Month: June 2021

Louie Gohmert And Government By Gesture


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something that political Twitter is too often oblivious to is how all these dumb comments that MAGA politicians utter aren’t nearly as stupid as you might think. Things have gotten so tight and divided in our political system that honestly all people like Louie Gohmert want to do is somehow get the words “cancel culture,” “critical race theory,” “BLM” and “Antifa” in a sentence, any sentence so they can bait the MAGA base into hysterics.

MAGA policitains honestly don’t care about anything they say. Most of them aren’t nearly as stupid as they seem — craven, yes, stupid, no. Ideas like “cancel culture” and “critical race theory” are the clit of the MAGA base. Just the mere mention of them — even if the result is ostensibly word salad — is enough to get the MAGA base hyperventilating in hate-fueled pleasure.

In the end, of course, the question is once the politics of gesture succeeds in handing Republicans power again, do they ever let it go? And if they don’t do we simply slip into autocracy or we do we have a civil war? I’m beginning to believe that we’re just going to peacefully slip into autocracy and that will be that. MAGA Republicans will, at last, achieve minority control of the country and that will be that.

But while we wait for that to happen — we need to stop giggling at how stupid people like Rep. Gohmert appear.

My Hot Take On The Yashar Ali Controversy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s my impression that Yashar Ali is of Iranian origin. The reason the recent kerfuffle about this Twitter “influencer” caught my eye is I knew a Iranian dude in Seoul who — much like Ali — collected friends like other people collect stamps. This guy had about 30 people at his birthday party in Seoul one year. I was flabbergasted.

Nothing I write here should be taken as any sort of judgement on Iranians — on an individual level, I’m quite fond of Iranians because they can do the one thing I can’t do: make friends.

It makes me wonder if Ali is, like my Iranian friend in Seoul, just really, really, really good at making friends. It’s spooky how apt the description of Ali fits the guy I know from Seoul.

Anyway. No one cares what I think.

Tackling Dumb Political Hot Takes


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I try to be a reasonable, easy-to-get-along with person. And, yet, sometimes I talk to someone whose political hot takes are so confoundingly stupid that I grow exponentially exasperated. Let’s go through some recent dumb hot takes I’ve heard.

American Poor People Are Ungrateful
The premise of this dumb hot take is that the average poor person in the United States would “be in the in top 10% anywhere else in the world.” The purpose of this hot take is to suggest that American poor people are ungrateful mooches who want to drain hard working Americans of their tax dollars. If only they would realize how good they had it, the theory goes, American poor people would be seen and not heard. And they wouldn’t complain when the social safety net was cut, because, lulz, they already have it too good, anyway.

There are a lot of problems with this hot take. The most obvious of them is it’s just not very well thought out. Just because someone, in relative terms, is doing well if you directly compare them to someone in a 3rd world country, doesn’t mean that in practical terms their life is all that great. There is this thing called the cost of living. This hot take is sooo fucking dumb it enrages me just thinking about it.

Professional Politicians Should Be Eliminated
This dumb hot take posits that if only we stopped paying politicians and got a bunch of good old boys working in Washington part time, then “real America” would finally get the government it wanted. There is so much wrong with this hot take that, again, I grow enraged. The more glaring dumb aspect of this hot take is it has some sort of wistful longing for the good old days of early America when White People Were In Control. The fatal error of this hot take is it ignores the massive amount of corruption that would take place if you didn’t pay Congress anything. Even the most seasoned pol in Washington is often a pushover for lobbyist. If all you had were citizen pols who swung by the House floor on their way to see Lynyrd Skynyrd play, all you’re doing is handing the keys to government to the permanent lobbying class.

America Is A Constitutional Republic, Not A Democracy
This is dumb hot take pops up now and again in American history whenever people like me start to grow concerned about the fate of liberal democracy. It was harped on a lot right before World War 2 and it’s seen a lot now in a lot of MAGA and MAGA friendly circles. To me, this is just backdoor autocracy. It’s what people like MAGA say when they don’t like the fact that a lot of people don’t like their policies and, as such, vote against them. These “Constitutional Republic” people want to do everything in their power to delegitimize the importance of voting. This argument arises, in part, because people like me are now very alarmed about the fate of our democracy so these people just lulz and say, “What are you worried about, we’re not a democracy.” The end result is their autocracy-friendly and just want their unpopular conservative policies to be implemented, no matter what.

The general take away from these dumb hot takes is there are a lot — A LOT — of people who have recursive political political views. They’re generally uneasy with the talking points of the center-Left and, as such, they pull whatever necessary out of their puts to justify what they already believe.

MAGA Fascist Form Follows Function


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I talk to my far more conservative relatives about the dark path that MAGA is leading us down and a recurring defense they use is sort of, “Oh, that would never happen.” This, in large part, is a function of the extensive permission structure that’s been built up specifically to allow conservative people who are turned off by MAGA to turn around and vote for Trump anyway.

And, I have to admit, that while Trump is definitely “autocratic friendly” in the end, he was just too dumb and lazy to follow through on his more extreme anti-democratic rhetoric.

I feel, however, that anyone who lulzes the dangers of MAGA, ignores how on an systemic level, the Republican Party is now hell bent on establishing a “blood and soil” white Christian ethno state in the United States. Political history teaches us that form follows function and, as such, once MAGA inevitably comes to power again that what Trump only talked about in the past is going to become a reality.

The autocratic forces at work in the United States are just too strong. Historical determinism would suggest that there will come a point when all my dystopian hellscape scenarios are going to come true. And that’s when I wonder how my conservative relatives are going to react.

What I think is going to happen is they will become, at last, “Good Germans.” They will generally be pleased with how they can finally sleep tight at night because MAGA has eliminated any possibility of them being “canceled” simply for being conservative. Any excesses on the part of MAGA will be justifiable because the boarders will be secure, abortion will be illegal and elections “secure.”

I, being an anti-MAGA loudmouth, see things dramatically different. What is nothing more than an abstract for my conservative relatives is very concrete for me. I have no idea what the specifics of any of this will be, but the case could be made that at some point President Pompeo or President Cotton will purge the media in some way and then weaponize the existing ICE infrastructure.

As such, it’s very possible there will come a moment when my conservative relatives will be required to weigh their personal needs with my political transgressions in this new, dark MAGA fascist era. I’ve already told at least one of them to just turn me in. I know that sounds hysterical right now, but I’d much rather be turned in by my Good German relatives than have them beg me to shut up for the sake of the family.

It’s just not going to happen.

I often weigh how long, exactly, it might take for this “form follows function” concept to turn us in to what MAGA wants us to be –an Americanized version of Putin’s Russia. I struggle with this because it’s very possible that for some time after we become an autocracy, MAGA autocrats won’t really touch the one thing that would make people sit up and take notice: the First Amendment.

For some time, they would likely be quite content to weld hard power via law and policy and laugh at Twitter liberals who freak out at this or that autocratic thing that has been implemented. A lot of how this would actually go down depends on the personality quirks of whichever autocrat in waiting happens to finally ascend the throne.

But, my rough estimate would be we would gradually grow more autocratic and then suddenly get REALLY autocratic. My guess right now is this would happen when the MAGA fascist leader we finally elect demands a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balance budget amendment.” They will get their convention, then it will turn around and enshrine MAGA into law for good.

Then things are really going to get shitty for people like me.

Yet, I’m sketching out things that will likely happen at some point between now and, say, 2041. Of course, there is the other option, which is we have a civil war and after we bomb the hell out of each other, we sort things out and gradually go back to the way things were. But that would be a tragedy and I’d prefer not to go through that hell.

Anyway. Good luck, guys.

Ok, Tik-Tok, I Get It, You’re Still Reading My Mind (Or Something): Alexa Chung Edition



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, let me begin by saying because of a very strange set of circumstances a few years ago it’s at least possible that an FBI agent in Washington D.C. monitors this blog to see if I mention fashion It Girl Alexa Chung. This stems from a dumb misunderstanding.

Anyway, let me be clear: the conditions that caused me to briefly have a celebrity crush on Alexa Chung are now long gone. I still have an obsessive personality, but now I’m obsessed with the novel I’m working on.

The reason why I say all of this is today I was minding my own business, using Tik-Tok when I was served a video that was all these photos of Alexa Chung. I have long worried that maybe Tik-Tok is, I dunno, reading my mind, and the fact that I have not in any way do anything anywhere to indicate to Tik-Tok that I would be interested in Alexa Chung for any reason is very odd. I also got served Mighty Boosh videos today, as well, which is equally odd.

Now, I am well aware that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and so given how bonkers the idea that Tik-Tok is, in any way, reading my mind is, I’m leery of giving the idea too much credence. And, yet, I’m stumped how Tik-Tok’s “algorithms” could narrow down my personal interest in both Alexa Chung and the Mighty Boosh if I’ve done absolutely nothing of late online that would give them reason to believe that.

But I guess somehow they figured it out without reading my mind. But I am left with a lingering unease. Tik-Tok knows way too much about me and it’s a mystery how it happened.

PS: Dear FBI Agent — leave me alone!

Seoul On My Mind


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was in South Korea for about five years total. It was a very unique situation for a number of reasons. I grew up a lot while I lived in Asia and it was there that I fully began to understand how creative I am.

But one thing they don’t tell you about living in South Korea as an expat is there is something akin to an Event Horizon. If you become a long-term expat (longer than, say 1 year) you never really ever leave the country. There comes a point when some how, some way you’ll continue to get the occasional ping from South Korea to remind you that you can never, ever really leave.

One reason this has happened to me now and again many years after I left South Korea is I was definitely a larger-than-life character within the Seoul expat scene. Add to this the fact that the Seoul expat scene tends to strip mine any creative ability you have and you have a recipe for me being remembered long after I physically left.

Every once in a while, I wonder if any of the many young Koreans I taught English to over the years will ever try to look me up as adults. That is going to be very surreal if it ever happens. Existential, even.

Having said all that, I have a general inclination to return to Asia one more time for a few weeks before I drop dead. It would be fun to simply show up in Seoul and see if anyone noticed — and what their reaction would be. Almost all the long-term expats I knew are long gone, but I’m sure there are a few extreme long-term expats who would remember me, not to mention the odd Korean here or there.

But all of that was long time ago. I’m not the person I once was. I have a lot more wisdom and humility, for starters. And I’m also well aware that I have Romanticized my time in South Korea and it’s come to represent my lost youth. Yet, that’s life, I guess.

I will be interesting to see if I ever get the chance to return.

Slouching Towards Trumplandia: Trump Remains An Incredibly Dangerous Political Force


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s easy for Twitter liberals to dismiss Trump as political has been and fool. But once you stop looking at him on a personal level and begin to understand that he’s seen as something of a political totem for alarmed white middle-class conservative Christians, you begin to realize how dangerous he remains.

These white middle class conservative Christians see Trump as a flawed fighter for “real America.” They’re worried, on an abstract level, about the browning of America and how fast America is changing on a social level. Of course, they just look at people like me when I point out that they’re really afraid of losing power. They don’t look at it in those terms. They just know how Trump makes them feel and everything else is rationalization.

But wait, it gets worse.

Now that Trump has shown the way, the Republican Party on a systemic level now has wrapped itself not just with the flag, the Bible and the Constitution, but Trump himself. MAGA has metastasized within the Republican Party to the point that Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump. This has happen to the point that Trump has done his job. Even if we magically ended his political career somehow, there are literally a dozen other would-be Republican autocrats waiting in the wings to finish the job Trump started.

Each of them has their personality quirks, but their goal would be the same — to ensure white conservative Christian rule for generations to come.

And, to be honest, given how the Democratic Establishment and the MSM are not taking any of this all that seriously, I think in the end our liberal democracy will die not with a bang but with a whimper — it will simply become conventional wisdom that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if Democrats also control Congress.

Given that Republicans are actively suppressing the vote and gerrymandering, this type of synchronicity will grow increasingly difficult to accomplish. People will grow disillusion with voting altogether. In the end, the media with be purged and Republicans will demand a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” This reasoning will be a ruse, of course, and they will enshrine MAGA into the Constitution.

Given what I have to work with at the moment, this definitely seems the ultimate endgame for the United States. We will find our Putin and he will serve for decades. There will be the occasional protest, but nothing will come of it. The existing ICE infrastructure will be weaponized and people like me will start to get pushed out of windows because we refuse to fucking shut up.

But this hasn’t happen yet. The case could be made that there is a 50/50 chance that during the final transition to autocracy, a lot of people on the center-Left who are oblivious to all of this will suddenly get woke. This is when we come to our other possible scenario: civil war.

I’m growing to believe this is far less likely than I once did. For there to be a civil war, one of two things would have to happen. One, MAGA would need to strike too early. This might happen if Trump got his “win” in Arizona via Cyber Ninjas sham recount and he was able to force MAGA state legislatures to attempt to “nullify” the Biden Administration. The other way would be an unexpected “Great Man (or Woman)” who would step in a just the right moment to defend our dying liberal democracy and help us fight back the cold, dark waters of tyranny. Call this the Lincoln Option.

I just don’t see either one of those happening. We’re going to gradually, then all at once, turn into a white Christian ethno state. At first, things won’t really change that much and we’ll still have the trappings of a liberal democracy but as the years grind on form will follow function and in about 20 years we’ll wake up in Trumplandia.

Prove me wrong.

The Fucking MAGA Fascists Are Coming For Dr. Fauci


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that does not give me a lot of confidence about the state of American politics is how the MAGA Right in the US is working itself up into a lather when it comes to Dr. Fauci.

This is all very surreal to me given that Trump’s dingdong incompetence directly caused about 500,000 excess COVID19 deaths. Now, it’s very clear what’s going on — Republicans know this and are using the age-old political technique of screaming at the top of their lungs about emails in an effort to deflect from their own weaknesses.

They know that every moment we’re yelling over Dr. Fauci’s emails is a moment we’re not thinking about what an utter disaster Trump’s handling of COVID19 was. They have a two fold goal. On one hand, they want to stir up the base with a 2 Minute of Fauci Hate every day so they will flood the polls to flip Congress to “hold him accountable.” Meanwhile, they want to control the media narrative so we’re all fighting over Dr. Fauci his emails and not Trump and his COVID19 mismanagement.

The thing none of us non-MAGA people are prepared for is how hysterical and ultimately bloodthirsty MAGA is going to become about Dr. Fauci. He’s a convenient lightening rod because he wasn’t cowed into submission by Trump and didn’t take any of his shit. Add to this the well-worn outrage machine that MAGA already has when it comes to emails and, well, look out.

The moment MAGA controls Congress, every moment they’re not cutting taxes for plutocrats or flooding the Federal bench with young hack MAGA judges or impeaching Biden and Harris for Not Being Trump, they’re going to be yelling at Dr. Fauci in committee meeting after committee meeting. It won’t matter what he says, it won’t matter what the facts are, they will strip mine his status as a political lightening rod until we reach Benghazi levels of stupidity.

In the end, all of this will fuse together so the usual suspects of MAGA will get involved. Ultimately, it will become MAGA orthodoxy that Dr. Fauci is a member of the Deep State and directly funded — and ordered — the release of COVID19 from the Wuhan lab because he wanted to bring down Trump. They’ll claim the emails prove this — somehow — and before you know it somehow Qanon, George Soros and Comet Pizza will be involved.

My fear is, of course, that someone is going to get hurt because of all of this. Then Republicans will be SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you that some “mentally unstable person” would do such a thing. They will mumble something about “thoughts and prayers” and then move on to whatever other batshit insane thing that can mentally stroke to make themselves feel better.

America’s Potentially Dark Future: The Scalia Endgame


By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, the United States’ political system is not prepared for any sudden extra pressure on it. It wouldn’t take a lot at this point for there to be significant, unpreceded political violence across the country. Among the various ways this might happen is something that in a different era wouldn’t be that big a deal: the Scalia Endgame.

What I mean by this is, a well known political figure simply dies peacefully in their sleep. Even when Justice Antonin Scalia did it, the Right flipped out, thinking up all kinds of crazy conspiracies to explain a pretty mundane event: he died in his sleep.

There are a lot — a lot – of well know people on both sides of the aisle who are old as fuck and could croak at any moment just because, well, they’re old. I know I often think up some hysterical, dystopian scenarios that don’t happen, but the conditions are there, at least, for some serious political violence if the wrong old person croaks any time in the near future.

I hope we don’t have to worry about any of this. But it’s something to keep in the back of your mind.

Things Are Getting Really Good With The Novel’s Development


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m finally just about where I want to be with the novel. At least on a developmental basis. The first act is pretty stable at this point, as is the third act. It’s the second act that I still have some blank spaces left in the outline. But in the next day or so, I hope to rework it to such an extent that I can fill those blanks and start writing with gusto again.

I finally feel like I have laid out the proper structure for the novel. One of the crucial things I had to do was stop following the structure of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire so closely. My story just doesn’t fit its structure. As such, when I finally figured out the story I wanted to tell and how I wanted to tell it, the novel is it’s own thing now, not just overwrought fan fiction.

Once I sort the second act out, things should move a lot faster when it comes to the actual writing. I have a lot of reading to do, still, to flesh out some of the characterizations. I keep punting on reading because I’m nervous I’m going to read something that makes me throw everything out again. I’ve done that so many times — and so often felt like I was spinning my wheels — that it’s very frustrating.

And, yet, the only way to give life to my characters is to do a lot of reading. I hope to at least try to get back into the habit of reading a lot again in the near future. It’s just so difficult to do when my entire life has become consumed with developing and writing this novel.

But, in general, the structure of this novel is really, really strong. My goal is to write a first draft that’s so stable that when I write the second draft all I’ll have to do is just rewrite everything, I won’t really have to mess with the actual structure of the story. You’re supposed to give yourself a month between the first and second drafts and I think I’ll spend that month working on the second book in this two book story.

I wish I could follow in Stieg Larsson’s footsteps (minus the dying of a heart attack, of course) and finish three novels, but that’s just not how it worked out. I have a prequal (or two) already mapped out in my mind, but those would only be written if I manage to sell these two books and they’re popular enough that people want to know what happened before the events they depict.

I keep looking at the outline, even with all the gaps and am quite pleased. It’s taken me about three years to get this point, but I finally see land just over the horizon. I really hope to get to writing again soon.