be that Trump thrashing around in 2025 could cause a General Strike that deposes him…which, of course, would only lead to a civil war as Red States left the Union.

Good times!

Everything Sucks

by Ender

As of right now, malignant ding-dong Trump is 60,000 votes in five swing states away from turning the United States into an autocracy. And, barring some sort of Black Swan event, Trump is going to (probably) win and start to round up 20 million people.

The camps will open. People like me be rounded up and probably shot in the back of the head by an ICE agent because I refuse to stop calling Trump a fat fucking cocksucker.

About 1 million smug, wealthy Twitter liberals will flee the country until Trump — or his successor — starts to aggressively make it more difficult to leave the country in an effort to stop the massive American Brain Drain.

The press will be coopted and neutered. And we’ll just take it for granted that we are no longer a democracy and people will stop voting. We will become just another autocracy like Hungary, Russia or Turkey.

There is, of course, a very small chance that Trump, specifically, will be such a tyrant in such a quick amount of time that there is some sort of “Blue Revolution” and Trump is deposed, which will, in turn cause a Second American Civil War.

I find myself thinking about how I will survive this dystopian hellscape. All I know is I would rather die on my feet a free man than live my life on my knees a slave.

Fuck Trump. Fuck MAGA. And fuck you if you support either one.

Imaging The Conservative Movement After Blues Won A Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is extremely speculative, but I it seems to me that IF — and this is a huge IF — there was some sort of Second American Civil War and Blues won and there was a Second Reconstruction….then I think The Lincoln Project would be see itself at the center of a re-imagined American conservative movement.

But a lot would depend on how bad any such Second American Civil War got. If we bombed ourselves into the Stone Age over “vibes” then it probably won’t make much difference one way or another for a few decades. But if we managed to topple Tyrant Trump in some sort of “Glorious Revolution” then some very interesting things might happen when our politics snapped back into place.

I continue, however, to think that we have two choices at the moment — either Trump wins and we slide peacefully into autocracy or he loses and we punt our political problems down the road another four years.

The other, sexier options, the ones involving civil war and revolution that I’ve written about at great length over the years…I just don’t see them happening at the moment. I don’t want them to happen and I don think they’re going to happen.

But I can’t predict the future.

The All-In Tech Bro Podcast Can Be Trying

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On a good day, I’m not “mid.” But I do have value as a human being and two ears, so I still have the right to have an opinion on the besties of the All-In podcast.

Uh oh.

I’m only listening to the All-In podcast because I’m obsessed with AI at the moment and they have some thought provoking ideas. But they can also come across as tone-deaf fascist dicks. They seem to think that some very complex cultural questions that require nuance can simply be “reasoned” into a solution, when sometimes…lulz.

The human experience is subtle and complex and sometimes requires the type of creative thinking that can not be solved by “learning to code.”

Take, for instance, the latest All-In hobby horse — the apparent DEI abuses found with the Gemini image generation. The issue for me is not so much that Gemini is too “woke” to give us accurate depictions of the Founding Fathers — on that, I agree with them on that — it’s that we need SOME guardrails when it comes to general images generation.

In other words — I’m more worried about Gemini churning out millions of Nazi oriented images used for propaganda than I am woke images of Founding Fathers. But here we are, with some people wanting absolutely no guard rails on AI — for any reason.

Hard MAGA Power Vs. Soft Woke Power

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing I’ve gleaned from talking to my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — is their abject fear of some future tyranny coming not from the hard power of the state but the soft power of “woke corporations.”

Of course, they’re complicit in the rise of the American fascist corporate state because not only do they not take the looming fascism of MAGA seriously, but they because they, in general, agree with that fascism it would all be a lulz.

Not until the hard power of the MAGA fascist state is used to not only deport 20 million undocumented people — which they want — but to also murder me in cold blood — which they don’t want — will they take notice of how there is a definite difference between hard and soft power.

So, what happens is, conservatives would far rather conflate issues and get REALLY WORKED UP over the “abuses” of the woke than they would have to give serious answers to questions like, “What happens when the massive infrastructure built out to deport 20 million people is used to murder people you love?”

They usually either don’t answer, make a joked to change the subject or piviot to the latest conservative talking point.

It can be very, very frustrating.

The rise of a MAGA fascist state in the US is not an abstract to me — I’m really beginning to worry that if Trump becomes POTUS again that I’m going to be murdered in cold blood by an ICE agent — or whatever — because I simply will not, can not shut the fuck up about how I think Trump is a fat fuck cocksucker.

But my conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — just lulz all this. As long is those brown families are torn asunder at the border they’ll be content. As long as a stray trans person doesn’t get a free can of But Light, they will be content. As long as the social safety net is gutted and only fools and poors pay taxes, they will be content.

The list goes on.

It will be interesting to see what my fate is. If I’m lucky, I will be able to escape the country should Trump win re-election later this year.

A Darkness At Noon: What If Trump Goes Full Tyrant in 2025?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying — I can’t predict the future. So there’s every reason to believe that Trump will lose later this year and we’ll punt our problems down the road another four years.

And, yet.

I like to make my abstract fears concrete, so, I worry. I worry a lot. Specifically, I worry about what is going to happen if Trump wins and then goes “fully tyrant” in 2025. Will there be any reaction at all if Trump is literally snatching his opponents off the street in broad daylight?

That, specifically, is the thing I just can’t game out. It could be that nothing happens and it could be that Trump will be so ham-handed in his autocracy that he single-handedly causes those rarest of American political creatures, the “Radical Moderate” to pop out.

Radical Moderates only appear in times of great crisis — like the Civil War, The Great Depression or WW2. And usually they don’t last long. The calm down and go back to being just regular old centrists.

I just don’t know. I have no idea what to tell you about events going forward.

Evidence That MAGA May Evolve Into A Neo-Luddite Movement

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we’re just one severe recession away from a massive disruption in not just the knowledge economy because of AI, but the broader economy as well. Throw in advancements in robotics and, lulz.

As such, it also seems possible that we may see MAGA evolve into something akin to an anti-technology neo-Luddite movement that demands strict regulation of AI and maybe human carveouts as well.

But our political system is so broken that, lulz, who knows what will happen. It could be that we won’t even be able to cobble together the political will to establish a UBI, even when only legacy plutocrats have enough money to eat.

I Can’t Predict The Future, No One Can

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about late 2024, early 2025, is *the conditions* are there for a massive clusterfuck. But, it could be, that we just muddle through like we usually do. That’s the outcome I want.

I worry about an Election of 1872-type situation in 2024.

If we managed to punt our problems down the road another four years, that would be great.

I’m worried. I’m really worried.

I’m worried for a number of reasons. One is President Biden’s age. Another is the instability caused by the bonkers “Free Palestine” people. Another is Trump’s age. The list goes on.

I keep thinking about what happened during the election of 1872 and what we would do if something similar happened today. It’s a formula for a “Not great, Bob” situation.

But who knows. It could be that I’ve really worried a great deal for no reason. Yet if Trump wins in 2024, all bets are off. Just the idea of Trump attempting to deport 20 million people sends shivers down my spine and keeps me awake at night.

And, yet, here we are, with Trump preparing to do that very thing the moment he can. I don’t know what to tell you.

I Still Think MAGA May Evolve Into An Neo-Luddite Movement

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that ding-dong Trump has been strangely quiet about is the rise of AI. It definitely seems as though if MAGA freaks out about all their high paying blue collar jobs going poof because of AI and androids that the movement may drift into something akin to an anti-technology neo-luddite movement.

AI has problems, sometimes.

There are signs that AI is about to take over the world in the sense that we’re one severe — and maybe not so severe — recession away from millions of jobs being disrupted an eliminated because of some combination of AI and robot technology.

It’s all potentially very dystopian and could happen really, really fast. In fact, the only thing that might slow things down is just regular old inertia. It just takes time for major changes to happen, no matter how quickly they COULD happen.

But I do think we’re one severe recession away from millions of jobs being replaced with some combination of AI and robotics. That is the fundimental nature of capitalism — to screw people over.

Going Forward Into A Possible Civil War / Revolution There’s One Thing That I’m Nervous About: The DPRK

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I make a lot of dark, dystopian predictions on this blog about the future. I can’t predict the future, so I don’t *know* what will happen. But I am…uneasy about our future. All the *conditions* are there for some sort of collapse of the United States for various reasons.

As such, my big concern if THAT happens is the DPRK will take advantage of the situation and start lobbing H-bombs in our direction. It will be a lot more difficult for Blues to win over Reds if, say, LA and NYC have been vaporized.

So, lulz? I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t predict the future. No one can. But I am very, very concerned that the future could be a far, far darker than we’re willing to accept at the moment.

It could be that about 1 billion people will die directly because of ding-dong Trump. Buckle up.