Tag: Radical Resistance

Radical Resistance, The Wittes Principle & Ending King Trump I’s Tyrannical Rule

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It is self-evident that, to paraphrase Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes, but for his incompetence, Trump’s malevolence might be significantly more effective. As such, as part of Radical Resistance, we need some real talk.

In Trump, we’re dealing with a very American dictatorship. What the mad King Trump I wants is a “managed democracy” like Putin has in Russia. That’s Trump’s endgame. He wants to establish that so he can hand this new system off to a younger, more focused and ideological successor in 2024.

I honestly think that the only thing stopping King Trump I from going full Putin on us is, well, the American spirit. Americans, like the Romans of yore, aren’t too fond of dictators, tyrants or kings and so what is likely to happen is either we kind of drift into an elected dictatorship or sorts…or something REALLY surreal and dramatic happens.

Either the United States is torn apart ( peacefully or otherwise,) there’s a light tough coup by the military, we slowly drift into an actual theocratic, plutocratic autocratic elected dictorship…or something completely unprecedented happens.

Americans are notoriously chill relative to the populace of other nations. Since the Civil War, you can name just a very few occasions when the center was radicalized enough for there to be real change in any meaningful way. Off the top of my head, I can think of 1)Reconstruction 2) The Progressive Era 3)1919-1920 4)The Great Depression 5) World War II 5) The Rights Movement and 6) Vietnam.

So, it’s no real surprise that — especially given how well the economy is doing — King Trump I has been given an effective pass by the vast majority of the population. The average person is STILL more concerned with raising their kids, paying their mortgage and the next season of Game Of Thrones.

Hence, it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to meet our deadline of August 2019 to impeach Trump. It’s just not going to happen. And, as such, all the Blue Check Nattering Nabobs of Twitter will tell us rubes to shut up and let “the people decide” in 2020, instead of impeaching and convicting incompetent tyrant Trump whenever we finally get around to doing so.

But, as a daydream, I continue to wargame how you might meet that deadline. You could think up an app. The shutdown and No Deal Brexit might hit the economy as something of a perfect storm and, as such, Trump’s poll ratings MIGHT drift down to simply to flat Earthers and anti-vaxxers mouth breathers who aren’t self-aware enough to realize the long con that they’ve been duped by.

Also, I feel as though if we’re going to save the American Republic, the Resistance needs to begin to adopt the rules –or “new rules” — of the alt-Right. Fuck those guys. Why can’t we have an alt-Left Radical Resistance? Or, if nothing else, why can’t we at least begin to think in new, different ways should a tipping point arise when something truly extraordinary happens — say we impeach Trump, he gets convicted and…he won’t physically leave the Oval Office, but instead spends all day tweeting in a passive-aggressive manner.

It would be tragic if we lose our Republic simply because the fat cats got their tax cuts and were, like the German Industrialists of the 1930s, so content with the “booming economy” that they refused to use any of their plutocrat money to help the situation.

I guess I’m just really angry that the country I love is in limbo — and is being saved from true tyranny — simply because the avatar of stupid people is too incompetent to realize his tyrannical dreams.

It’s all very surreal. I guess, in my own way, I think we need a vanguard of the proletariat in the United States that would be ready to strike against Trump’s regime in a massively peaceful manner should the occasion arise. That’s where an app might come in handy. If we could have rolling, massive strikes around the country like May Day anti-war protest of 1971, then maybe, finally The Powers That Be in Washington might do something about King Trump I.

I can dream, can’t I. I don’t really expect anything to happen in time to prevent King Trump I from shepherding Sen. Tom Cotton to the presidency in 2024.

Nancy Pelosi, Please Answer With No SOTU Trump, STFU

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Let’s do this.

Let’s force the issue. If Trump wants to get all King Charles I on us, let’s have at it. Have him charge the well of the House under the force of arms. If the optics on that is what it takes to end this nightmare, so be it

Fuck Trump.

Managed Democracy Is Trump’s Endgame — Trump As America’s Biggest Existential Threat Since The End Of The Civil War

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Today, I was thinking about what, in real terms, have been the existential threats to the American Republic since 1865. Honestly, in macro terms, only World War II is arguably a bigger threat to the United States than the current Trump Administration.

Let me explain.

If you were to compare WWII and Trump to threats an individual might face in the real world, WWII was analogous to, say, a fist fight. It was a street brawl, but we had friends and they had friends and by my mid-way through the fight, we knew we weren’t in real harm of dying.

Now, let’s look at Trump.

Trump is like an abscessed tooth that is going unpulled and there’s a real risk of…uhhh…it going septic? I say this because Trump is an avatar for a multitude of things that are seriously wrong with the American political system right now. If he’s not destroyed politically very, very soon — I suggest August 2019 — he could very well kill us, the Republic.

What I mean by this is, we could no longer be even a barely function democracy. It might not even be Trump who kills the Republic, it might be a younger, more ideological and more competent successor such as Sen. Tom Cotton. As such, we’re in a crisis. We have to pull this rotten tooth now, as soon as possible.

If we don’t, there’s a real chance that the only thing that will stop us going full theocratic, autocratic, fascist plutocracy is the basic temperament of the American population. We just won’t stand for the government going full tyrant, so the rules will be bent just enough that effectively we’re a “managed democracy” like they have in Russia. That’s Trump’s goal — to turn us into a clone of Putin’s Russia.

If that’s not a call to arms, a reason to galvanize the Center into a Radical Resistance, I don’t know what is.

There’s An App For That — How A Radical Resistance Could, In Practical Terms, End The Trump Administration And Accidentally Design A ‘Twitter Killer’

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The macro-level forces at work against an effective Radical Resistance, one with the single-issue goal of impeaching and removing Donald J. Trump, 45 president of the United States, are pretty staggering.

Trump is an avatar for about 37% of the elector that feels historically disenfranchised. Meanwhile, the economy is doing — in relative terms — great, so a lot of people who might otherwise be angry with Trump honestly don’t give a shit. They’re more concerned with Little Johnny’s t-ball match that the fact that the current administration is headed by a treasonous, felonious 72-year-old toddler.

So, if you wanted to politically wargame the situation on a macro level, I have — and have had — at least one suggestion: build an app.

I have proposed building a social media startup designed specifically to facilitate regular massive national protests with the intent of putting pressure on Congress to finally do something about the cancer on the Republic known as the Trump Administration.


Doing such a thing would be very complex and potentially time consuming. But if you designed an app or a site specifically from the ground up to meet the needs of this concept, then I think it would help greatly.

Regular massive protests on a national scale would have to be legal, civil and well organized. I would not want to use Facebook or Twitter because I find them cumbersome and too easily compromised by trolls, bots and MAGA haters who would want to disrupt thing.

Anyway, in my vision of things, the service would be set up like this: You would have Groups that were divided into threaded Discussions. One third of the screen — the right side — would be live text chat. If you wanted to start a threaded discussion with someone in text chat, you just hit a button and invited them into a video chat that could have up to four people in it. This would be done in the context of a Discussion (which would take up the other two thirds of the screen on the left). Below the initial video chat would be a place to write a full page blog post. The whole thing would be threaded and you could have inline editing of someone’s post.

But this is just the basic concept. As time progressed and problems arose that needed to be fixed, the service would evolve to meet these problems. Best of all, after Trump was brought down, the service would be repurposed as something of a “Twitter Killer.”

I suspect the only way to fund this site would be either an angel funder or crowd funding. I doubt you could get a traditional VC to fund it simply because they wouldn’t see how they could make money right away. I believe if you see this site as the core of a potential Twitter Killer, however, it would be a pretty cool investment.

I guess what I’m saying is if the Radical Resistance simply existed in the first place and was organized enough, it could not only maybe bring down the Trump Adminstration via an app, it might also accidently produce a Twitter Killer social media app along the way.

Deadline August 2019: Radical Resistance In The Context Of Reconstruction’s Radical Republicans & No Deal Brexit

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The major difference between the Radical Republicans and the Radical Resistance is the historical context. The Radical Republicans existed, in large part because there was a lot of bent-up political anger towards the South and, as such, a small, but powerful segment of the American body politic was pissed.

Meanwhile, right now, the very idea of a Radical Resistance is more theoretical. People are generally content on an economic level because things are doing fine and they’re more busy raising their kids and paying their mortgage than they are interested in impeaching the president. But, for me at least, we have a deadline — if we don’t impeach Trump by August 2019, he’s not going anywhere until at least 2021, if ever.

So, that’s why unless something really big happens in an unexpected way, all my writing about a Radical Resistance movement is more theoretical. But there is one major event that could change a basic aspect of this equation — No Deal Brexit.

As I understand it, the UK is now lurching towards leaving the EU in March 2019 without a deal. There’s a very good chance that the global economy could get kneecapped under such a scenario and, as such, so would Trump. As I keep saying, Trump is an avatar for about 37% of the population who feel historically disenfranchised. That he may also be something of a Russian agent is also something to take into consideration.

Put another way, what might happen is I’m just going to write out my frustration with a lack of interest on the part of the House to impeach Trump until March and suddenly my theoretical ranting about the need for a Radical Resistance won’t seem quiet so much like the rantings of just another Internet crank.

There’s a really good chance that the political center will grow a lot more willing to adopt the ideology of the Radical Resistance once the bottom drops out of the global economy. But that’s just me spitballing at this point. I just don’t see us making our deadline. Trump’s only weakness right now is a macro event.

Americans generally aren’t ones to get radical in any mass way. In real terms, not even the Vietnam War did it. So, all this writing I’m doing is just for my own sake unless I might be able to get a famous person to re-tweet a link to this site.

Or something.

V-Log: Some Idle Rambling About ‘Radical Resistance’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The Case For Radical Resistance — Embrace The ‘New Rules’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One thing that’s interesting is Trump appears to be fishing for some new catch phrase to lob at people he doesn’t like and he right now is talking about “Radical Democrats,” which doesn’t have the marketing umph of what I think we should call ourselves, which is “Radical Resistors.”

So, it seems only a matter of time before it clicks with Trump and all he’ll do is talk about Radical Resistors and how evil we are. This, of course, probably will make Blue Check Liberal Intellectuals wring their hands and clutch their pearls in dismay, saying self-adoption of the phrase is a “gift” to Trump and MAGA.

You know what I way about that?

I say fuck that.

You know what Radical Resistance is to me? It’s that feeling of anger you get after listening to Pod Save America. That sense that something is deeply wrong with the political culture of the nation you love and yet it seems as though there’s this weird asymmetrical dichotomy in the eyes of the mainstream press.

The press — whom I love — still has their fair set of problems, and their conspicuous double standard for MAGA and Radical Resistors is one of them. MAGA is quite proud to run their political game under completely different and “new” rules than what the Democrats typically use. I say, why not adopt these “new rules” as well at least in the short term if that’s what’s needed to have a functioning governent.

At least in the short term, The Resistance needs to throw aside it’s politeness and throw down the gauntlet and pick up the rubric Radical Resistance. Both sides are in the Thunderdome, but only one side realizes it. The Resistance needs to radicalize on an ideological level for a very specific reason — the future of the Republic is at stake.

And, really, the ideology that I propose isn’t even really all that radical. Simply demand that if a Democrat wants your vote, they have to be in favor of the immedate opening of impeachment hearings and the eventual impeachment and conviction of Donald John Trump.

Everything else is just white noise.

I get the sense that people are slowly radicalizing, but maybe because they’re busy, like, having a life, they haven’t spent the time needed to figure out exactly the ideology of their growing anger. I propose that we name ourselves Radical Resistors as a homage to the Radical Republicans and bumrush the Freedom Caucus.

But this is more a liberal progressive daydream than something I think might actually happen. I guess because of the rise of people like AOC, I’m slowly turning into a Democratic Socialist. But even AOC has disappointing me in her wishy-washiness when it comes to the topic of impeachment.

Again, let me note that there would be any debate about the need for impeachment — at a minimum — at this point is kind of flabbergasting. Someone, somewhere with some power needs some backbone. Someone needs to kick the powers that be in the ass and get them to do their job

If you want to say adopting the phrase Radical Resistor is a “gift” to MAGA, then so be it. But get out of our way, we have a Republic to save.

The Audacity Of A Mobilized Center — We Need A Radical Resistance

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s pretty self-evident that the Democratic Establishment in Washington is completely useless right now, at least for people like me. I’m a high information independent voter who was among the first in my district to vote Election Day because I wanted to vote for a Democrat. I felt that if a Democratic majority in Congress simply showed up to work in January, we’d have impeachment hearings by the middle of February.

Sooooo… here it is nearly the end of January…and nothing.

We’re set to have the Cohen hearings in early February, but that’s pretty meh. Why is it so hard for Democrats to be as fucking bloodthirsty as Republicans when it comes to investigating the president of the other party. What is wrong with you dumb-dumbs?

I guess I’m radicalizing in a strictly ideological manner. In other words, I’m NOT one to, like, start building pipe bombs in my apartment. Fuck that. I’m a man of peace and I don’t wish physical harm on anyone I disagree with politically. Even punching Nazis, while cute to talk about, makes me queasy in any real terms.

But I do think once you establish what the ideology of the Radical Resistance is, that the rest falls into place pretty easily. Massive peaceful protests are pretty much the only weapon the people have at this point, apparently.

Yet that’s not going to happen as long as the economy is doing well. So, all I can do is just vent online and hope the FBI doesn’t knock on my door — even though I’m definitely NOT advocating violence. Using my Constitutional rights to public assembly, yes, violence, no.

I am very frustrated, regardless. And I can talk and write fairly well, so it at least makes me feel better than I’m playing little drummer boy in that regard. But probably what’s going to happen in a best case scenario is at some point between now and August 2019, the economy will go south (because of No Deal Brexit?) or the Mueller Report will drop or something REALLY bad will be reported about Trump.

I don’t know. I’m just frustrated and I find myself thinking up different angles for the topic of Radical Resistance. So, that’s what’s happening. I wish people would start to talk about this concept, though. That would be pretty cool.

If we could get the center radicalized then we could get rid of Trump. But, alas, it’s surreal how cagey Democrats in the House are about even looking into Trump at all. Fuck that. Come on guys take a stand for once.

Pod Save America & A Potential Radical Resistance Movement

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m decompressing a little bit again from developing the thriller I’m trying to write and as such I have a lot of urge to write about something near-and-dear to my heart right now — the possibility of a Radical Resistance and its ideology.

The main problem, as I’ve mentioned, is time.

The economy is doing too well and generally there’s no political will-power to do anything about Trump’s treasonous, felonious illegitimate and tyrannical regime, so I guess we’re stuck with it for the forseeable future.

Having said that, if the guys of Pod Save America might gently broach the subject of a Radical Resistance to their multitude of listeners, maybe the idea might strike a cord. Just because 37% of the electorate are in a lobotomized MAGA cult, doesn’t mean the rest of the population has to lie down and cover itself with leaves.

Right now, I feel a lot of high information voters feel like me, but they don’t quite know how to articulate their ideology. If the people of Pod Save America were to say if you want to say fuck it, demand Trump is impeached immediately, regardless of when it becomes politically viable under the cover of the magical mystery Mueller Report then you a Radical Resistor.

That’s it, that’s your ideology for the Radical Resistance.

It’s not violent at all. I’m thinking a lot less Weather Underground and a lot more, maybe using Rage Against The Machine’s Renegades of Funk or John Lennon’s Power To The People as protest anthems during the course of massive rolling — and peaceful — protests across the country.

Really, that is where Crooked Media sure could come in handy in making this vision a reality. Simply saying don’t be afraid to call yourself a “radical” in the sense that you are a one-issue voter for the immediate future — impeach Trump NOW.

We really need to channel our inner punks and AOCs and stop being, like, uh, Joe Biden? We need to say fuck the Establishment, fuck the Powers That Be. We need a radical centrist movement that simply says enough is enough — Trump, at the very least, has to be impeached by the House immediately and any Democrat who doesn’t support doing that risks being primaried by the base in 2020.

Though if Trump lasts to 2020, we really are fucked.

So, I guess if I could get a “many people are saying” reference on PSA, that would rock.

Not that it’s going to happen.

Radical Republicans, ‘New Rules’ & Radical Resistance In The Age Of Trump

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

When I talk about “Radical Republicans,” I’m talking about the Radical Republicans of Reconstruction, not, like the modern Freedom Caucus. So, in a sense, I guess that’s something of a letdown to people who might hate-read this blog.

But anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is there is historical precedent for all my talk of Radical Resistance. It’s been done before and done well. Yet it happened after a war, so, shrug. I think Trump is going to survive and prosper, given the existing conditions.

Republicans are always talking about “new rules,” and maybe if the Resistance to Trump grew a bit more radical on an ideological level, we might come up with our on set of “new rules.”

But, of course, no one listens to me.