Month: September 2022

‘Something to Cry About’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There continues to be a false equivalency between the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob” and the rise of MAGA Republicans. This happens, of course, because we are “both sidesing” ourselves into autocracy. We simply can not, will not address the rise of fascism in the United States because fascism is popular.

The idea that the “woke cancel culture mob” is just as bad as what MAGA Republicans want is going to be very quaint when MAGA Republicans start murdering people like me for political reasons en masse. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if we somehow manage to make it to the other side of history and have some sort of Second Reconstruction in the United States that one of the things we’re going to all be the most sheepish about is how much weight we gave to the “woke cancel culture mob.”

Now, let me be clear — there are definitely some illiberal elements to the center-Left and it really is easy to frame all our problems as a battle between the “woke cancel culture mob” that wants to “turn everyone gay” and MAGA Republicans. But, in the end, we have to also accept that the soft power of the woke cancel culture mob in no way compares to the inevitable political violence that will come about when MAGA Republicans either turn the United States into an autocracy or force us into civil war. (There is the third option, of course, of a military junta.)

And, yet, I suppose that such conflation between soft and hard power is inevitable. It goes with how modern American journalism feels absolutely compelled to be “objective” to the point that it’s complicit in the rise of violent fascism.

I believe that in the end, the worst of the woke cancel culture mob will simply burn off as a result of us taking one of the three options I mentioned above. It’s difficult to be worrying about your gender pronouns when things are suddenly far more existential.

Or, to put another way, when push comes to shove, history, as my father would say when I was a child acting up really will give us “something to cry about.”

My Hot Take On The ‘Border Crisis’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When I talk to my Traditionalist relatives — whom I love dearly — it is clear that besides believing in an abstract manner that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “turn everyone gay,” the other issue at the forefront of their minds is the “border crisis.”

The “crisis” at the border is an intractable one of a number of reasons and, honestly, I don’t even know that much about it. But here’s a gauzy overview of what I do know and why I think the whole thing is, in a sense, a bunch of racist, bigoted MAGA Republican bullshit.

Ok, so the issue is, MAGA Republicans are obsessed with “securing the border.” And, yet, in large part because of racism, bigotry and Trump, they have staked out a position that is not only extreme but done in bad faith. It’s not like there is anything that Democrats could propose that would make MAGA Republicans happy at this point.

It’s in the vested interest of the Republican Party for there never to be any solution to the border crisis. And what makes this even worse is the problem at the border, in a sense, is the original sin of MAGA Republicans. The influx of people across the southern border touches on a whole host of pet grievances on the part of MAGA Republicans.

There is the issue of modern Americans refusing to do a lot of jobs to the point that there are jobs waiting for undocumented people once they get across the border. There is the issue of there being a white birth dearth to the point that angry white Christian men feel all wiggly and jiggly about their status in a browning of America. And THAT is connected to white educated women simply not being interested in making those sweet, sweet white babies that would help racist MAGA Republicans stay in the majority.

As such MAGA Republicans are operating in bad faith when it comes to the border crisis. They don’t want to solve the problem because they know it’s the path to autocracy and a white Christian ethno state. The border “crisis” simply isn’t as big a deal for Democrats and so this plays into MAGA Republican rage and believe that they can one day seize power and just never let it go.

As I keep saying — we’re fucking doomed. I just don’t see how we don’t endup either with a civil war, an autocracy or a military junta. Get out of the country if you have the means. Otherwise, figure out what you believe in, what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world.

It’s Inevitable That Ron DeSantis Will Be America’s First Autocrat — But For Trump

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The “crisis at the border” is MAGA’s original sin. The fear of the browning of America — more so than anything else — is the thing that juices the MAGA Republican base. And the thing that Twitter liberals fail to realize is DeSantis’ stunt where he sends undocumented people to Blue areas of the country is pretty much a value free thing to do, at least from the point of view of the MAGA Republican base.

There is NO reaction on the part of Blues to DeSantis’ dickhead move with undocumented people that would cause him to stop. The country is now so divided that just the *idea* of him doing such a thing is enough to get the MAGA Republican base excited — no matter what the outcome. As such, DeSantis, much like Trump before him, now can bask in the glow of free earned media.

Remember, 20 years ago, DeSantis would have been just your typical ambitious Republican. But he’s studied Trump’s success and now, here we are. He’s going to be America’s first autocrat. He will, of course, bank to the center as necessary for the general in 2024, but once he’s actually in power…lulz. America’s democracy is so weak at the moment that he will make short work of what’s left of it and he’ll simply be president — or in power in some way — for the rest of his life.

It may be a Constitutional Convention or it could be that he is named Speaker after eight years of being POTUS. And remember, DeSantis is one of a dozen other would-be Republican autocrats who would do the very same thing given the opportunity.

Having said all that, we have to address the issue of the one person who stands in the way of DeSantis and his brass ring of being America’s first autocrat: Donald Trump. He isn’t going anywhere and even if DeSantis manages to become the Republican nominee, there is every reason to believe that Trump will simply go to the Patriot Party — taking his followers with him.

Of course, something I can’t predict might happen to Trump, but at the moment at least, that’s the conundrum that DeSantis finds himself in. His best bet is to put himself in the strongest political position possible so he forces Trump to pick him as his veep. Then DeSantis will be in a prime position to finish the job that Trump is too stupid and too lazy to do.

But there the issue of Trump, unto himself, potentially starting a civil war at some point between now and spring 2025. It’s highly unlikely that such a thing might happen — but the risk is definitely greater than zero. There are any number of scenarios where Trump either starts a civil war early to save his sorry ass or starts one later because Blue states refuse to bend a knee to his autocratic fascism.

The bigger picture is we’re fucking doomed. America isn’t even a democracy anymore, it’s an “anocracy.” We have three endgames before us: autocracy, civil war or military junta. That’s it. No middle ground. No more stable democracy. The two sides are simply too far apart and have stopped talking to each other and when they do talk to each other, they don’t listen.

If you have the means, get a passport and start figuring out where you’re fleeing to. You may never come back to a free America again.

The Rise of MAGA Republican ‘Frothers’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Whenever I think about MAGA Republican “frothers” I think about if I had had the foresight, I could have done an epic meta troll and been on of them. If I had had the proper foresight in, say, 2015, I could have been a mole in the MAGA movement and become very, very successful being something of a “Stephen Colbert” type character within their ranks.

But, no. I wasn’t able to predict the huge success of MAGA Republican “frothers’ and, as such, missed out on the fame, power and glory that I might have otherwise had.

Let’s talk about people like Jesse Kelly. The thing about Kelly is he’s the quintessential MAGA Republican frother. He says stupid shit in the guise of a “joke” that if he gets any pushback for, he’s just shrugs and says, “can’t you take a joke.”

But the underlying fascist message remains. I really don’t understand where frothers like Kelly are coming from. Kelly really seems to hate women for some strange reason and he always frames his frothy hot takes in such a way that he has an out should he get called on it.

Anyway. He’s popular with his audience and I’m a nobody. I can look myself in the mirror in the morning, however and I wonder how he’s still able to do so.

My Hot Take On Dennis Prager

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue with Dennis Prager is he always frames whatever he’s talking about in such a fucking annoying manner that strokes the MAGA base while enraging people like me.

From what I see on Twitter about Prager, he’s just another one of those MAGA “thought leaders” who takes great pains to frame any discussion in a way that leans into the confirmation basis of your typical middle brow MAGA Republican. In a sense, he’s much like Joe Rogan in that respect.

Both men traffic in MAGA Republican outrage porn hidden behind a vague, conflated mentality of aggrievement that MAGA loves to wallow in. Their very argument is bad faith and frame in such a way that when your Traditionalist relative uses one of their talking points while you’re having Thanksgiving dinner it’s very difficult not to grow extremely angry.

And, what’s worse is, all of this bullshit is extremely corrosive. It’s why people in the same family can’t talk about politics anymore. When you have Prager or Rogan getting all bent out of shape about the stupidest shit that they claim is “woke” then there’s not much you can do about it.

If you do try to engage your MAGA Republican relative, then they say the facts you cite are “bogus” or they just get really mad an engage in debate nullification.

The main point is we’re fucked. That people like Dennis Prager get such traction is a very ominous sign. I don’t have any ready answer for you.

Elon Music, Twitter Is Useless

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key problem with Twitter is it’s just a gusher of information. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with a cacophony of disjoined, unconnected information that blasts towards you. Yes, there are “Twitter Lists” that you can use to try to control things but few people use or understand them.

So, for the average user, a lot depends on who you follow to the point that it’s almost better to create specific accounts for specific interests you might have. As such, I have long thought about how Usenet, 25 years ago, was, in its own way far more feature rich than Twitter is today.

Now, obviously, Reddit pretty much fills the space that Usenet did a long time ago. And there are some serious problems with Usenet / Reddit paradigm that you have to overcome. It’s easy one for a “group / reddit” to grow too large to be usable and two there is the problem of a very, very specific culture developing within any specific group / reddit to the point that you have to create a FAQ to answer all the questions that newbies to a group may have.

And that is probably the biggest advantage of that Twitter has. The average person can just jump into Twitter and start using it, no FAQ required.

I have given this particular problem way, way, way too much thought and I think I have a solution.

What you do is, if you wanted the best of both worlds — Twitter and Usenet — what you do is you force every user of your service to create groups as part of their on boarding. As such, EVERY user would create Groups devoted to the personal and the public.

If everyone can create, in essence, an endless number of reddits for whatever happens to be going on in their lives, then that opens up a lot of opportunities that simply don’t exist at the moment.

In my imagination, instead of having a Twitter timeline, the user would see a stream of individual Posts to different Groups they were subscribed to that people they were interested in had created. You see a Post in your timeline or newsfeed and you click on it and respond. Then you could see that Post in the context of a Group, rather than just being yet another tweet in a flood of tweets.

Now, I’m very well aware that all of this is very moot. We’re all talking about AR and VR as opposed to social media and so, lulz. But it is my impression that Elon Musk is interested in turning the X.com domain name that he owns into a rival to Twitter and, as such…maybe he might think about using the general principles of Usenet for a social media service that would sort of be a combination of Twitter and Reddit?

But no one listens to me, so luz.

An Unexploited Podcast Space

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, just checking my personal Webstats here, I can tell you that there is a huge market for celebrity news. And, as far as I know, while there are a lot of podcasts that deal with celebrity news, it seems like if you assembled an early-Gawker like team that you might be able to find some success.

You get a bunch of young, just out of college people to produce a series of different podcasts about different elements of the celebrity world then use whatever attention you get from doing that to direct the audience to a 2004-like Gawker. That’s how you would be able to bootstrap your site to success, even though the blog industry is very, very mature at this point.

Or, put another way, the aesthetic of the old Gawker doesn’t really exist in modern media. Most of the vibe of the early days of Gawker has drifted to Twitter to the point that we don’t even think about it. The average Twitter user is bombarded on a daily basis with crowdsourced snark.

But I do think if you could replicate the snark of Spy, Late Night With David Letterman and the original Gawker with a new podcasting network that you would find success. I just think that if you sort of had a Buzzfeed meets Gawker type podcast network then maybe there would be an audience. You draw people in to your podcast network by obsessing over celebrity then once people are listening or reading, you throw in some more serious reporting.

And, yet, it could be that my lingering obsession with the old Gawker is showing in the sense that, lulz, the old Gawker just isn’t coming back. No amount of me pining for it is going to make it happen.

So, I don’t know. I think that no amount of complaining on my part is going to change anything. Just like rock music is dead, it’s possible that the cool snarky content that I really enjoyed during a dark time in my life a long time ago simply isn’t going to come back.

Wild Speculation About What’s Wrong With Cara Delevingne

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what is going on with supermodel Cara Delevingne, but I am honestly worried about her. Whatever is wrong with her seems to have accelerated after she came back from Burning Man.

While she’d been acting really weird before then, something apparently seems to have happened while she was at Burning Man to make her go from just acting eccentric to having some sort of serious mental crisis.

So, it makes me wonder if maybe she sorta cracked her mind using a little too much LSD or some other mind altering substance while she was in the desert. It’s really rare for women — especially famous women — to lose their minds in such a public way.

I hope Ms. Delevingne is getting the help she needs. Hopefully, all she has to do is dry out and the rest will take care of itself. She apparently is in the care of people who love her so I suppose all the rest of us can do is hope for the best.

Gaming Out An American Military Junta in Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I write a lot about the possibility of autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025. And, yet, there is a third option that I’ve written about some, too: military junta.

How exactly what that happen? Well, it’s still too far to game out, but one possibility would be that Blue States begin the process of leaving the Union and the military finally steps in to kind of cool things down until, maybe, a Constitutional Convention can be called.

The other scenario is, of course, is the U.S. Military is forced to step in because, well, lulz, we have no idea who POTUS is — or, at least, can’t agree using political means who should be POTUS.

I think we have to give the idea of a military junta serious thought because history has shown us that that is often the route that modern democracies go when they finally fail. It happened with the French in the 1960s and it could happen here in a few years.

In my fevered imagination, I could see someone like James Mattis being named “acting POTUS” for a few months while we sort out exactly what we’re going to do about a National Divorce / secession crisis / certification crisis. The U.S. Military is the only remaining institution in America that would have the means to keep the country together if there was a severe political crisis.

And it would make sense, given how respected the U. S. Military is across the political spectrum for them to control the country through some sort of bi-partisan military junta made up of military and political leaders. A military junta might, in the end, be the only thing that stops either civil war or autocracy from happening.

But. And this is a big but — it could be that not even the American military would be able to avoid buckling should the time come. Generally, the officer corp still believes in democracy, while the enlisted are far more likely to support MAGA.

Which reminds me of the coup attempt that Turkey had a few years ago that ultimately did nothing more than allow their autocrat to consolidate power. So, again, I think in the end, America is just going to become an autocracy. Or, to make ourselves feel better, we’re going to pretend we’re a traditional Western democracy when, in fact, everyone and I mean EVERYONE will know that we’re simply another illiberal democracy like Hungary or Turkey.

The only question I have, of course, is — will I cross ICE and endup in a Trump branded concentration camp?

Twitter Liberals Keep Making The Liberal Progressive Case For A National Divorce

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I constantly see Blue Check Twitter liberals thinking out loud about things I’ve been writing about for some time now. What’s so darkly amusing is they pretty much make the liberal progressive case for a National Divorce without even realizing it. What they’re realizing, of course, is something that has been very clear to me for a long time — MAGA Republicans are ascendant and if there’s going to be a civil war it’s going to be because Blues start it, not Reds.

Now, we’re still to far out for me to know exactly how a Second American Civil War might actually play out. And I still don’t think we’re even going to have one. But as long as Trump continues to be a major American political figure, the risk of a modern day American civil war is very, very real.

It could be that by the time late 2024 rolls around, Blue States — probably starting with California — will simply refuse to “bend a knee” to the autocratic, fascist MAGA Republicans how have stolen the 2024 election and there will be a popular ground swell with Blues for Blue States to leave the Union and start their own country. (There is of course, the possibility that there might ultimately be some mission creep as such a possible war progresses and Blue goals would be to “liberate” Trumplandia as well.)

Of course, there is also the possibility that rather than seeing that they’re making the liberal progressive argument for a National Divorce that wealthy Twitter liberals will see these very same arguments as a reason to leave the fucking country.

And, at the moment, I think that’s what’s going to happen, no matter what.

MAGA Republicans steal the 2024 election and, rather than leading any sort of National Divorce, Twitter liberals will simply vote with their feet in pretty astonishing numbers. To the point that Fox News will stop being hysterical about scary brown people and their caravans and start to bitch and complain about a “brain drain” by “unpatriotic liberals.”

But what’s going on in Federal court about Trump stealing Top Secret documents in front a corrupt MAGA hack judge is all part of how the United States is careening towards a very, very dark future. We can’t keep punting this particular crisis down the road forever. Something’s gotta give. And the only question is — autocracy or civil war?