Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

‘While I Breathe, I Hope:’ White People In South Carolina Would Live To Regret A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want to understand how fucked up any talk of a “second American civil war” is, look no farther than South Carolina. South Carolina was the first to leave the Union the first go round, and it’s easy to imagine a situation where on a political level, the MAGA National Socialists there get ahead of their skis and are the first to declare themselves a member of “real” America — Trumplandia.

But that would be the white Republican Party thinking strictly in terms of political power — they have it, and the “libs” don’t. What’s the ultimate “own the libs” play for South Carolina but to leave the Union AGAIN because they think Trump is really won the 2020 election.

So, South Carolina Republicans get all excited, bolt the Union…and then a race war starts. That’s because there’s a big difference between political power and the type of power necessary to found a new nation. The very reasons why South Carolina would want to be first to leave the Union — a historical connection to The Lost Cause, the browning of America and a historical-political fuck you to libs — would be the very reasons why black people in the Palmetto State would likely take up arms to stay IN the Union the moment secession was declared.

That, in turn, would cause the white establishment in South Carolina to grow radicalized and before you know it, we’re talking about Zyklon B being used in race-based concentration camps across South Carolina. I wish I was kidding or being hyperbolic — I’m not. If America really does have a second civil war, all bets are off. WMD will be used, there will be Qanon themed killing fields and race concentration camps. It will not be pretty. It will be a tragedy and everyone — even white people in South Carolina — will live to regret how excited they were at the prospect of taking up arms against their fellow Americans.

But it definitely seems as though we’re careening towards something along those lines pretty soon — or, at least, at some point between now and January 2025.

Good luck.

It Definitely Feels Like We’re Careening Towards A Second American Civil War Sooner Rather Than Later


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Almost all the Web traffic this site gets is what seems to be Southern “Lost Cause” types stroking one out to the idea that there will be a Second American Civil War sometime soon. Or, at least, the idea of a such a tragedy is so much in the forefront of some people’s minds that they search for the discussion of the possibility of a second civil war and stumble across my dystopian hellscape scenarios.

One reason why I’m growing ever more concerned about America’s political fate is even people like me find myself beginning to feel squeezed. My hatred of MAGA is center-of-the-sun-white-hot, and, yet, there are growing number of excesses on the part of the center-Left that have begun to really get on my nerves.

If someone like me is beginning to feel like a political orphan, that means the far Left and far Right are consuming what is left of the middle. To the point that you wake up one morning and realize all you have is negative polarization. And that’s all the other side has, too. That is not a recipe for a stable liberal democracy.

And I don’t have any ready answer for how we get out of this situation. Trump’s power with the MAGA base is still absolute to the point that should Cyber Ninjas “prove” he “won” in Arizona, there’s a serious possibility of severe political violence across the nation up to and including a secession crisis that starts a civil war.

Or not.

It could be this is a passing political phase for the United States. We’ll punt the structural problems we face constantly down the road and all my hysterical, dystopian hellscape predictions will looked back upon as just silly. But as the old saying goes, a person goes “bankrupt gradually then all at once.”

So it’s at least possible that we’re careening towards the biggest geopolitical shock since the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940 — the most powerful nation in the world could very well buckle and start to bomb itself into oblivion because…. Of scary brown people?

Who knows. I just continue to be uneasy.

Stieg Larsson & My Decision To Write Four Novels At Once


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just in the last few days, the novel project I’ve been working on for years now took a hard left turn. For some time now, I’ve been struggling with how to give myself the occasional opportunity to switch gears whenever I feel the novels I’m currently developing and writing have begun to wear me down some.

I’ve figured out how to do it, and it’s greatly expanded the task before me, but in a great way. I’ve decided to develop and write four novels all at once. This allows me to switch gears like I want, but to also stay in-universe. As such, I don’t have to re invent the wheel when it comes to basic universe building things like names and locations.

One key thing is all this new work is flowing really easily, so I don’t have to struggle with that kind of stuff.

All this gets me thinking about Stieg Larsson and how he wrote a trilogy, sold it and then dropped dead days after doing so. This is almost taking on the air of a Twilight Zone episode — I’m well on my way to writing FOUR novels, potentially selling them…then dropping dead soon after I do so. But, “they shoot writers, don’t they” as they old saying goes, so I guess I need stop complaining and accept that the life of a writer is often tragic and unexpectedly cut short.

And, yet, no fate but what we make. So, it’s at least possible that if I should miraculously sell four novels that I will live to fight another day. An issue writing four novels at once brings up is now I have to defuse my creative energies over four novels and think about how important the first book is. The first book is supposed to set the tone of any series and I’ve come up with a great concept.

It’s pretty much totally different than what I expected to write when I started all of this about three years ago, but that’s good because if I ever get restless working on one of the four books, I can always switch gears and start development and writing on another one — all while staying in-universe.

I figure that while this new approach may slow me down some simply because I have two more books to work on, it will actually make it more likely that I finish the entire project because even when I “take a break” from one book, I will still be within the universe I’ve come up with.

That, at least, is the plan.

May Develop 2 Prequels As I Write These 2 Novels


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a chance that I will at least map out in a lot of detail two prequels to the two novels set in the modern era that I’m working on. I would do this because the plots are flowing pretty easily and it would also help a lot when it came to fleshing out the characters in these two novels that are connected via a cliffhanger.

The first of the two prequels would be kind of the Ur text of how this whole situation began. The second book happens seven years before the beginning of the current “first” book. There are a few problems with both these books that would have to be dealt with in a creative fashion…but nothing impossible to fix.

Also, it might be a way to distract myself from these two novels one story while still staying in-universe. I haven’t totally decided to do this yet, but on the weekends, at least, I find myself creatively restless and the idea of switching gears while still being in-universe is quite appealing.

But I’m kind of just drifting in that direction for the time being. I need to do something, anything distract myself now and again to keep my forward momentum fresh and creative.

Things Apparently Have Finally Clicked With This Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A lot can still go wrong with this novel. Any number of things both within my control — and not — could happen to derail this novel in unexpected ways. But, for the time being, I’m allowing myself to be content.

I’m well aware that, in a sense, my personality is unusual for a novelist. Or, at least, it’s a bit rare. I have more of a Truman Capote or Tom Wolfe larger-than-life personality than the typical lone wolf introvert personality that most novelists have.

The point is, I have a story to tell — and something to say — and I’ve finally figured how I want to tell it. It’s just taken me a lot longer to figure that out than expected. And, honestly, I never thought I would write a thriller as my first novel — given how much I love scifi, I always expected any first novel I wrote would be of that genre. But this novel does have a lot of speculative fiction in it, so I guess in a sense I was right.

Anyway, writing a novel — at least the way I expect myself to — has turned out to be far, far more work than I ever imagined. And I haven’t even gotten to the extensive reading I feel I need to do to flesh out my characters.

But that should come. At least, I hope it does.

I’m kind of embarrassed with how obsessed with this novel I’ve become and I only rarely feel like showing any of what I’ve written to anybody. The next step is to finish a first draft of the first book in this two book story. Then turn around and work on the second book for maybe a month before writing a first book second draft.

The point is — I still have a huge amount of work to do. But at least things have stabilized significantly.

Fashion In The Novel I’m Developing & Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve learned over the last few years of working on this novel is readers are acutely aware of anything you point out to them on the page. As such, I’ve had some alpha readers take note of how much fashion there is in what I’ve written to date.

I really like fashion as an art form. There was a point when I wanted to be a fashion photographer until it dawned on me how impractical that was given where I was in my life. But I still have a dream that maybe someday, someway, I’ll get an opportunity to prove my photographic chops by taking pictures of models. I have an eye for beauty.

Since the character at the center of this novel is a young woman, I feel what she wears is really important at times in driving the plot along. I struggle to make my heroine as dark and interesting as Lisbeth Salander while also making her more accessible — what she wears at any particular moment helps a lot with that.

Some of this comes from the inspiration for the heroine. The late Annie Shapiro in Seoul was a kook and was a hipster before I even knew what a hipster was. Though, I have to note, some of what she wore at any particular moment while we were working on ROKon Magazine was her reflecting my own wardrobe. But all that was so long ago. So very long ago. A totally different era in my life.

But I’ve been working so hard — and so long — on this novel at this point that I’m kind of tired of being too conspicuous about talking about it. I’m kind of embarrassed, in fact. I need to just throw myself into this thing and get it done, knowing that once I finish this novel, I have another in the series to finish.

I no longer think about who will play any particular character in the film adaptation. All I can about is just finishing the damn thing so I can move on to the next book. B

America Is Careening Towards A Violent Political Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. There is no revealed truth. But the United States is on edge. I just don’t see us making it beyond January 2025 without some serious political violence. I say this because Republicans are so hysterical about the browning of America and various other perceived political and structure slights that they are finally at the point where they will do anything necessary to push us to the breaking point.

The question is now, of course — how exactly are things going to fall out. While plenty of MAGA people think their brethren will take up arms and have a Glorious MAGA Revolution, I find this idea dubious. MAGA people want to fuck their guns, not actually use them in anything beyond an abstract way. They’re really frustrated and want to “own the libs” at every turn, but actually having any kind of popular revolt against “cancel culture” seems extremely unlikely.

But there are two instances coming up where I could see us having an actual civil war. In the near term, of course, there is the Cyber Ninjas recount of the presidential vote in Arizona. The whole thing is a fucking fraud designed to give MAGA a talking point at best and an excuse to attempt to found Trumplandia at worst. It’s very easy to imagine a dynamic similar to January 6th, only on a national scale.

Republicans see a chance to win political points by saying Trump is “really” president then, even though Arizona is not enough to make Trump POTUS, this idea whips around the country. Before you know it, states are leaving the Union to found Trumplandia. We have a civil war and lulz, I have no idea what happens or who wins.

The other option is essentially the same thing happens, only in the 2024-2025 timeframe.

The issue remains that the United States’ political system is very unstable right now. It wouldn’t take much for the whole thing to come crashing down in some way, probably by states beginning to bounce in a rather abrupt fashion because they feel Trump is “really president.”

But I could be wrong. I often am.

Cyber Ninjas Recount Endgames


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some of the possible endgames to the sham Cyber Ninjas “recount” in Arizona.

  1. The Dud
    In this scenario, either Cyber Ninjas aren’t able to “prove” Trump won the state or they do manage to pull a Trump victory out of their butts…and nothing happens.
  2. The Talking Point
    With this endgame, everyone on Fox News, OAN and NewsMax rants and rant and rant about how Cyber Ninjas “proved” Trump “won” the state, but, again, nothing happens. It’s just a talking point.
  3. The Catalyst
    With this one, Cyber Ninjas gets hired to “prove” Trump “won” several other states — at least enough for him to claim that he really won. This greatly destabilizes the country more than it already is
  4. The Tipping Point
    In this endgame, Trump sees his “victory” in Arizona as a reason to demand being named Speaker of the House should MAGA flip the chamber. He rants and rants about this idea. He gets named Speaker in January 2023 and then leads an impeachment of both Biden and Harris so he can become POTUS again early.
  5. The Trumplandia Then Civil War Gambit
    With this one, the moment Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona, all hell breaks loose and when it becomes clear that Trump isn’t going to be reinstated, MAGA state legislatures begin to hold secessionist conventions. Trumplandia is born and we have a civil war to sort things out.

MAGA’s Determination to Turn Ashli Babbitt Into A Martyr Is So Fucked Up


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Yet another sign that we may be careening towards an actual shooting civil war is how the MAGA Right jumps at any chance to turn one of their own into a martyr for the cause. Their latest effort is with Ashli Babbitt who was shot and killed when she attempted to crash through a door that stood between members of Congress and her angry mob.

I saw this event the day it happened and the guy who shot her did the right thing — it was either her or the potential murder of the political figures he was assigned to protect.

And, yet, that’s not how MAGA sees it. They see Ashli Babbitt as a brave member of the MAGA movement who was unjustly murdered. When they’re not conflating things they are focusing on very specific demands: they want the name of the officer who shot her so (I presume) they can sue the hell out of him and potentially hunt him down and hurt him in the name of MAGA. (Or something.)

But the broader significance of this the two sides now live in such different echo chambers — that don’t even overlap — that we’re lurching towards a situation where all this overheated rhetoric is finally going to cause even more political violence. I’m not so sure I would say some sort of MAGA-themed Second American Revolution (ugh) but it is possible that should Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona that the conditions are there for some sort of “decertification” crisis that turns into a nullification crisis that turns into a secessionist crisis.

MAGA has come to glorify political violence to such an extent that the Republican Establishment may be shocked when the same dynamic that happened Jan. 6th happens on a national level and states begin to leave the Union. That sounds hyperbolic, but it’s a lot more possible than you might think.

The United States is far less politically stable than you might think. But it’s very possible that we’ll just peacefully slip into an autocratic managed democracy in the 2024-2025 timeframe and that will be that. And then people like me have to start worrying about getting pushed out of windows by ICE because we won’t fucking shut up about MAGA being American Nazism.

Will There Be A Second American Revolution In 2021?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, if you’re a MAGA cocksucker who has stumbled across this site because you think there’s going to be a “second American revolution” to reinstate Trump — fuck you, you piece of shit.

Having gotten that off my chest, let’s think about this seriously. Almost no one reads this blog, but those who do seem to be MAGA people interested in my fear porn about the United States becoming either an autocracy or having a civil war / revolution. Of course, they’re coming at this fear porn from the exact opposite direction — my fear is their hope.

Now, remember, a “revolution” is not a “civil war” although the exact definition of these two events is apparently hotly debated by political historians. I guess what MAGA people think is there will be some sort of popular uprising if ding-bat idiot Trump isn’t “reinstated” sooner rather than later. They’re frustrated and long for some way to bring back Trump — even if it means political violence.

While I can think of a number of civil war scenarios off the top of my head — most of them involving the Cyber Ninjas recount of Arizona — an actual MAGA “revolution” is a lot more difficult for me to imagine. It seem as though all these searches for “America revolution 2021” come more from abstract frustration on the part of MAGA cocksuckers more than anything else. They know it would be “cool” if they would pull the ultimate own the libs move and stage a MAGA-themed Second American Revolution…but they don’t really know how it might happen.

So they do a keyword search for that type of thing and endup at this site.

If it makes would-be MAGA “revolutionaries” feel any better, I do think we’re one major political death away from significant popular political violence in the United States. There are a lot of old — and popular — pols in the United States whose unexpected death would cause a lot people to freak the fuck out.

But, for the time being, if you’re part of the violent personality cult that is MAGA you’re just going to have to pin your hopes on things getting out of control should Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona.