While it’s easy to compare Trump to Hitler — and the two men do share a lot in common — I would suggest someone else to compare him to: Pol Pot. The reason why I say this is, if the worst happens, I could totally see Trump demanding the cities be emptied for some sort of American Killing Fields.
Pol Pot
Or maybe it wouldn’t be Trump but someone vaguly acting in his name would would do it.
But the point remains — Pol Pot hated a lot of the same types of people that Trump and his movement hates.
If things get really, really bad in the USA as it transitions to Trumplandia…oh boy.
The conventional wisdom at the moment, which I think makes a lot of sense, is that soon all the major news Websites will essentially do the same thing — be something along the lines of CNN’s Website. They will feature a lot of video — even if they’re the Website for a print newspaper.
Now, remember, the times they are a changing and all of this should be seen in the context of the rise of AI.
Soon enough, lulz, AI will eat the Web to the point that rather than passively read Websites via a browser, we will simply ask our digital personal assistant to tell us the news — and maybe display news via our XR vizor display that we’re wearing.
It definitely seems as though everything we know about media is about to be upended very, very quickly. And, what’s more remember the fucking Fourth Turning may be happening as all of this is going on, so we won’t be able to enjoy any cool AI shit until, well, we’re done totally and completely re-arranging the world order for various dumb reasons including “vibes.”
Anyway. It will be interesting to see what happens next, I suppose.
Me (background) with an acquaintance back int my crazy days in Seoul.
At some point in late 2006, everything changed in my life. I met the now late Annie Shapiro and she changed my life. A whole lot of crazy things happened that culminated in A VERY CRAZY THIING happening around my 35 birthday.
But I try not to think about that now, many moons later.
I’m a far more sedate, introspective person now. It’s like I’ve had a brain transplant. And, really, all I want now is the opportunity to finish and query my first novel with hopes of it being a break out hit success.
To this day, I think someone could write a screenplay based on what happend between Annie Shapiro and me back in the day. That was all very, very crazy.
I don’t know what to tell you — America is seriously fucked up at the moment. And it’s only going to get worse. There is a chance, of course, that some Black Swan event will allow us to take an off ramp — like what happened in 2020 — and all our structural problems will be punted down the road another four years.
The issue is that the Republican Party is so radical now — and so resistant to changing its policies — that, by definition, the next Republican president we have will be a fascist autocrat. The only question, at this point, is how his or her specific personality will influence policy.
It will be very curious to see how, exactly, that works out. There are severe structural problems in the American political system so someone like Trump can bubble up to the surface.
There was a moment, many moons ago, when I would have watched the movie Saltburn with my now-ex girlfriend and then moved on to the next thing. But now, as an middle-aged man, I find it very difficult to watch this “icky” movie. But whenever I balk internally at watching the movie, I remember that I watched Pulp Fiction long after everyone else did and I love it.
Ugh.
This is all part of a broader issue — I need to consume other people’s content. I can’t just consume my own content forever. This is especially the case as I lurch towards the querying process for my novel when I’m going to have to “comp” my novel to books more modern than Stieg Larsson’s work from 20 years ago.
I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s all kind of bonkers that I would have such a dumb hang up in the first place. There are two things about the movie of note relative to my own life.
One, is the soundtrack which is very similar to the type of music I was using the DJ back in the day in Seoul. It’s not quite the same, but it’s reminiscent.
Second, as I’ve written before, the issue of the movie being so out there reminds me a great deal of all the fucked up shit that happened to me and the late Annie Shapiro back in the day in Seoul.
After Trump won in 2016, I saw a — I think — New York Magazine article that was one big liberal “cope” in which they proposed America was “too big.” This was one way of them slyly suggesting what we would now call a “National Divorce.”
To this date, the idea of a National Divorce or anything suggesting the USA should split up REALLY MAKES ME ANGRY. I will admit that in the past, I have toyed, in the abstract, with the idea of Blue States leaving the Union. But when I realized that is just not what Blues would do — if anything like that is going to happen, it’s going to be more of a revolution than a National Divorce — I stopped even thinking such a dumb idea might have merit.
Which brings up the idea of why Red States might be willing to leave the Union.
Well, I live in the South and there is a pretty potent race memory among white Southerners when it comes to the Confederate States of America. To the point that at least one well-educated conservative I know pretty much at this point supports a National Divorce — if it comes to that — because of “vibes.”
And, really, that is what is eating away at the foundation of the United States at the moment — vibes, especially from the Right. The Right gets soooo worked up about how bad COVID lockdown protocols were, then they rest their entire indictment of the Biden Administration on…you guessed it…vibes.
As I’ve written before, there are two ways we have an actual civil war. One is Trump loses and states, starting with Texas, leave the Union to “protect” him from going to jail. Second way is Trump wins, he goes “full tyrant” and things get so absolutely bad that a number of Red States leave the Union because they love that idiotic, malignant ding-dong so much.
So. If all goes according to plan, I’m going to start to query my novel in some capacity in late 2024, and MAYBE as late as early 2025. As such, I’m working on the assumption that the country will be stable enough for that to be a viable option.
So, I may write a lot about The End Times for the USA, but in a practical sense, I’m totally ignoring that possibility. I am doing this because, as I keep saying, all my “hysterical doom shit” is simply me trying to make my abstract fears concrete.
I just don’t know if The Fourth Turning is really going to happen. In fact, I generally don’t think it will. I do think that Trump is probably — at this point at least — win the 2024 election and 2025 could be mass chaos. And, yet, if enough smug Twitter liberals leave the country on their second passport…meh. Maybe that will mean people will be more interesting in read a novel that is part of a six novel project that is pretty much just one long screed against extremism (using subtext.)
Or not. Who knows. All I know is I’m pressing forward with this novel, even though there is definitely a part of me that is….concerned…about the next 18 months and beyond.
If I don’t hurry up, I’m going to wake up and it will be July 4th and I will STILL be struggling with the third draft of this novel. As such, I need to really focus on giving my life some structure and to really buckle down and get this thing done as quickly as possible.
The president of Hollywood.
I also need to read and watch more — and develop back up stories more — in the coming days. I can’t keep just, in general, drifting towards my goal. I can’t keep doing that. It’s extremely unproductive and all it does is punt a lot of creativity down the road into an uncertain — to say the least — future.
I have a number of really interesting ideas to flesh out with the novel. Part of the brief pause I’m doing with this novel at the moment is how much I have to rethink the “Fun & Games” part of the story — the first part of the second act. I have changed so much of the first act that there are a lot of elements I have to change in the Fun & Games part of the novel to accommodate those changes.
So, for the next day or so, I think I’m going to stare out into space and think about how to accommodate all the changes I’ve done to the first act. And when I’m not doing THAT, I’m going to read and watch TV and movies.
I’m extremely harmless. I sometimes get drunk and worked up about MAGA and write some…provocative things…but I always calm down and move on to the next thing. I have a novel to finish.
And, yet, I occasionally get pings to this Website from people who are from the base of the ATF in West Virginia and that makes me EXTREMELY NERVOUS. I don’t mean any harm to anyone, I just have some very strong opinions. I understand why the AFT or FBI might be interested in me because I do rant a lot, but if they read this blog on a regular basis, it would also be clear that it’s just me letting off steam.
I hate violence. I hate guns — I really, really hate guns.
I just get worked up because I want to live in a traditional liberal democracy and it definitely seems at times that that thing — my American birthright — is at risk at the moment and I just don’t know what to do about it.
Anyway, please FBI and AFT, believe me when I say I’m a harmless nobody. No one listens to me and usually when they do they get mad. But I will note that when people DO listen to me — cool shit happens.
If 2020 proved anything, it’s that I just can’t predict the future. As such, I keep searching my mind to think up what I could possibly be missing about late 2024, early 2025 that would somehow give us an offramp from all my “hysterical doom shit.”
At the moment, I got squat.
It seems we’re going to lurch into a very dark and turbulent fate starting around November 2024 and things could be pretty rough for a number of years after that.
Or not. I just don’t know.
The most obvious thing that might throw everything up in the air is some sort of “health incident” that one or both of the old codgers who are running for president might experience. As for Trump, I don’t wish physical ill on him for no other reason than if ANYTHING happened to that fucker, the country might collapse into severe political violence not seen since the death of Martian Luther King Jr — only this time it would be red necks burning things to the ground because they believe the “deep state” did in their false prophet.
I suppose maybe a war — DPRK, I’m looking at you — might throw things up in the air. Then Biden would be a War President and he MIGHT be able to unite the country just long enough to defeat Trump.
If — God forbid — Something Happened and Biden was no longer the nominee, that would REALLY scramble things a great deal and things could go in directions no one — least of all me — could predict.
As an aside, I will note that it definitely seems as though Republicans may lose the House this year, which would que up Trump being impeached sooner rather than later if he went “full tyrant” on us. Throw in an actual effective General Strike and it’s at least possible THAT would be how we got rid of that malignant ding-dong.
But all of that is VERY speculative.
I have no idea what is going to happen. I just want to live in a peaceful, prosperous America that has a functioning democracy. That should not be too much to ask.
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