Month: November 2019

A Most Dangerous Game — Republicans’ Trump Whistleblower Gotterdammerung Strategy

Our immediate political future.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Well, buckle up. Trump’s now goading anyone who will listen to out the whistlebower so he can turn around and rant about every aspect of the poor guy’s life on Twitter. The fact that the guy’s name is bouncing around the MAGA-InfoWars Bullshit Echo Chamber and Trump feels he doesn’t have the political cover to do anything about it is obviously really beginning to eat away at him.

Trump allies keep queuing the information up for him to retweet — namely Sen. Rand Paul — and for some reason Trump’s yet to take the bait. So, what I predicted would happen is, in fact, happening. The pressure is now slowly rising. Trump is stoking it as much as possible, too. Since he can’t rant about the personal life of the whistleblower, he rants about how he can’t do it in the guise of how the press knows the name and won’t publicize t so he can get the poor guy murdered with a “joke.”

At this point, the issue how, exactly, the name becomes so widely known that Trump feels he can blurt it out on Twitter. This is when the Trump Train becomes the Crazy Train. If I was playing music at this part of the Trump movie, I would play Motorhead’s The Ace Of Spades over a montage of the procession of events we’re now seeing unfold before our very eyes. The average person — especially those not on Twitter — has no idea what is about to happen.

Trump is so very, very close to being comfortable ranting all day about every aspect of the whistleblower to such an extent that any normal non-fuckwit MAGA fascist racist misogynist — will be taken aback by how dangerous Trump’s rhetoric has become. It’s all going to come to a head one way another. Either Sen. Lindsey Graham calls on the whistleblower to testify in public under oath for 11 hours to distract from the impeachment process or the poor guy is literally murdered in cold blood by a fucking MAGA dipshit with an AR-15 who wants to martyr themselves for the Der Fuhrer.

Republicans will clutch their pearls and say the MAGA assassin was OBVIOUSLY mentally ill and the president can’t be held accountable for that guys actions, and besides, we OBVIOUSLY need to end the impeachment process immediately because people are dying.

While I generally have grown extremely jaded with Trump president, I have a least a minor amount of hope that if this unlikely — but not impossible — scenario occurs, Trump’s political days will be numbered. But, who knows, really.

All I do know is that things are on the cusp of growing far more surreal and dark than we could have ever imagined.

The ‘Known Unknowns’ Of The Impeachment Process Endgame

Our Future.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

On a strictly political level, I feel confident in saying Trump is safe. He will be impeached by the House, acquitted by the Senate and be given yet ANOTHER political pardon for him to instantly abuse. He’ll grow far more brazen. He’ll pardon everyone he needs to, get Barr to indict an array of his political opponents, get Russians to directly hack into our election systems or get some MAGA plutocrat to bribe Electors as need be.

Lulz!

But there are some known unknowns I can’t possibly case out.

Trump’s Mental State
He’s already hysterical and he hasn’t even been formally impeached yet. So, there’s at least a reasonable chance his mental state could explode, not implode. He’ll grow transactional with his Twitter feed, especially in regards to the Whistleblower. Things may get so bad that it’s not the politics of impeachment that is Trump’s downfall, it’s that he’s completely bonkers and the 25th Amendment is a currently a dead letter.

The Fate Of The Whistleblower
While it might be an immediate goal of Congressional Republicans to out the Whistlebower so they can make impeachment about him and his motives, it’s reasonable to believe that will only work with the 35% MAGA base. Everyone else will be able to process that even though the Whistleblower has some professional connection to both Biden and Susan Rice, Trump still, in fact, did crimes against the Constitution that warrant his removal from office. This is really tricky, given that on an institutional level The New York Times continues to carry water for House Trump. (See, also, Maggie Haberman.) So, maybe it’ll work. But maybe it won’t. Who knows. The fate of the Republic hinges on the answer to this question, but lulz. Optics! The Whistleblower is murdered in cold blood by a MAGA fuckwit because of a throwaway line by Trump, then the criminal fascist Republican Party will in the position to finally have to defend Trump directly leading to someone’s murder. They’ll do it, too. They will win the news cycle, but there’s a good chance that their argument — that we have to end impeachment because people are dying — may not actually be as effective as they believe.

General Rat-Fucking By Republicans
Republicans are criminal fascists. They don’t believe in either liberal democracy or civil society. They only believe in power and making as much money as possible to the detriment to the nation as a whole. Barr could hand down bogus criminal referrals at any moment. All they want is to maintain power. They are willing to destroy everything to further that goal. Nothing is off limits. This will grow ever more so as there fucking moron of a leader grows more and more hysterical.

It’s because of these factors that I simply can’t case out the impeachment endgame. If this was any other person as president, I would resign myself to darkness finally falling across the land. I would assume I’d die at some point in Trump’s second term at an ICE Camp with a bullet to the back of the head. While that still may happen, we’re still at the beginning of the process.

Buckle up.

The Upcoming ‘Kavanaughing’ Of The Trump Whistleblower

Now what.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Impeachment is a political, not criminal, process. As such Republicans are growing increasingly desperate to change the media narrative so we’re not talking about Trump’s numerous impeach-and-convict worthy crimes, but the whistleblower on a personal level.

Republicans — especially Lindsey Graham — are itching to do to the whistleblower what they feel was done to Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearings — it wasn’t policy that almost sank him, it was his personal life. So, Republicans want to out the whistleblower so they can first having public hearings where they scream at him for 11 hours but also so they can “kavanaugh”him in the eyes of the public.

Now, what’s bonkers about all of this is it really plays into the Republican base-only strategy. While about 35% of the electorate is fully prepared to dismiss the now-confirmed accusations on the part of the whistleblower because he was apparently Joe Biden’s pointman on Ukraine, the rest of the electorate can process this as rational human beings. Just because someone who you think doesn’t like you points out you did a crime, doesn’t mean you don’t have to face any consequences in the eyes of the law.

But, I suppose, Republicans feel as long as they can discredit the whistleblower strictly on his possible political motivations for 35% of the electorate, Trump survives in the Senate and they continue to rob the treasury, get young hack MAGA judges and drink a flood of liberal tears.

While on the face of this, this is a potentially winning strategy, there are some known unknowns that might — just might — give Republicans pause of thought before they go all-in on this strategy. Trump could get so worked up that he has a throwaway tweet along the lines of, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Some fucking fuckwit MAGA person murders the whistleblower with an AR-15 and the Republicans have to go on TV to spin THAT. (Which, of course, they will do.)

But that’s just a risk. I guess if you’re a fucking racist, misogynistic, criminal fascist organization like the modern Republican Party, as long as the Dear Leader is still in power at the end of the day, the rest is a lulz.

Life In The Time Of Garbage ‘Hot Takes’ From Republican ‘Thought Leaders’ On Twitter

Indeed.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Wow, we wow wow. The hills are alive with some fucking garbage hot takes on the part of Republican “thought leaders” on Twitter. The wild thing about it is, these people constantly bitch and moan about being “shadowbanned,” only for me to constantly see their fucking garbage hot takes on impeachment. So many garbage hot takes are being vomited by these so-called conservative “thought leaders” that it’s difficult to keep up with them.

Erick Erickson who apparently is tight as fuck with God and Jesus — at least he keeps acting like he has them on speed dial — constantly tweet the most asinine observations about House Trump, even though he has yet — as far as I know — to say he won’t vote for Trump next year.

Meanwhile, Brit Hume has totally lost his fucking mind. He’s no longer a journalist, he’s a brazen apologist for any thing Trump does. The only difference between Hume and Sean Hannity is Hume at least pretends to be a journalist, or something. Hume’s latest garbage hot take is that because the Trump quid pro quo did not actually happen, that somehow magically absolves him any punishment because impeachment would be the “ultimate punishment.”

What the what?

There are a few other fucking insane Republican fucktards on Twitter I don’t feel like talking about their so idiotic. I look forward to them somehow defending Trump indirectly leading to anti-impeachment violence. Good times, good times.

Ugh.

Don’t Sleep On Bill Barr

Bill Barr right now.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Bill Barr continues to be very, very quiet. I can only assume he’s going to wait until just the right moment to hand down a slew of criminal referrals that “prove” Trump’s fucking batshit insane Ukraine-Democrat conspiracy theory as the “real” origin of the Mueller investigation.

Trump’s obsession with this fucking bonkers conspiracy theory is yet another reason why we have to begin to accept that while Trump may not be an actual Russian agent, he sure is damn close to one. All I got is his needs and the needs of the Russian government overlap so well — and he’s a very dumb and greedy fucktard — that he really, really wants an excuse to pardon both Manafort and Flynn. What he would get out of this, I don’t know.

The real issue is — how successful would Barr doing this be? Probably initially, it would do exactly House Trump wants it to do — change the media narrative. But after about 24 hours of Maggie Haberman cooing about the political genius of House Trump, it would begin to sink in what an astonishing abuse of power this is.

I say this only because I’m slowly beginning to believe the impeachment train has left the station. I say this in the sense that this isn’t going down like the Mueller Report. We have Trump dead-t0-rights on impeachable behavior. So all the road blocks Trump threw in the path of the impeachment process would not likely work as well as House Trump might believe.

Growing numbers of people are so angry at Trump that the momentum is there to at least impeach him. I still think strictly on a political level, he’s going to be acquitted. But we’ve just started this process. Things are likely to grow extremely surreal on any number of levels before we finally find out Trump’s fate.

But I don’t know what’s going to happen. I still can’t get a handle on the endgame in any meaningful manner. It’s anybody’s ballgame at this point.

Some Ridiculously Nightmarish Trump Impeachment Endgame Scenarios

Uh oh.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I love to wallow in the absolute worst case scenario. My mom was the same way. I used to call this “opposite-positive thinking” when I was a kid — you think off the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen and when it didn’t happen, you felt better than you might otherwise.

Let’s go through some of the absolutely bonkers — and dark — Trump impeachment scenarios.

‘Trump Bit Bonkers”
Trump becomes completely unhinged. He goes transactional in his Twitter offense. He outs the Whistleblower while doxxing him. He incites anti-impeachment violence. This is the ultimate cause of his downfall, not anything he did on a political level. Trump is sane enough, however, to campaign for his hand-picked successor.

The Thousand Year Trump
Trump is acquitted, turns around and does the exact same thing again and wins. His second terms focused on calling a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” It immediately goes rouge and codifies American Carnage in the Constitution. Darkness falls and I die in an ICE Concentration Camp.

Princess President Ivanka
Trump is somehow forced out of office. Somehow Pence is, too. But Ivanka is named Pence’s replacement at lightening speed. She becomes president and does such a bad job — topping even her father — that the conventional wisdom is we’ll never have a woman president.

Sometimes, They Come Back
Trump is convicted in the Senate, but only on the condition that he can run for president again. He promptly does so and either wins, refuses to concede or brazenly meddles in the election with the Russians, et al, and the 2020 Election is American Brexit in the sheer scope of its clusterfuckness.

Barr’s Big Day Out
The other shoe drops, Barr does sweeping criminal referrals as the impeachment process progresses. This is enough of a change in the media narrative that Trump survives and thrives.

President Pelosi Pandemonium
Somehow, magically, both Trump and Pence are force out of office politically with such speed that we get President Pelosi. Unfortunately, the economy tanks, Democrats are blamed and President Kris Kobach is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021.

Endgame Endgame
As it becomes obvious that Trump will be convicted in the Senate, he lashes out and starts a war with the DPRK. It goes nuclear. Millions of Koreans and Americans die. What happens after that is anyone’s guess.

V-Log: The Perplexing Pause In The Whistleblower Name Outing Saga & The State of The #Novel I’m #Writing

Some thoughts.