Mad King Trump – Page 14 – The Trumplandia Report

Republicans Are In A Panic — But Trump’s Not Bonkers… Yet

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Republicans are just about at the tipping point where they see what’s going on with Trump as an existential threat. Almost. They haven’t quite gotten to the point where they are willing to cane people on the Senate floor, but they’re getting there.

So, in a sense, the flop sweat is about to kick in with Republicans who realize they have a very weak hand at this point. They are going to do everything in their power to gummy up the work of the impeachment process. They will lie. They will cheat. They will intimidate. I would be prepared to suggest that these tactics will work in the end but for one thing — Donald Trump.

Though Trump is finally beginning to realize the existential nature of what’s going on, he’s still reasonable cogent. And he hasn’t gone transactional with his abuses on Twitter. I used to think Trump would implode on a cognitive level and some sort of Regency might be established in private. Now, I think he will EXPLODE in a very public manner and Republicans will continue to kowtow to Trump’s every whim.

Trump will suggest MAGA take up arms against “the enemy of the people” Press or House Democrats, or whomever. He might even dangle pardons to people willing to use their precious AR-15s to make it clear they don’t want Trump to go anywhere. We’ve gotten to the point where there’s a real chance that while the MAGA base of about 35% will feel quite content with all of this the rest of the electorate — and I mean EVERYONE ELSE — will be so full of rage over actual physical harm being inflicted because of a defense of Trump that we may see some rather surreal things begin to happen. More so than we already have.

There may come a point where Republican talking heads defend murder in the name of Trump. They won’t say that, of course. What they’ll say is obviously the “optics” of hundreds of people being slain by a crazed MAGA person with a AR-15 are so bad that we should stop impeachment and “let the people decide” in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump will have finally snapped to such an extent that a lot of people will begin thinking about his continued possession of the nuclear codes.

This is a different type of crisis from the 2000 post-election debacle. This is a hot crisis. You can feel the tension in the country building to something. Something big. What that might be, I don’t know. But I do believe something spectacular is going to happen in the guise of MAGA’s final attempt to save Trump’s presidency. Something jaw-dropping that it will equal 9/11 in its historical significance. I hope what I fear will happen won’t happen.

But who knows, folks. Who knows.

Thinking The Unthinkable — What Happens When There’s Impeachment Violence?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It pains me to no end to have to talk about this. But we have to prepare ourselves for impeachment-related violence. This is a classic desperate move of extremists — they think that if they raise the stakes high enough that the general public will cower in fear and stop the impeachment process altogether.

The only problem with this strategy is it’s a high risk – high reward one. And violence of the sort Trump supporters want is almost totally alien to the American political experience. While substantial impeachment-related violence might dominate a news cycle or two, there would come a point when a lot of people who have previously tuned out would suddenly sit up and take notice. And not in a way that Trump would like.

This is yet ANOTHER example of how Trump is NOT a political genius as The New York Times‘ Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman would have us believe. Trump is so stupid — and rapidly cracking under the strain of impeachment — that he sees violence in his defence as a quick fix that will make all his troubles go away. He is so stupid that he doesn’t realize that his firebreak is the average person’s general political indifference. As long as the economy is going well they generally don’t care. If people start dying as part of some crazed gotterdammerung strategy on the part of House Trump, there’s a real chance of radicalizing — at least momentarily — a huge swath of the moderates who otherwise would give Mad King Trump a pass at least until election day 2020.

In other words — when politics involves death and destruction, Americans generally don’t appreciate it. Violence that can be directly pinned on the overheated rhetoric of the Right will initially give us as nation pause for thought, yes, but the moment the Right goes from, “Can’t blame us, it’s just crazy people!” to “Well, guess we can’t have stop the impeachment process now…” they’re likely to get considerable pushback.

But the key issue is — it’s only going to get worse as we grow closer and closer to Trump actually being impeached. In fact, that’s pretty much Trump’s last trick — to go transactional in his crazypants tweets. While I’m reluctant to count Trump out, when he is directing MAGA to kill people in his defense via his Twitter feed that would, well, take things to the next level.

Who knows what happens next. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

President Nancy Pelosi Must Be Our Endgame Now

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Let me be clear — I’m no big fan of Nancy Pelosi. Even for me, she’s a bit too “woke” for modern American retail politics. But she is a leader and she does have what it takes to be a caretaker president simply so we can have a free-and-fair election in 2020.

If this was a normal Watergate-level scandal, then I would be content with President Pence. He’s conservative as hell, but for the sake of the country, simply pushing Trump out politically would be enough to right the ship of state at last. But, given that this is the biggest existential threat to the Republic since states started leaving the Union after Lincoln’s election, President Pence won’t cut it.

He’s too wrapped up in the criminal fascist conspiracy that is the current Trump Administration. Pence needs the old heave-ho too. I have no idea how this could possibly happen given that Pence has no shame, but sometimes it’s good to dream big politically. We need to set our sights on getting Pelosi into the White House as soon as possible using the framework that exists within the Constitution. In fact, I only even suggest this because it’s the only acceptable outcome if you take this clusterfuck seriously.

It’s too easy to imagine that Pence becomes president and lulz, Barr and Pompeo remain in office and we simply slide into a theocracy. I don’t know about you, but I’m one of those “secularist” Barr and Pompeo bemoan and I don’t particularly feel like finding myself in a weaponized ICE camp in some sort of surreal mixture of The Plot Against America and The Handmaid’s Tale. Pence’s vision of America is based on hypocrisy and the enslavement of women. If that’s not enough to actively work to politically shank him, I don’t know what is.

But, to be honest, the only way we get a President Pelosi is a Radical Resistance. We throw down the gauntlet. Pelosi takes up the moral mantle of the show president by pounding away at the entire corrupt, fascist Trump Administration on a daily basis. We’re in enough of a crisis that she needs to scare the shit out of people. Use inherent contempt to arrest Rudy. Lobby Obama to speak out. Maybe even get Jon Stewart to go on an impassioned rant on The Late Show.

Or, put another way, Pelosi needs to set the national agenda everyday. Trump and Pence are like characters from the movie Scream. They are attempting to tag-team the destruction of our Republic into some surreal dystopia.

I have my doubts, however, that Pelosi is up to it. She’s too conservative on a Constitutional level. Too reluctant to be political aggressive in any way beyond her status as a Constitutional officer. We’ll see, I guess. Stranger things have happened. Maybe she’ll at last rise to the occasion in the manner the nation needs her to.

Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel & #Impeaching #Trump #RadicalResistance

Some thoughts.

Let’s Rock — House Democrats Need To Adopt ‘Radical Resistance’ … NOW

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

For me the notion of “Radical Resistance” is simply an update of the Radical Republicans of Reconstruction. House Democrats need to knock some heads. They need to do whatever they have to do put the fear of God (or the Constitution) into the heart of House Trump.

I would not do this willy-nilly, however. I would be methodical. I would have Nancy Pelosi on TV on a regular basis laying out the case for why Radical Resistance was an absolute must. I don’t know if she would want to adopt the moniker — Americans are spooked by “radicalism” — but the end result would be the same.

Whenever the case is made for a vote on a formal impeachment inquiry, the same day I would ram through a change of the rules so the House could deputize its Sergeant at Arms to start arresting people. I would start with Rudy and go from there. House Trump is no longer moored to any form of democratic norms, so fuck’em. Let’s rock.

House Democrats would simply have to be prepared for Trump to finally be transational in his bloodlust. If they use inherent contempt, he might very well tell his MAGA cult to take up arms against House Democrats and, well, kill them. Or, he would “joke” that something bad should happen to the “traitors” involved in an “unconstitutional coup.” The Right has already adopted his messaging, probably because they not-so-secretly hope that if people start to die the momentum for impeachment will come to a grinding halt. (I have my doubts.)

But I just don’t think House Democrats have it in them. Or, if they do, it will be too late. They need to radicalize…NOW. Like, TODAY. This is a political war and the sooner they start to see it as such, the better. The only thing keeping the Constitution in effect right now is Trump’s criminal incompetence at being a lawless tyrant. If we were dealing with President Kobach or President Cotton, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place. There would be no window of opportunity.

I have no ready answer to any of this. I just know Nancy Pelosi should throw down the gauntlet. Congressional Democrats should shut down the government until Congressional Republicans stop with the pretence of caring about liberal democracy in the first place.

Wargaming House Democrats Using ‘Inherent Contempt’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We’re in a political war right now and I suggest we start to act like it. The sooner House Democrats take things to the next level by using their inherent contempt powers, the better. There are obviously some risks associated with doing this. Let’s look into them.

The biggest fear is Trump will flip out and drop an H-Bomb like weaponizing his Twitter feed even more than he already has. He might dox the whistleblower and “joke” that he should be “taught a lesson in 2nd Amendment Rights.” Lulz, right? That seems to be the biggest fear right now. And that is a very real possibility. But with any use of extreme force, there would likely be unexpected blowback. If you start ranting to your MAGA base about killing people, someone, somewhere might notice. Trump to date has cloaked his bloodlust in the guise of calling people “traitors.” But if Rudy is hold up in a jail somewhere, there’s a chance the man may finally snap and be far more direct.

Another fear is that this would shock the public and turn them off to impeachment altogether. That’s why I wouldn’t do something so drastic without prepping the way. I would have Nancy Pelosi get on TV and give a very solemn address explaining that things are so dire that a Congressional power not used in 100 years is an absolute necessity. I would also suggest you have some sort of uniform messaging on the part of the 2020 Democratic candidates. If Democrats can’t get their act together that much, then don’t bother.

But if they did manage to do this, I think seeing the surreal imagine of Rudy being tracked down and arrested by the House Sargent At Arms would be such amazing, memorable TV that it would likely lurch public opinion even more towards not only impeachment, but conviction. Of course, it would also harden the tribal divide we find ourselves in, but this is an existential crisis. You have to make decisions not based on fear, but on principle.

Anyway, I have my doubts. I continue to be reluctant that Trump will come anywhere near being convicted in the Senate. And, yet, there is the issue of Mad King Trump. It’s difficult for House Trump to found The Thousand Year Trump when its putative founder is bonkers. Trump’s very likely going to finally snap before the impeachment process is over and then the question becomes how much of the rest of the government — and maybe even world — he intends to take with them.

Downfall, Maybe: The Constitution As Trump’s ‘Operation Barbarossa’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Comparing Trump to Hitler is something I have done a lot of in the past, but let’s look not at his policies, but Trump the tactician. It’s eerie how well one could overlay the progress of Hitler’s career in Europe over that of Trump’s political career to date.

Hitler believed in the “leadership principle.” He thought as leader he had a near God-like ability to lead the Fatherland to his dystopian vision of Europe free of Jews, Bolsheviks and Slavs. The Arans would turn Pols and the French into little more than slave labor. Most of Russia west of the Urals would be repopulated with the Master Race.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. Hitler was not insane. He was a very evil person, but he was not insane — which makes him worse. He was very lucky, too. His biggest mistakes were not really strategy, but bending the needs of the war effort to those of his own ideological desires. It was his invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, that was his downfall. He could have gone south east through Turkey into the oil fields of the Middle East and into India. But his kooky ideas about the Jewish-Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union forced his hand in a pretty astonishing fashion.

Now, let’s look at Trump. The interesting thing is Trump is a moron. He’s simply a symptom of some fundimental rot in the American political system. So, you could say that his victory in 2016 was almost like Hitler’s surprise victory over the French in 1940. So, for the last few years, Trump has dominated America much like Hitler did Europe after the fall of the French Third Republic.

This grows even more interesting when you realize that while Hitler had his craven desire to murder people for ideological reasons as an existential flaw, with Trump it’s cheating to win. Combine his stupidity and cluelessness with a deranged 2-year-old’s need to win at any cost and, well, you have him calling up the president of Ukraine 24 hours after Chris Wallace gave him a political pardon after the “bad optics” of Mueller’s testimony.

So, while it’s definitely an extended metaphor, you could argue that the Constitution itself may be Trump’s Russia. It’s not kids in cages. It’s not the 12,000 lies. It’s not the harsh and cruel policies that Trump loves, loves, loves. It’s Trump himself. It’s Trump’s complete inability to uphold his oath of office. His complete, criminal inability to “grow into the office” that might, just might, be his downfall.

And with that, we reach the final question of this gratuitously extended metaphor — what will be Trump’s Stalingrad? What will be the final thing to break his iron hold on the cult that was formerly known as the Republican Party?

Well, as of right now, it doesn’t look like that is ever going to happen. Moscow Mitch will have a 20 minute trial, the Republican line will hold in the Senate and I find myself in a re-education camp just about the time I had hoped to try to sell my spec novel.

But Stalingrad did, in fact, happen. So there’s … hope? All I can think of is Trump again owns himself. But this time he loses his mind. He finally snaps. He goes completely bonkers to such an extent that the normal laws of American politics begin to finally, finally snap back into place. Or maybe after weeks of enormous revelations as part of the House’s impeachment proceedings the sheer absolute pressure of the rage of 60+% of the electorate is enough to wipe the perpetual smug grin off Moscow Mitch’s face.

I just don’t know. I’m not prepared to predict the endgame, either way. All I can say is, though, if we can’t convict Trump in the Senate then that’s all she wrote. Start making contingency plans for hiding in people’s attics if you aren’t MAGA.

Would be pretty funny, though, if both Hitler and Trump were brought down because of shenanigans in the general Ukraine area.

Radical Resistance, Beware Conservatives Bringing ‘Gifts’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have a lot of respect for some of the more notable “#NeverTrump” Republicans on Twitter. And to a large extent, the following is not about them. This is more about the weird amalgam of “objective” commentators who think if only House Democrats would do this or that thing then everything would work out.

First, let’s get some stuff out of the way — there are a shit ton of people who do not want Trump impeached and or convicted. And, to be honest, there is simply no way they will ever change their minds. They have a vested interest in the MAGA grift on a personal level and, well, fuck you.

So, when they passionately articulate for thousands of words this or that bullshit reason that Democrats are doing it all wrong, I suggest you take it with a grain of salt. They wrap up their strategic goal — keeping Trump in office for a full eight years — in what seem to be logical tactical moves to impeach and convict Trump.

A big talking point among these assholes is Democrats need to “slow down.” This is taking a playbook from the gun lobby. What they really want is there to be no momentum. By that point it will be mid-2020 and, lulz, let the people decide sucker! They also get really bent out of shape about the impeachment drive coming off as “political.” This is a lulz given that the entire process is meant to be a political punishment.

And, really, the key thing is — they want to give Republicans, who are already asymmetrically radicalized — an absolute veto over any decision to impeach and convict Trump. They simply don’t see any successful political effort to end the cancerous Trump Administration early as a win for anyone but Democrats. That it might be a win for the nation doesn’t even enter their minds.

A key issue is that the clock is ticking. And, to date, House Democrats have actually done the things they should be doing. I think they should lean into “inherent contempt” now, but that’s just me. That is kind of a nuclear option that would likely have fucktwit MAGA people reaching for their AR-15s.

What happens next? I dunno. But I might gently suggest that some of the hack political talking head on cable news stop bickering about the 2020 race and start to prepare the nation for what was unthinkable just a few weeks ago — Trump could actually be convicted in the Senate. What’s more, we’re just at the beginning of this clusterfuck. There might be a cascading effect whereby Pence, too, leaves office pretty abruptly.

I worry that at the end of all of this we wake up to a President Ivanka, but that’s more me simply always assuming the absolute worst than anything else.

I hope.

Trump Is Causing The Worst Constitutional Crisis Since The Election Of Lincoln

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Just after the election of Abraham Lincoln in the fall of 1860, the bolts began to pop off of the Constitution when states such as South Carolina began to hold conventions to approve their leaving of the Union. These dramatic events were lulzed by sitting president James Buchanan who cemented his rank as America’s worst president.

Now, here were are. Trump, in real terms, is only one tweet away from being worse than Buchanan. All he has to do is suggest to the AR-15 welding MAGA base to take up arms against the “traitors” in the House and, well, there you go. I don’t know how likely that scenario is, but Trump is already mentally unstable and impeachment itself may be enough to finally cause him to snap.

Any civil disturbance that might happen because of such a tweet, Trump can turn around and use as an excuse to dissolve Blue State governments. I guess the point of this is — we really, really need to take current events seriously. Like, really seriously.

These are the highest political stakes to take place in living memory. Trump is prepared to push the Constitution to its breaking point simply to save his sorry ass on a personal level. If we don’t stand up for the Constitutional now, then, well, what was ever the point in the first place. Congress needs to start arresting any and everyone it needs as part of Trump’s due process.

Of course, there is a danger this would significantly ratched up the stakes of an already unprecedented crisis. I say let’s rock. The sooner we embrace the risks of this crisis, the sooner we can address it more effectively. The days of asymmetrical radicalization have to end. Trump has declared war on the Republic and maybe we need to declare war back.

This is a moment of grave risk and potential opportunity. If we’re able to topple the Trump regime completely, there’s a chance that a President Pelosi can serve as a caretaker president who will simply ensure a free and fair election in 2020. I just don’t trust Pence to do that.

And, sadly, we can’t allow a Nixon endgame for Trump. Former President Trump must be indicted, tried and convicted. He’s proven he’s untrustworthy. If he’s a free man, he’s going to meddle in the 2020 election to get Don Jr. or Ivanka elected one way or another.

It’s a horrific precedent to set — “lock her up” and all that — but I honestly don’t know what else to do.

There Is Pride Before The Fall

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I was watching MSNBC tonight and noticed something. They were going through the metrics that the Trump Administration was using to gauge its impeachment strategy.

While someone of them were demonstrably delusional, there was one that stuck out as extremely dangerous for House Trump. The Trump 2020 campaign is making an obscene amount of money fundraising off of the threat of impeachment.

Now, relative to them, that’s an example of how impeachment is a lulz and a win-win for them. They feel that no matter what, they’re going to endup with more money for the 2020 campaign and, by the way, fuck you, you globalist cuck.

This is all well and good, but if one of the primary metrics you use is how much money the base is willing shell out for the 2020 campaign, you’re setting yourself up for a potential political catastrophe. If you are so busy counting your cash like Scrooge McDuck and not weighing political factors, you are bound to make some pretty enormous mistakes.

If you add to this how unstable Trump is from day one and, well, there are no assurances. I have every reason to believe that Moscow Mitch will save the day and that once the Constitution’s back is broken that Trump’s authoritarian wet dreams will come true. But, absolute greed has a hell of a drug. There’s a chance House Trump will be oblivious to the gravity of this situation until it’s far, far, far too late.

But we’re way too early in the process to know one way or another. I guess if nothing else they can just live off their grift money for decades to come. They were going to do that, anyway.

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