Month: August 2022

MAGA Is Radicalizing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate to break it to you folks, but Trump now has America’s fate in his tiny, tiny hands. For some inexplicable reason, we’re reaching a political Singularity whereby two absolutes are going to collide — the absolute desire to protect the Fuhrer on the part of MAGA and the government’s absolute need to hold Trump criminally accountable.

I have long poo-pooed the idea that we’re going to have any sort of MAGA civil war or “revolution.” And, yet, it would not take too many MAGA lone wolves using their beloved AR-15s before something akin to a “MAGA revolution” would be marketed by the press.

There’s only be one time when Trump went something akin to transactional and that was January 6th. He did it because he was desperate and he thought maybe he could stay in power by simply inciting a mob to scare the shit out of Mike Pence.

So, if there was a real chance that Trump was going to be indicted and arrested, he could very well feel so trapped that he starts to demand that states begin to secede from the Union to put pressure on the Federal government to back off. If he did something so dumb, I could see Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, (maybe) Florida and definitely a number of low-population mountain states could do just that.

And, as is usual with Trump’s bullshit — he wouldn’t at least a first, even mean it. He would just be desperate and want to scare the Federal government into giving up. Only when things inevitably went out of control would he get really into destroying the country.

But that is very much very fantastical at the moment. A lot would still have to happen before Trump would feel so trapped that he would actually go transactional and demand states leave the Union.

Yet, it’s something to think about because MAGA is definitely radicalizing. And that radicalization is only going to get worse. To the point that when they steal the 2024 election the choice between autocracy and civil war could be so stark that there really will be no endgame.

I Had A Surreal, Inspiring Dream About Lorne Michaels

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love to be creative just to be creative. I am known to write song lyrics even though there’s absolute no point to do it. I mean, it’s not as if I’m ever going to write lyrics to a song — I don’t even know anything about music. I still have a lingering idea to buy a guitar and try to write one pop song that sells.

Lorne Michaels

Anyway, a few nights ago, I had a VERY VIVID dream involving Lorne Michaels. I dreamed I was working at SNL and, I don’t know, I was doing something at the show where I had to talk to him about a sketch I had written.

So, it has occurred to me that it would be fun to write sketches for myself and post them to this blog. I have long been interested in writing a movie, but it had never occurred to me to try to write a sketch.

I have no idea if I’m going to actually do this, but it’s something I my actually attempt. And given that I’m 100% extroverted if I’m ever going to practice laying out a screenplay then writing a sketch and posting them here would be practice.

Or not. It’s just something to think about.

My Current Hot Take On Why Trump Took Top Secret, Classified Documents To Mar-A-Lago

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The biggest question of the moment when it comes to Trump and all the fucking secrets he stole from the U.S. Government is, of course, “But why?” I struggle to imagine that Trump is smart enough to think of, in real time, any sort of sinister plot when he was leaving office.

So, here’s what I think happened.

Trump is both criminally incompetent and interested in our nuclear secrets for some reason and so, it’s very possible that as he was leaving the White House he just threw a bunch of shit into boxes. He didn’t have any idea what was in any of the boxes, other than he had, at some point, been interested in whatever was in them.

Now, let me be clear — this is both an extremely charitable explanation for what happened and no excuse for him to avoid prosecution. I said he was criminally incompetent. So, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And it doesn’t give us a ready explanation as to why he would both delay, delay, delay giving the documents back AND lie about still having them. But the case could be made that once the documents became an issue, his natural asshole tendencies kicked in and he just refused to cooperate because that’s just who he is.

And, yet, if things really got violent when he was indicted, I would give Trump a deal — we won’t prosecute you if you promise not to ever run for president again for the rest of your life. And as part of the deal, he would have to make some sort of statement demanding that everyone calm down and stop killing each other.

There’s a lot wrong with all of this, of course. We still don’t know the fullest extent of what really happened. We still don’t know the “why.” What I proposed is just a theory. And Trump has so many people who hate what he stands for as much as I do, that it’s possible we’re past the Event Horizon.

No possible deal will be offered because that train has left the station. And Trup wouldn’t even agree to it, even if it was offered to him. He wants to be POTUS again and he’s willing to burn the most powerful nation in the world to the ground to achieve that goal.

2025: The Year We All Become Antifa ‘Radical Moderates’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is not only growing more deranged of late, he’s also growing more and more angry and radical. And he’s not going anywhere. The FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago has caused the entire MAGA movement to lurch into a frothy radicalism that sometimes doesn’t seem to make any sense.

And, yet, at the moment, the center-Left in the United States is so weak that we have to take even this new, bonkers version of MAGA seriously as a political force.

My fear is that by late 2024, early 2025, MAGA’s agenda for the United States will have grown so radical that once they steal the 2024 election and begin the process of consolidating power that what they want to do will shock even Traditionalists and away we go. There really is something akin to a revolution, and a group I call “Radical Moderates” will pop up as they usually do in times of political distress in the United States.

Radical Moderates are people who are usually pretty laid back, but because of the crisis that the country is in, they sudden are willing to entertain concepts that were once considered radical. The most notable example of this was when Lincoln freed the slaves and, suddenly “everyone was an Abolitionist.” The same thing could happen if MAGA flips out and ties to, overnight, turn us into Fortress America.

Blue States will begin to leave the Union as the MAGA counter-revolution begins to happen in Trumplandia. There could be a race war in the Deep South and we might find the United States in a situation comparable to Revolutionary Russia as the Russian Empire began to implode.

This makes me want to read a book about the Russian Revolution.

Anyway. There is a greater-than-zero sum chance of mass chaos and unprecedented political upheaval in the United States starting in late 2024, early 2025. But I’m always wrong. Always. I mean, I can’t predict the future. So, it might ultimately get punted down the road a presidential cycle. Or DeSantis becomes president and our decent into autocracy is far more gradual that might happen with Trump.

All I know is — we’re in the danger zone now.

The Possible Fourth Reich: You Say You Want A (MAGA) (Counter) Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I study my Webstats way too much and the one keyword that continues to bring a trickle of people to this obscure Website is the word “revolution” in the context of MAGA. Now, I’ve dismissed this to date because while I could think up a reason to believe there might be a Blue-initiated Second American Civil War, I just could not see how we might have a “MAGA Counter-Revolution.”

But now, I’m beginning to think there might just be a MAGA counter-revolution should Trump get re-elected in 2024. He’s just growing more and more radical as is his MAGA base and it seems as though should he gain power again, the changes to the US government will be so quick and so severe that they could very well meet the definition of a “counter-revolution.”

Or, put another way, MAGA taking power in 2025 could one day be looked back upon as the American equivalent of the Nazis taking power in Germany in 1933. It really could be that bad.

And, yet, the United States is far bigger and diverse than Germany in 1933. So, if MAGA really is as racialized at that point as I fear, the country probably really will descend into some sort of chaos. Blue states will leave the Union. There will be coups and counter-coups.

But it definitely seems as though a lot of the MAGA base wants an honest-to-God (counter) revolution. They really do want to burn the country to the ground and have an excuse to use their AR-15s to murder people like me in cold, political blood.

I don’t know. The one thing that people keep hoping will happen — that MAGA will somehow magically come to its senses — isn’t going to happen. I think a lot of our problems come from the United States being a lot less stable than we all think at the moment.

We’re officially in the political Danger Zone when virtually anything might happen.

MAGA’s Counter-Revolution Of 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s possible that we’ll look upon the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago as the moment the United States began the final sequence of events that either led to autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025. The issue is, I keep hearing respected people within my center-Left echo chamber come so close to understanding the gravity of the situation, only to pull away at the last second.

I’ve heard people ranging from the participants of Deep State Radio podcast to the Pod Save America crew all sort of say, “Well, if this isn’t the end of MAGA, we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

And that’s the crux of the situation.

Barring a severe 9/11 type tragedy that can be directly pinned on MAGA, the rancid, racist MAGA movement isn’t going anywhere. As such, we have to prepare for something nothing short of a political apocalypse. I keep saying — we have a spectrum of things that may happen — on one end you have a civil war and on the other end you have A Very American Autocracy.

And the more the system tries to work, the more radical MAGA becomes and the more likely that whenever they do gain power again that our choice is going to be even more stark — autocracy or civil war.

Now, let’s talk about the Nazis. I’m reading a book about their rise to power in Germany and going into the early 1930s, the Nazis still had to work out exactly what their vision was for the German state. There was sort of the NATIONAL Socialists and the National SOCIALISTS. I haven’t gotten to this exact part of the book yet, but as I recall, the SA wanted a more radical interpretation of Nazism, while Hitler wanted something that could fit within the traditional conservative tradition in Germany.

Anyway, Hitler won this particular power struggle. And it makes me wonder if MAGA, in the end, is going to have a similar situation on its hands. The nightmare scenario is, of course, that Trump grows not only extremely toxic but extremely radicalized by the long arm of the law finally reaching him and when he has the opportunity again he burns the country to the ground. Or, once we become a MAGA autocracy, we lurch into autocratic state a lot closer to Nazi Germany far faster than I might otherwise predict.

But if something happens to Trump and it’s, say, Ron DeSantis who becomes our new MAGA overlord, I think it’s safe to say that our transition into A Very American Autocracy will be more gradual and gentle so there won’t be any chance for Blues to organize any real-world Antifa or secessionist drive.

Yet, like I said, Trump is so deranged and holds such absolute power over the MAGA base that there could very well be something akin to a MAGA counter-revolution around 2025. They literally could end the FBI as we know it and turn it not into the American gestapo, but something a lot closer to the SS. We would become Fortress America and some of Trump’s more radical foreign policy dreams would become a reality. Which, would, in turn, cause WW3.

Or, put another way, Trump is far, far more dangerous than we realize. Things are so uncertain at this point, though, that I can’t game things out. It really could go any number of different ways. The most radical is Trump is re-elected and pushes through a Hyper-MAGA agenda, which, in turn galvanizes the Blues to the point that there’s a civil war. Or there’s a civil war starting in late 2024 when it becomes clear MAGA is going to brazenly steal the election. Or someone like DeSantis is the Republican nominee and we just kind of gradually drift into autocracy.

Or, Trump becomes POTUS again in 2025, but it’s not until his successor that we really see an attempt to establish Trumplandia. I still think Gen. Mike Flynn might be Trump’s veep choice.

Anyway, we’re officially in the political danger zone. Anything could happen at this point, and probably will.

American Anocracy In The Prelude To Stochastic Terrorism

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I fear that our anocracy has officially entered its “Stochastic Terrorism” phase. Such violence is when a powerful group in your society goes after another group so much and so publicly that it’s inevitable that someone, somewhere is going to hurt them. Think violence against Jews right before the Nazis actually had the levers of state at their disposal.

So, it seems pretty clear to me that at any moment we’re going to have a significant uptick in political violence. But not just general political violence, violence directed at trans people. Or Jews. Or pick a group that the MAGA New Right doesn’t like. And it could be that they go after FBI agents and judges.

But the point is — our anocracy is growing ever more unstable. And as I keep saying, it’s all going to come to a head in late 2024, early 2025. We’re either going to have a civil war at that point, or we’re going to become an autocracy. At the moment, I honestly don’t know which direction we’re going to go.

Stay tuned.

The Possible Coming MAGA Gotterdammerung: How Powerful Is Trump, Exactly?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When gay-activist Harvey Milk was assassinated, his murderer used what is known as the “Twinkie Defense.” He essentially, as I recall, said he was so tripped out on sugar that he did not know what he was doing. Ok. flash forward a few decades and we find ourselves with Trump coming up with a very, very dumb and very, very silly defense for his theft of classified documents.

He says that he had a “standing order” that if he took any classified documents home, they were unclassified. Or something like that. Something dumb and silly. What all of this reminds me of is Nixon’s Final Days and the tapes. He wanted some notoriously hard of hearing Senator to review some of the Tapes and write a summary.

Ok, where I’m going with this is this: what happens if this is it? What happens if we actually have caught Trump? He is really is in a corner and there’s no getting out of serious political and legal harm for him? What does he do?

I first started thinking about this when I talked to a Traditionalist relative about all of this Trump bullshit and in my ebullience at the idea of Trump’s final political demise, mentioned something about this to her. I was startled by the expression in her eyes. There was a flash of fear and alarm that one might find from a woman that feared violence.

So, this brings up the question — if Trump went transactional at last, if he told his MAGA followers to commit specific types of violence, if he went Gotterdammerung on us, would they actually do it? That is very much an unknown quantity at the moment.

In theory, on paper, of course they would become violent if Trump told them, directly to burn everything to the ground to protect him. And, yet, I don’t know. Americans aren’t French. It’s just not in our nature to be politically violent. But it happened with January 6th, so, I suppose it’s possible?

Anyway, all I can tell you is we’ve officially entered a very turbulent era in American history. From now until January 2025, things are going to get really bumpy for any number of political reasons.

Who Should Pete Davidson Date Next?

Now that Pete Davidson is single and ready to mingle, who should he fuck, I mean date? Here are some options for our modern Warren Betty.

Emily Ratajkowski
This is the top pick for people on Tik-Tok, apparently. It would definitely help their careers if they hooked up. He’s all chaotic energy and she’s got a very, very languid personality. So, they would play off of each other very well. If they were able to linger together long-term they would be an It Couple.

Miley Cyrus
She and Davidson are so much alike in some ways, that it seems like they would have a really intense relationship then burn out as quickly as it all started. But for the few weeks their relationship existed, they would be an It Couple.

Julia Fox
They circulate in the same circles. Of course, this would open “Skete” up to talk of “sloppy seconds.” But despite this, they would make a cute couple and it would be the very definition of an “It Couple.” She’s an It Girl and he’s an It Boy. So, perfect.

Alexa Chung
She likes rocker badboys and she’s a brunette. So, I think she might be open to a little fling with Pete Davidson. He’s a little younger than her, I think, but that hasn’t stopped the Stud of Our Generation.


Cassidy Hutchinson
She’s a cute brunette and it would break the Internet (or at least Twitter) if they dated for even a little bit.

Melania
This one is silly, but it would be funny if Melania left orange dingus for Pete Davidson.

Let’s Talk Again About The Fucking ‘Fourth Turning’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok. As I keep mentioning, I’m drunk. But I’m feeling somewhat inspired and so here we are, talking about the book The Fourth Turning, AGAIN. The reason why The Fourth Turning is so interesting is, even though it was written in the 1990s, it definitely seems to explicate what’s going to happen in the United States around 2025.

And, yet.

To me, it definitely also reads as astrology for dudes. It’s a pat, simplistic answer to a very complicated historical situation. It’s a way for the bros who listen to Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast to explain to themselves why Trump is going to “bring the Fourth Turning” and maybe bring down the “administrative state” along the way.

I think the key issue is — there is an obvious ebb and flow to human history. I’m just not prepared to put as fine a point on it as the authors of The Fourth Turning have.

So, I guess, what I’m saying is they got lucky.

They have no particular insight into the future or the past. They got lucky. And they themselves even admit that the magic formula they use to predict a Fourth Turning doesn’t work for the First American Civil War. Which, if you wanted to be very charitable, you might explain by the deaths of two Wig presidents that might have delayed a civil war had they lived longer.

Anyway….good luck?