Month: October 2020

Election 2020 Known Unknowns


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

How Tight Is It Going To Be?
On one hand, you have indications that we’re going to have a massive number of people voting, which would help Democrats in general. On the other hand, it’s possible that because of the Electoral College and the 48 – 48 split of the nation that even that won’t be enough to give us what we need: a massive blowout to such an extent that it makes it much more difficult for Trump to pull off A Very American Coup.

Russians Hacking Into Our Election Systems
I rant about this a lot, but I don’t, like, KNOW that this will happen. But Russia loves Trump so much that it makes sense that Trump removed 1/3 of our troops from Germany as a direct quid pro quo for the Russians hacking directly into our election systems. I could very well see Trump just barely winning Pennsylvania — and a few other states — and we’d just write it off to the 2016 effect of a split popular / Electoral College vote. We could simply never know what the Russians did. Maybe when AOC is let out of prison in 40 years we’d find out about it. But by that point, lulz.

Is Trump Too Incompetent & Lazy?
While Trump is an autocrat, he is a very lazy and incompetent autocrat. The thing that might cause him to overcome these basic aspects of his personality would be his abject fear of going to prison after leaving office. As such, it’s possible that using Barr he will stage A Very American Coup and never fucking leave office for any fucking reason. This is a very reason possibility — especially if there is any doubt on election night who won.

Are Americans Will To Risk Real World Things?
If TrumpBarr do stage A Very American Coup, is the average American willing to actually risk things that are important to them in the real world for the sake of the country? That’s probably the biggest known unknown. It could be that while there might be a bit of violence here and there, really all that would happen is a lot of angry Twitter threads.

October Surprises
Every day we get closer to the Election, the likelihood that something fucking bonkers is going to happen to upend the whole thing. I keep thinking it’s going to be a Hunter Biden Laptop Deepfake, but who knows. One thing is for sure — we’re already an autocratic managed democracy and for Trump to not think up some bullshit October Surprise would definitely not make any sense. So, it seems logical that things are going to turn on a dime and Trump is going to magically be in the lead again.

The Big Ugly
The weird thing about Trump is he literally keeps inciting violence and no one listens to him. The question is — is it possible that the moment it seems as though Trump is actually going to lose, will Right Wing nutjobs start to blow shit up in an effort to scare us into letting Trump stay in office? Or, put another way, it definitely seems as though an extra-political solution to Election 2020 is on the table if Trump loses by every other metric. It could be that the country convulses no matter who wins the election for any reason because we’re just too divided and it’s just our fate to have a revolution / civil war in 2020.

Vox Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Vox, that pillar of Twitter Liberal conventional wisdom, never ceases to get on my fucking nerves. Since I don’t write for Vox, this is not going to be a blog post that meets the metrics of a successful “thought leader” in Manhattan. I’m just going to ramble off the top of my head from my general impression of the site.

First, one thing that is amusing is the “received English” of the people who do their videos. No normal English speaker uses the very specific diction combined with a deep speaking voice of these Vox people. Add to it a somewhat sing-songy lilt to it all and it grows very grating on my nerves. There’s something smug and organically condescending about this received English. It makes me think to myself, “This is why we got Trump.” I’m extremely empathetic to Vox and they still manage to make me want to scream at the top of my lungs that nothing’s right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.

Then there are the Vox Website posts. Their authors seem determined to drain any sort of humanity out of whatever it is they’re covering. It’s all about the metrics of identity politics, or “slaying the patriarchy” telling me that there is some sort of neo-liberal received truth that I have to believe. I’m still smarting from their post about tropes used in fiction. In my imagination, the writer of the post was a 26-year-old graduate of Bard College who got the gig because her parents knew someone. Ugh. So frustrating.

The hits keep coming.

Just recently, I heard from Vox’s media critic that pretty much all comedy in the Trump Era is shit and there’s only one Twitter comic that we we’re allowed to think is funny. It’s all very strange to me. Vox goes to extreme lengths to shit on any type of mainstream fun. I guess that’s their thing, but it still annoys me to no end.

It’s sites like Vox that make me want to start my own Website like Gawker. But, sadly, I think the days organic growth for a Website are long, long over. Twitter now serves the function that Gawker once did. The Web is a mature medium now.

The Trump Deep State


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, if Trump somehow left office — even after a massive Biden landslide — it would be the biggest shock of my life. Trump is an autocrat — if a very incompetent one — and, as such, he will never “lose” in the sense that he will never fucking leave office for any fucking reason. He would rather destroy the country, bring it to its knees, than leave office and risk personal criminal liability.

But let’s play pretend.

What I think will happen if we miraculously remove Trump physically from the Oval Office is he will salt the earth on the way out. He is going to install is own “deep state” in the Federal government that will do everything in its power to destroy the Biden Administration from within. In fact, I believe the Trump Deep State will be the biggest story of any putative “post-Trump” Era. That’s all we will talk about is how Trump appointees who are difficult — if not nearly impossible — to get rid of are doing everything in their power to hamper Biden.

We already see this with the head of American intelligence Ratcliffe. He’s an extreme MAGA partisan hack. There’s no reason to believe he won’t continue to be just that for as long as fucking possible. He’s going to actively fuck over Biden at every turn for as long as he’s in office. And Biden won’t be able to get rid of him, no matter what he does, because the entire Murdoch faux outrage machine will attack him for even thinking about it.

The point is — even if we get rid of Trump the person, his political herpes will continue to be a problem in American politics for years and years to come. And that’s the best case scenario — the worst case is the whole country goes tits up and we start killing each other. (I really hope I’m wrong on that last bit.)

Did Trump Really Get The Rona?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate conspiracy theories. I generally think they’re the last refuge of the intellectually dishonest. And, yet, when it comes to Trump’s case of COVID19 I’m beginning to be willing to entertain the idea that it was a hoax of some sort.

Let’s go through why.

How We Found Out
For a White House that is known for its raibid paranoia, we sure did find out about Trump having COVID19 in a rather casual way. A journalist from Bloomburg asked a question and they found out. (I think they found out about Hope Hicks having it, which led to Trump.) That is very curious. Why let such earth-shattering information just slip out without usual teeth-pulling, lies, stonewalling and general rat fucking. Just letting us find out without it being a state secret — especially with this White House — is very odd

Claudia Conway
It makes us feel all warm inside to think that 15-year-old Claudia Conway gave us the truth in a Tik-Tok video. And, relative to what she believed, I have no reason to doubt that she was telling us the truth. And, yet, it sure would make a lot more sense that instead of her mom “accidently” letting her daughter hear that Trump was near-death (or whatever) what if it was “accidently on purpose?” That sure does make a lot more sense than what we thought at the time.

Trump Is Fine Now
COVID19 usually takes weeks to recover from, not a few days. And given the side-effects of all the different drugs he was allegedly put on, you’d think he would be acting even more surreal and bonkers than he usually does. And, yet, it was pretty much just an exaggerated version of his usual fucktardness. It would make a lot more sense if he was out of commission for at least two weeks.

Now, let’s go through why this conspiracy doesn’t make any sense

The Superspreader Event Was Real
How it could be that Trump would fake a COVID19 infection after what was an actual, real superspreader event at the White House make no sense. So, that leads me to believe he really got it. Even though he was on steroids and experimental therapeutics that should have left him out of it for some time, he was able to pull through in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Trump’s White House Can’t Shoot Straight
Trump runs the White House like the Trump Org and, as such, it’s a complete shitshow. It’s so totally disorganized and leaky, that for them to successfully fake Trump getting COVID19 would require an amount of discipline that they, to date, have not shown.

So, I don’t know. I guess the only reason why I’m willing to entertain this idea at all is how much Trump lies and how much he got to “own the libs” by making them feel bad about him being sick.

The Crisis Of Anglo-America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love worst case scenarios because at least, then, I can prepare myself for the worst in some sort of concrete fashion. To me, the worst fear is an abstract fear because you don’t even know what you’re really afraid of.

Anyway, the conditions are there, at least for the two leading English speaking nations to completely implode this winter. The United States could implode if TrumpBarr attempts some sort of Very American Coup. The United Kingdom could implode if Hard Brexit happens on January 1st and it’s such a clusterfuck that Scotland bounces because it wants to remain a part of the EU.

I’m only dealing in conditions. It’s very possible that in the United States either Biden wins in a landslide or if Trump does win all that happens is there are a lot of angry Twitter threads and Tik-Tok videos from Claudia Conway. Otherwise, it’s a lulz. With the UK, it could be as an American I have no idea what I’m talking about and you should just, as always, ignore me with extreme prejudice.

The only reason why I think this worse case scenario is even possible is the United States and the United Kingdom have a tendency to follow each other politically on a macro level. This has happened to an eerie extent from when Margaret Thatcher won in the UK which was a prelude to the Reagan Revolution to the modern day. Who is Boris Johnson but just would-be British Donald Trump? In fact, the rise of Trump and the whole Brexit clusterfuck happened at just about the same time for similar reasons.

So, it would make sense that both those shit shows would wrap up at just about the same time, as well. Though, in the United States, if what I call “The Big Ugly” happens this fall-winter, it would be just the beginning of our problems, not the end of it.

No matter what, the Winter of 2020 is going to be a massive crisis for both the United States and the United Kingdom with no obvious endgame. We could possibly see a civil war / revolution in the United States and the simple dissolution of Europe’s last multi-ethnic state within days of each other. It could really get that deep.

One thing we all need to remember is in times of great upheaval things really don’t go in a straight line. There will be battles won and lost. Mistakes will be made for dumb reasons. And it may repeatedly look as though the forces of tyranny will win.

But in the United States, at least, I’m of the opinion that should the fucking fucktard MAGA-Qanon shitheads get their “civil war” they’re so eager to have, that the Blue States just might make them regret that wish. Or not. There’s no obvious endgame.

All I know is things are going to be lit.

The Curious State of The 2020 Campaign


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have two weeks before Election Day and there’s a lot — a LOT — going on. The interesting thing is on the face of it, it seems as though Trump has lost the Mandate of Heaven and we’re headed towards a historic blowout for Biden. I say this because of how tortured shows like Morning Joe are to make it seem as though the race is still up in the air and could go either way.

While that is true, if you read between the lines, it definitely seems as though they don’t want to come off as too cocky. And, yet, if you listen carefully, it definitely seems as though the conditions are there for Trump to get shellacked on Election Night.

But as I keep saying — autocrats never lose.

As such, two weeks is an eternity. So, I guess what I’m saying is at this particular moment, Trump is losing big time. But we’re always just one breaking news story away from all of that changing. Any moment now, I expect a Russian-produced Hunter Biden deep fake to pop out that will throw the whole race up in the air, leading to a Trump victory.

What makes it all so difficult for me to figure out what’s going to happen is how awful Trump is — in real terms — as an actual politician. The only reason why Trump has survived is a very specific set of macro trends that have prompted him up. In real terms, he’s a shit politician who is a massive self-own artist. Trump is just an avatar for white fears about the Browning of America and white, blue color male fears about the growing economic and culture power of women. Trump, as a person, is a lazy piece of shit who takes all of that for granted.

So, as such, at this particular moment, Trump is establishing the conditions for a pretty astonishing landslide against him. But, as I just said, those same conditions make it more likely that the Russians will hack directly into our election systems to throw the election for him and that some sort of Hunter Biden deep fake is going to appear very, very soon — like potentially within hours of now.

Too many powerful people — foreign and domestic — have a massive self-interest in Trump staying in power. So much so, that they could grow far more brazen than any of us could otherwise possibly imagine.

It’s all very difficult to figure out. We have a long fortnight ahead of us.

#Writing A #Novel Is Hard Work


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are really beginning to stabilize with the rebooted novel. But at the same time, it’s beginning to sink in the amount of hard work I’m going to have to put into it. I’m really looking very closely at how Stieg Larsson did The Girl Who Played With Fire. And, yet, at the same time, my story and his story share only a genre. Otherwise, the intention of the two novels could not be more different.

I just don’t get how he got away with so much exposition and backstory upfront. I don’t have that luxury. I can’t really follow his work too close to the specifics of scenes structure and so forth because I need to get to the point a lot quicker than he did in that novel. And my novel is a first novel in a potential series, while The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second.

But I definitely with this rebooted version of my novel understand that if you have a big universe like I do, that you don’t just throw it at the audience in one big shot. You have to methodically begin to roll out your universe in a way that keeps them reading.

As I keep saying, I have no idea what I’m doing, so in my insecurity I’m using The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook.” I hope things will go a lot faster with writing from now on. But I have to be dogged in my drive to finish this work up as quickly as possible.

My lingering fear is the result of the upcoming election — whatever it may be — will cause the conceit of the novel to seem quaint. But you can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

The Metrics Of The Hunter Biden Deep Fake October Surprise


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s go through why it seems as though very, very soon a purported video (or whatever) of Hunter Biden engaged in some sort of illicit activity is probably going to pop out.

  1. Trump is a traitor
    Trump’s head is so far up Putin’s rectum that it seems logical that the Russians would do anything — anything — to keep that fucker in power. Trump is actively destroying the country and the Russians see Trump as sort of the anti-Gorbachev. Trump would rather destroy the United States than risk any personal criminal liability by not being president anymore. So the idea of him working hand-in-glove with the Russians to facilitate a deep fake Hunter Biden seems logical.
  2. Rudy
    Why go to the trouble of coming up with some bullshit “laptop” disinformation campaign if you’re not going to unlock its sinister second stage. House Trump is about as hysterical as you can get at this point in the political silly season and Rudy has been bouncing back and forth between the United States and the former Soviet Union playing spy. So, seems pretty obvious Something Bad is about to pop out and a deep fake of Hunter Biden is going to be it.
  3. Qanon
    This is just rebranded Protocols of the Elders of Zion which is an OG Russian active measure to (as I understand it) validate pogroms in the Russian Empire, so it seem as though the plan is something like this: Qanon –> Hunter Biden laptop –> Hunter Biden deep fake.

Add to this my continued belief that Trump will mysteriously win just like he did in 2016 by barely winning in some crucial swing states because the Russians hacked directly into our elections systems as part of a quid pro quo for Trump removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany and, well, lulz.

The fix is in.

At this point, the question is will Trump’s innate incompetence and tendency to self-own be enough to save the near-death Republic?

And, don’t forget, I’m of the opinion that even under the best of circumstances, we’re in for a surreal few months. We could see unprecedented political violence on the part of MAGA-Qanon. We could see A Very American Coup (and counter coup.) Nothing is off the table.

Good luck.

The Curious Case Of Me Getting ‘Zuccked’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For some reason, my Facebook account has been in limbo for about a month now. I was put in Facebook jail for an extremely dumb reason. And yet, here I am a month later and my account is still in prison with no other explanation than COVID-19 is making it more difficult for them to check my account.

I’m beginning to think that all my anti-Trump ranting on Facebook has finally ended my time on the service. Or, they’re going to wait until after the Election to finally let me out.

We’ll see, I guess.

Anonymous People Doing Due Diligence On You Online Is Like Going On A Date Against Your will


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a very active imagination, hence the novel I’m working on. I think one time someone like Jodi Kantor used the Internet Archive to poke around this Website. I think, in the end, she definitely swiped left on my sorry ass.

I am well aware that relative to the metrics of Blue Check liberals I come across as a deranged crank. Ok, I get it. All I can say is, in the words of the late Annie Shapiro that I’m a, “delusional jerk with a good heart.” I may be a crank, but I’m a good hearted one.

Anyway, someone again used the Internet Archive to poke around this site. I feel nervous about what they think of me because of the very thing I just mentioned — I probably come across as a deranged loser.

Oh well.

I’ve been kicked out of better countries than this.