Month: July 2021

Trump’s Curious Political Status


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Our Orange Ding-Dong fascist former president currently inhabits a strange political space. To the average member of the electorate, he’s a washed up former POTUS. The average person is now busy thinking about what they were thinking about before — their kids growing up, etc.

Then there is the MAGA New Right base.

For them, the coup attempt of January 6th is still on going. An entire Lost Cause mythos is being developed around the “stab the back” they experienced with SCOTUS wouldn’t throw the election to Trump. For this small, but passionate subset of the electorate, Trump is either shadow Speaker or shadow POTUS, depending on their talking point of the moment. They are willing to defy any form of logic for the greater good of making it clear that they think “#TrumpWon.”

So, where does that leave us?

Well, a lot depends on how things break politically.

It could be that Cyber Ninjas will do their job and “prove” that Trump “won” Arizona. Either that, in itself, causes a secession crisis this year or it simply causes a longer-term series of events that causes the Right to demand Trump be named Speaker when Republicans inevitably win control of the House. Or the same thing essentially happens, only in January 2025 when a MAGA Congress refuses to certify any election result that doesn’t have Trump on top.

There is, of course, the possibility that Trumpist candidates belly flop in 2022. Then, we get to see the dozen or so would-be autocrats who are scheming around Trump fully embrace the New Right movement and we get either, again, autocracy or civil war.

I guess the point is — either Trump is the one who causes our existential choice of civil war or autocracy, or some other would be autocrat does it.

The Aristocrats!

In The End, The New Right Is Boring


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I recently kind of got worked up over the New Right. Now, after processes what it is, I find it very boring. The New Right is simply MAGA that is willing to unapologetically embrace the absolute worst, most fascist aspects of Trumpism. That’s it. That’s their brand.

As such, it’s very, very boring.

It’s boring because it’s a one trick pony. While they accuse me of being “Orange Man Bad,” they are “Fascism Good.” As such, thinking about them or attempting to engage them is very, very boring. They’re always going to embrace the most extreme position in opposition to yours the moment they realize you’re anti-MAGA. It’s like trying to debate a Nazi. Literally.

Attempting to debate a Nazi leaves you bored out of your skull because you realize the only way anything will change is a war. So, either the New Right gets its way and they establish an American autocracy, or there’s a civil war.

The New Right is so far off the reservation that they become a snake eating itself. Everything they believe is based on the implicit — and not so implicit — belief that fascism is America’s future.

So, again. Boring.

This is boring because once you accept that this is what they believe then, lulz, what’s the point? Better to figure out if you’re willing to stand your ground when ICE starts pushing people out of windows or if you’re going to try to leave the country.

Debating a New Right person is a waste of time.

Also: fuck the New Right.

The Serious Business Of The Silly Catturd ™


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First — fuck the New Right and fuck Catturd ™.

Now that I’ve gotten that out my system, we have to take Catturd ™ seriously because it’s very easy to imagine a situation in the near future where there’s a severe political crisis and Catturd ™ uses his ability to trend MAGA-themed topics in a way that helps establish a MAGA New Right-friendly media narrative.

I don’t make the rules, that’s just what we have to worry about.

And if you think I’m being “hysterical,” I “don’t have a sense of humor” or I just think “orange man bad” PLEASE EAT SHIT AND FUCK OFF.

Anyway. Don’t sleep on Catturd ™.

This Haunts Me: Did Trump Know Marie Yovanovitch’s Life Was In Danger?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Of all the shitty things Trump did while in office, the thing I still find myself thinking about now and again is the whole Marie Yovanovitch situation. She was standing in the way of Rudy’s nefarious plans with her anti-corruption drive and someone who was pretty close to Trump — Lev Parnas — was in contact with a shadowy group of people who were out to get her.

That’s why she left Ukraine so abruptly in the dead of night — the embassy thought she was going to get murdered if she stayed.

So, you have a situation where a bunch of idiot thugs in Ukraine are stalking Marie Yovanovitch with a direct link to the White House. Is it possible that Trup knew — and was directing — this planned attack? It’s very easy to imagine a situation where Trump was Trump and he said something about getting rid of her and the thugs on the ground in Ukraine were like, “Ok, boss! Sure thing!” It was only because of the quick work of the American embassy that Trump wasn’t involved in a conspiracy that resulted in the death of an American ambassador.

But, given what we know now about the absolute devotion of the MAGA New Right to Trump — I suspect even that would be a lulz.

The point is — we’re pretty fucked. A violent personality cult is one election away from returning to power and pushing us into the existential choice of autocracy or civil war.

Now what.

Fuck The New Right


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, there are people who feel MAGA is just a bunch of RINOs. I discovered this when I stumbled across the Twitter account of New Right thought leader Jesse Kelly. What is notable about his excited tweets is how cogent they are. They at least follow some sort of logic — however fucked up it may be.

Fuck the New Right.

What was even more interesting to me is, in a sense, he is a ying to my yang. His arguments and my arguments about how fucked up the United States is right now are two sides of the same coin.

But, in all honest, I have to say to the New Right: fuck you.

The reason is, they are the vanguard of our lurch towards the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. Mr. Kelly is pretty upfront about how he essentially thinks American fascism is ascendant — and that that is a good thing.

Now, the thing about the New Right is it sets the agenda for the center-Right in that it comes to believe some totally bonkers, fucked up fascist thing and this eventually is filtered through OAN, NewsMax and FOX News (and the Wall Street Journal editorial page). The next thing you know, your kindly elderly relative is giving you a watered down Kelly talking point over Thanksgiving dinner.

What we have to accept is the dead hand of history is now doing its thing. There’s no stopping the momentum that is going to push us to the brink — either we become a MAGA New Right autocracy or there’s a civil war.

That’s it. We just can’t punt this particular shit show down the road anymore.

I honestly can’t tell you which one is going to happen at this point.

But the fact remains: fuck the cocksuckers of the New Right.

The MAGA New Right Is Extremely Volatile


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. The conditions are there, if nothing else, for some sort of fucked up and coordinated terrorist strike against liberal and anti-MAGA targets on the part of MAGA or the New Right or whatever the fuck they call themselves now.

If it happened, here’s what I think would be the reaction upon the Right’s “thought leaders.” First, there would be a whole lot of silence as they figured out what their talking points were. It would be radio silence for about 24 hours. This would leave the faithful out to dry as people like me flipped out and pined the conservatives in their lives down on how they could possibly support a movement that incited such an atrocity — whatever it it ends up being.

Then, once the talking points are straighten out, these MAGA New Right “thinkers” would do two things — one, they would say “thoughts and prayers” and then they would do a whole lot of distancing. They would say the individual or individuals who did the Fucked Up Thing were obviously unstable and they can’t be held responsible for their actions. Or, they’ll say they weren’t REALLY MAGA New Right cocksuckers, even if there was a manifesto written that said, “We did this bad thing because of MAGA New Right thought leaders.”

Then, depending on what idiot Trump said on the matter, there would be a gradual drift towards embracing these MAGA New Right terrorists as a regular fucking vanguard of the proletariat.

The point is — our politics is so fucking warped because of macro issues that we have to stop laughing at how dumb the MAGA New Right is and sit up and take notice — these fucking cocksuckers are a clear and present danger and they’re going to start hurting people (like me) soon enough.

J.D. Vance Discourse Is The Dumbest Discourse


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, this Saturday’s evening Twitter has seen the Usual Suspects of Blue Check Liberalism atwitter over this dumb, obvious troll by newly minted Trump sycophant J..D. Vance.

Vance is not stupid. In fact, as I understand it, he’s quite smart and quite well educated. But he’s on the MAGA grift gravy train now, so he feels obligated to troll liberals at every opportunity.

If you give the above tweet any thought, you obviously see the ” ” around it — it’s mean to convey the vibe of that one cool Assistant Youth Pastor who turns his chair around and sits facing you to tell you how Jesus would have been MAGA if he lived today.

But the dynamic of the over wrought, over heated Twitter environment is such that a tweet like Vance’s can easily — EASILY — be misconstrued. And, of course, Vance knows that. The whole thing is a trap to “own” the “humorless” libs. It also doubles as an in-kind contribution to his Ohio Senate campaign because a lot of high profile Blue Check liberals quote tweet it in an effort to dunk on him.

He (and the entire MAGA bullshit echo chamber) knows this, and so they lay traps for liberals like this all the time. And liberals fall for these traps every single fucking time. In fact, it’s so bad, someone needs to teach “How not to fall for a MAGA troll” master class for such individuals to spare us a lot of grief.

Anyway. Do better Blue Check Liberals.

The New Right Is Driving Me To Drink


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, the Confederate statue controversy is near and dear to MAGA thought leader Jesse Kelly’s heart. So, let’s look at his hot take on this lovely issue.

Mr. Kelly gets off on the monument thing because it’s his “in” to a huge swath of Southern white America who barely keeps up with the news. Once he gets their attention by ranting about taking down “history” then he can give them a permission structure for voting for the fascists that he obviously hopes will one day run the United States.

The only way I can spend this much brain power on something so stupid is to be drunk.

But let’s take Mr. Kelly’s bad faith arguments at face value. Apparently, he loves American history so much that he thinks anyone who wants to tear down monuments to traitors are “terrorists.” While I’m glad Mr. Kelly loves American history as much as I do, maybe he would notice that the long arc of (American) history bends towards justice.

It’s very curious that Mr. Kelly takes such pains to defend statues of people who took up arms against the Federal government in an effort to protect human bondage. What gives, bruh?

Anyway. The point is — it’s people like Mr. Kelly who set the boundaries of rhetoric within the Right wing echo chamber. He stakes out a really bonkers, extremist hot take, then it filters down, and is watered down via OAN, NewsMax and FOX News to normal people who should know better but don’t because of negative polarization.

We’re all very fucked. And I’m drunk.

Fast Times In The Upside Down


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I may have to pour myself some more rye to write this one. Think of this as a very long subtweet of MAGA “thought leader” Jesse Kelly. Oh boy. This is going to be tough not write and grow more and more angry as I do it.

But, here’s the tweete, as the kids say.

I have to take a deep breath on this one. First off, it’s interesting that people like Mr. Kelly seem to vacillate between claiming Trump can’t possibly be racist because Lincoln was a Republican and saying shit like the above. Which is it, Mr. Kelly? Do you claim Lincoln or do you not?

“Saint Abe” is a personal hero of mine and I have read a lot about him. Now, I write this post knowing damn well that Mr. Kelly, however cogent he may be, operates exclusively on a bad faith basis. Everything he says — or tweets — is horse shit and he knows it, but the allure of the MAGA (or New Right) grift is way too powerful.

You come for Lincoln, you come for me.

Anyway, the attack on Lincoln on the part of Mr. Kelly is part of an over all attack on the modern world. Apparently, the New Right feels they can score the most points by eliminating Lincoln as someone to admire and to give a reach around to good old boys who believe in the Lost Cause and think flying the Confederate Battle Flag is “heritage not hate.”

This comes from an overarching need to control what any historical discussion is about. Every moment we’re fighting over stupid shit like Lincoln’s public, off handed mulling of sending freed slaves to Libera is a moment we’re not talking about the how conservatives supported slavery.

Also, the teaching of history that I got was a lot more complex than, apparently, what Mr. Kelly got. History is complicated and messy and if you want to “keep things simple” then, well, I don’t know what to do with you. I wasn’t taught that Lee was “Hitler II.” I was taught that he loved Virginia so much that he was willing to fight for the Confederates. It goes without saying, of course, that he saw slavery, “the peculiar institution,” as central to the civil war.

I guess what Mr. Kelly is TRYING to do, is, first, dismiss the entire civil war as anything one can bring into a debate. That way, he doesn’t have to use his obviously limited knowledge of that extremely complex macro historical event. It’s his way of waving his hand and saying yadda, yadda, yadda, Lincoln was a racist, fuck you, lib.

Also, I think he’s pandering to his audience. I suspect his sweet spot is a very conservative engineer type who has a very simplistic political world view and doesn’t talk to liberals very often. As such, they listen to Mr. Kelly for validation. By conflating and simplifying the Civil War, Mr. Kelly is able to negate it as an issue and make his audience feel smug that THEY know something about “Saint Abe” that the majority of dumb liberals don’t know.

It’s amusing to me that something as basic as “slavery bad, Lincoln good” is seen as problematic for people such as Mr. Kelly. It’s kind of dark, but luz.

Writing these posts is so cathartic.

‘This Is The New Right’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s crack open the rye and take a little journey into the Upside Down of the Right wing Twitter echo chamber. I’ve found a feed that is gist for a lot of posts and I’m going to cherry pick the best tweets and write a response to them at length.

Here’s our first one.

There’s a lot to unpack here. The interesting thing about Jesse Kelly is at least he’s cogent in his status as a fascist thought leader. I have to give him that. And, from my personal experience, a lot of bedrock conservatives with a permission structure to vote MAGA use watered down versions of his talking points without even realizing it.

But let’s focus on the, “…You cannot use my values against me….Nothing you say holds any meaning to me.”

What does that even mean? It appears as though the Mr. Kelly is going the nullification route. He’s saying that by definition, if because you’re not a fascist like him, he won’t listen to you, no matter what you say. No point you make which shows him to be a big old hypocrite matters because you’re saying it. This is a great way to pretty much make pin his entire argument on recursive thinking.

If, as a member of the “New Right” he can never be proven to be a hypocrite because he’s not going to listen to anything you say in the first place because he doesn’t agree with you then, lulz, that’s pretty fucking scary. It’s a very dehumanizing stance to take and would be at home in Nazi Germany. I mean, wouldn’t a Nazi say the same thing to a Jewish intellectual? Yep!

In fact, that’s why addressing people like Mr. Kelly in a calm, logical fashion only leads to heart break –you can’t mention Nazis, you can’t mention racism, you can’t mention systemic racism, you can’t mention Hitler and you can’t mention their jaw dropping hypocrisy. If you do, THEY get mad and either yell at you, or smugly say “this is the New Right.”

So why am I doing all this writing about all this bullshit? I don’t know, Mr. Kelly is actually cogent, as I mentioned, and I can’t get all I want to say off my chest in a tweet.