Month: July 2021

Our Democracy’s Death By A Million Norms


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve read the book “How Democracy’s Die,” it seems as though the authors think one of the ways for a democracy to survive once it reaches a historic death spiral is for the pro-democratic forces to make a point of staying within norms.

Oh boy.

For the United States, at least, doing this would be a very dumb idea.

The entire Republican Party wants to destroy American democracy and establish permanent white, autocratic Christian minority rule. Currently, Democrats follow democratic norms and the Republicans don’t. We’re beyond the event horizon for this happening in the United States, so I think we should just say fuck it and fight fire with fire.

We have the choice of autocracy or civil war before us and I’d rather go down fighting. Now, obviously, I can’t predict the future. So, the case could be made that if you “went down fighting” against the autocratic Republicans that you would be making a civil war inevitable when it might, not, in fact happen.

I don’t know, America just feels like it has an undead democracy already. I would just rather show some guts on a political level than just let Republicans walk all over pro-democratic forces.

A Scifi Explanation For ‘Havana Syndrome’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here’s a free scifi concept for you, Hollywood. The reason why diplomats around the world are having their minds fried by some unknown device is there’s some industrial strength “digital telepathy” going on.

The point of being targeted is a digital mindreading device is draining their minds so intensively that they suffer intense side-effects.

Money please!

‘The United States Of Canada’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All of my dystopian hellscape scenarios about the potential for a coming Second American Civil War to date leave out one important thing — any civil war would not happen in a geopolitical vacuum.

So, it’s very likely that Canada — at least — would get sucked into America’s civil war black hole if that particular seal was broken. As such, it’s easy to imagine there not really being a definitive conclusion to any such civil war. It could be that the United States could literally split into the USC (United States of Canada) and, uh, Trumplandia.

That’s been the flaw in a lot of my back-of-the-envelope scenarios about a Second American Civil War — I assumed that one side or the other would win completely. But it’s possible once all is said and done there will be the USC and Trumplandia. The creation of these two states would be EXTREMLY MESSY and BLOODY, but, lulz at least the good old boys of Trumplandia will, at last, be “left alone.”

Fuck those guys, by the way.

Now, I suspect that if the USC is born that California won’t join the Union at the beginning of any civil war. California, as I keep writing, is something of a wild card because it has such a huge economy and united polity that it’s kind of a nation-state unto itself. Anyway. Canada fucking hates the United States, but it only has 35 million people. The American refugees alone during any Second American Civil War would be enough to transform Canada into something that could join with most of the Blue States to form the USC.

I don’t want a civil war. But the MAGA New Right definitely seems fucking determined to have one.

The DeSantis Paradox


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Ron DeSantis is he’s very VERY popular with bedrock conservatives who remain leery of Trump as a person. As such, it’s easy to imagine DeSantis drafting off of Trump’s popularity to win the Republican nomination in 2024.

Given that the entire Republican Party is now anti-democratic and craves an autocratic white ethno state, even DeSantis would end up being an American Putin before it’s over with.

But there’s a huge roadblock to this fate: Trump.

Trump wants to be president again NOW. And it’s very possible to imagine him becoming Speaker of the House in 2023, impeaching Biden and Harris and getting them pushed out of office when he threatens Senate Democrats with a civil war if they don’t do his bidding.

Though, to be fair, I’m probably giving Trump a huge amount more guile than he actually has. He’s just playing himself. He’s gotten a great deal of success by not doing any hard work and just being himself. As such, he feels he has no need to do any hard work that would allow him to actually become the tyrannical idiot that he so obviously craves becoming.

Anyway, back to DeSantis.

If he can get past Trump — which is a huge if — then a lot of the conservative Republicans who hate Trump and say Trump only became president because of all the free publicity he got from evil liberals are going to be in something of a pickle.

Is the liberal media all powerful king makers or are they not.

Are they a reason to burn the entire country down because of their power, or are they not? If they can’t stop DeSantis (which they won’t be able to ) then that definitely will go against the liberal-media-as-all-powerful that a lot of conservatives have come up with.

But, honestly, why am I spending so much mental energy on this. The entire conservative movement is based on recursive arguments and negative polarization. Even if DeSantis becomes president, they will just hand wave their previous arguments about how they helped Trump win the presidency with all their free publicity.

All they will care about is “secure borders” and a strong economy and making sure the “Marxists” of BLM don’t turn their children into America hating-Leftists through Critical Race Theory. Of course, when DeSantis takes things into the realm of the autocratic because, lulz, there’s nothing to stop him, they will become Good Germans and tell people like me who were right all along to shut up if I know what’s good for me.

Good times!

Welcome, DOJ!


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t think the roughly 30 regular viewers of this Website realize how prosaic and uneventful my life is on average. Not a lot goes on in my life. I drink a lot. I write a lot. I daydream a lot.

That’s about it.

Since I obsess over my Webstats, I saw where none other than the DOJ looked at some of my civil war ranting.

I don’t know if I should be spooked or flattered.

Anyway. Welcome?

Modern Antebellum America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I inadvertently caused a liberal I know to get REALLY worked up when I made the case that lulz, nothing matters when it comes to the Cyber Ninjas “audit” of the Arizona presidential vote. He started to yell, correctly, about what a sham it all was.

Once I got him calmed down, I said he was right, but it didn’t matter — the entire point of the “audit” was, at a minimum, to give MAGA New Right cocksuckers the ability to say, “I guess we’ll never know” who won the 2020 election. But that’s just the baseline — what they really want is some sort of “proof” that they might use to “decertify” enough states that they can start to talk about reinstating Trump early.

Now, if you really want to talk a sooner-rather-later civil war, then Trump finally gets some traction about this very thing and MAGA state legislatures hold “Nullification Conventions” that become “Secession Conventions” and away we go.

But the case could be made that if that hyper-dystopian scenario doesn’t happen, then all this bullshit in Arizona would be the thing Trump would use to shiv House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy when it comes to who will be the Republican Speaker of the House in 2023.

Trump says that Arizona “proves” that he’s “still president” and, as such, he should be in the line of succession for POTUS. He gets it, impeaches both Biden and Harris and then tells Senate Democrats — push Biden and Harris out of office, or we have a civil war.

And THAT doesn’t even begin to address that if we avoid all that bullshit that we have the final, absolute certain future history of a civil war staring in the the general late 2024 to early 2025 timeframe because of a certification crisis.

So, we’re fucked.

But if you look at macro trends, this was going to happen. It was just a matter of the exact sequence of events. And the case could be made that Trump is SUCH a FUCKING IDIOT that of all the possible would-be fascists to cause a civil war, Trump is the weakest of the bunch as long as he’s around. It’s when something happens to knock him out of the equation and we have to deal with Josh Hawley, Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton coming for our liberal democracy that we have a serious, serious problem.

Our history of the future isn’t written yet, though. Anything could happen. We may somehow, miraculously dodge the civil war bullet, but thing’s aren’t looking so great.

Only time will tell.

Potential Fast & Furious Movies


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though each Furious movie grows more…furious. They’ve gone to space, what could happen next?

It’s my impression that a Fast & The Future cross over with Transformers is at least being thought about. But, why stop there? Why not have them time travel to save The Rock’s life? Maybe bring Dr. Who into things. They could set the entire movie inside the TARDIS.

They could fight dinosaurs.

How about a Fast & the Furious with clones? They all have to fight cloned versions of themselves.

James Woods, Civil War & A Renewed American Covenant: The Political Agony And The Ecstasy That Is California


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Someone like Trump was going to happen. Something about Obama’s second term cracked the noggin of the American Right. It went septic and insane. And it just so happened that dingas Trump had enough credibility because of his birther nonsense that when the voice of fate called his name, he answered.

I love alternative history and it’s very easy to sketch out a situation where Trump wasn’t picked on by Seth Meyers WHCD and, as such, Trump decided to play president in a Sharknado movie. The person who could have filled Trump’s spot in our history is James Woods. He’s a really intense, really conservative motherfucker who had he been nudged by Fortuna, might have run instead of Trump — and won.

That points out something about California — it’s actually odd that Trump from New York and not someone like Woods in California became our fascist nightmare. It politically makes a lot more sense for a really progressive state like California to pop out popular conservative figure (e.g Reagan) than the more moderate New York State. Though, I guess you could say that NYC is kind of a state unto itself and, as such, had the same dynamic as a fascist coming from California.

But I have the idea of a Second American Civil War on the brain a lot (as do, apparently, a lot of MAGA New Right cocksuckers) and, as such, I think a lot about what California would do if that tragedy happened. In the beginning stages of any such conflict, there would likely be a lot of wavering on the part of California leadership as if they even wanted to get involved. A civil war might be their only chance to bounce from the Union peacefully.

And, yet, I would like to think that they would rise to the occasion and throw their lot in with the Blue Army. California of the 2020s is the New York State of the 1860s. And, as such, its easy to imagine if the Good Guys win a Second American Civil War that a lot of dead progressive measures would be enacted to fix a lot of long-term, structural problems with the United States at the moment. Just as the we renewed the Union’s covenant of states in 1865, if we had a second civil war, we might do it again with the ideals of California as its basis.

At the same time, I think a lot about how fucked up California is right now. It seems like the place is over run with homeless people and that civil order is beginning to fall apart. It’s all very curious. I guess the case could be made that a civil war might be just the swift kick in the ass California collectively needs to stop thinking about their chakras and start to get down to the hard business of keeping the state’s bolts tight.

What do I know, though. Absolutely no one listens to me.

The Idiotic American Civil War Of 2021 That Didn’t Happen (Yet?)


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We really dodged a bullet earlier this year. Or, more specifically from about November 2020 to January 2021. In a lot of other nations, we would have descended into a horrific civil war that would still be going on.

But none of that happened because the person with whom history entrusted such a horrible event to Donald Fucking Trump, was too lazy and stupid to pull it off. He wanted to destroy the United States violently, but he just “couldn’t get it up” to coin a phrase.

Don’t get me wrong, ding-dong Trump is still very dangerous and he is one of a number of people who could, through a MAGA Congress’ nullification of a Biden win in 2025 force us to the breaking point.

But that hasn’t happened yet. Nor has the civil war — or popular revolt — in 2021 that so many MAGA New Right cocksuckers seem to crave. Though, in all honesty, I don’t think they really want a civil war in the concrete. For the time being, at least, a “civil war” is just an abstract talking point that they use when drinking Miller Light with their friends on the back porch of their cabin where they SWEAR they saw Big Foot one time.

Anyway, much to my surprise and delight, the Union continues to be holding up pretty well. At least on the surface. It’s definitely a lot more unstable that Blue Check liberals would have us believe — but, there would need to be a huge catalyst of some sort for there to be an actual hot civil war in the United States in 2021. August hasn’t come yet, so I guess it’s still possible.

And we are still well on track to have a civil war at some point between Election Day 2024 and Congressional Certification Day 2025.

Get your rest. Buy a passport. Get ready.

I’m Quite Pleased With The Universe I’ve Created For This Thriller Series


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going really well with the four novel series I’m working on because all four books are compelling stories. But a lot — and I mean A LOT — could go wrong at any moment.

But you have to just put your head down and get to work at some point. You can freeze forever because of what MIGHT happen. Worry about what is actually know, what is not known.

I will admit that some of the aspects of this huge universe makes me nervous. And, yet, even the parts that make me nervous can be used in an interesting, compelling manner. I feel a little bit like what I imagine Freddy Mercury did when he was putting Bohemian Rhapsody together and everyone thought he was nuts.

I know in my mind what the vision is and how it will ultimately look like, but if you look at it right now as an outsider you might scratch your head and say, “But why start the series THEN?”

It makes sense in the context of the over all story. I feel compelled to tell the two stories set in the past because they’re compelling and they explain, with great detail, how this otherwise surreal little community came to be.

The biggest problem I have is forcing myself not to be so cruel to myself. I have a huge amount of self-imposed pressure on me right now — I need to knock out these four books ASAP, then turn around and do it all over again so I can let beta readers look at things.

This is a huge, huge project — which is exact what I wanted when I started all of this.