Author: trumplandiareport_zk3po8

Update On My Novel

Shelton Bumgarner

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Things continue to go quite well with my novel. I’m kinda working on the scene summary for v1.5 right now. I’m very tired from working on it all day. I’m doing all of the work in longhand, so that tires me out. And things are going a lot slower than I’d like. But I definitely have a lot of forward momentum.

I’m trying to read as much a I can about how to write a novel. The story is strong and I’m pushing myself to the limits of my ability. I’m a pretty good storyteller, but not that great a writer. And there are a lot of things about writing a novel on a basic level that I continue to learn about every day.

One thing that kind of bothers me is I’m too old to do anything creatively successfully in real terms. I should just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling all day and feel sorry for myself. But I can’t help that I’m 20 years too late to the party. I just want to write a novel that I, myself, would enjoy. In large part, the whole thing is just a way for me to see what it would be like to go through the process of writing a novel to see how far I would get before it becomes too painfully obvious that I’ve made a fool out of myself.

But, in real terms, I don’t have anything else to do with my life right now. And I really, really, really like the concept. It’s great. It’s really strong and interesting and flips the script on some tropes more than once. And my characters are growing strong by the day. A lot of my characters are in my head still, though, and not on the page. But that’s changing quickly.

I’m just so tired right this second that it’s difficult for me to get much more work done tonight, even though I really want to. I hope to lay the entire second POV list scenes in front of me on one page then figure out how to make the whole thing as cogent as possible before I got much farther.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Republicans Have No Shame & Crave Power For Power’s Sake

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m not feeling so great about the chances that Trump will be convicted in the Senate. I say this because Republican defenses for Trump right now are pretty much just, “You don’t like our politics, fuck you.” So, all the Twitter liberals you attempt to use any fact-based logic with fucking fucktwit Republicans are wasting their time. Republicans are such cult that the moment a Democrat ever happens to be president again, they will impeach him or her the moment they have the power to do so. They will want to prove the point and also take some of the sigma away from being impeached so Trump doesn’t look so bad.

Not that I think there will ever be another Democrat president the way things are going. The dystopia is here. The bad guys have won. For the autocrat, all that matters is remaining in power. Everything else is a lulz. So we could have Trump dead-to-rights (which we do) and he will be acquitted and turn around and do the exact same thing. He will grow even more brazen to such an extent that election 2020 will be American Brexit. The whole thing will be such a massive clusterfuck — that Trump will win in the end — that it will be pretty self-evident our democracy, our Republic, is dead.

Trump will push for a Constitutional Convention at some point in his second term and I will promptly be “vanished” by a weaponized ICE.

Now, having said all that, there are still a few issues that I simply don’t know how they will play out. Trump’s mental state is getting worse and Republicans are so bloodthirsty on a rhetorical level that some pretty tragic things may happen when someone takes them both seriously and literally. Those two issues might be the things that bring down Trump at some point.

And, really, if you are MAGA reading this because my worst case scenario is your best case scenario — you’re a piece of shit.

But I think while it is exciting and interesting to see the impeachment process take place, we have to prepare ourselves for the absolute worst. MAGA will start murdering people in cold blood soon enough. Those of us lucky to be able to leave the country when that starts to happen will do so.

Impeachment’s Endgame Will Be Messy

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I just don’t see any clear-cut end to the impeachment process. Now, I’m not saying this doesn’t mean Trump won’t be impeached. And I’m not saying there isn’t at least a growing chance he won’t be convicted (somehow.)

But what I am saying is the macro trend in the United States is towards authoritarianism, fascism, plutocracy and theocracy. So, first, let’s look at it from the Republican side.

We’re reached a point where Republicans will have gotten their strategic goals for the near term, no matter what happens. They’ve gotten their plutocrat tax cuts and they’ve gotten their young hack MAGA judges. Thus, even if Trump is somehow miraculously removed from office, it will, in real terms, be only a symbolic victory for the center-Left. We still have a solid 20 years before the youngest of the Baby Boomers begin to drop dead and the Browning of America really begins to have a demographic — and political — impact.

Remember, if Pence becomes president, there’s a non-zero chance that while he’s a more traditional pol, he won’t get rid of Barr and he won’t get rid of Pompeo. Though the latter is likely to quit simply to run for Senator. Lulz! Pence will simple sugarcoat the fascism of Trump with a thin veneer of norm-respecting and theology. He’ll wait until just after he wins the presidency in his own right and then pardon Trump. Pence will assume that voters will have calmed down by the time he runs again in 2024.

But let’s look at it another way –what happens if the center-Left gets its best case scenario and, say, Nancy Pelosi becomes president? Republicans will use their plutocrat tax cut to demand we gut the social safety net at a minimum and may even use it as a bludgeon to get a Constitutional Convention to “to pass a balanced budget amendment.” So, in real terms, we would probably have just at about a year before Republicans win not only the presidency, but the House. Then we’re right back where we started from.

As I’ve said before, in a sense, our best case scenario might be either Nikki Haley or even Ivanka Trump becoming president because their far more likely to at least allow a free-and-fair election in 2020. And, if the economy goes south, they will get the blame, not the Democrats. But, remember, if a Democrat becomes president in 2020, they will likely have just about two years before the Republicans take the House and turn around and impeachment for simply not being MAGA.

The point of all of this is manage people’s expectations. We’re in for a bumpy few months, no matter what. And there’s a really good chance Trump will escape political justice AGAIN and he’ll go full Hitler if he somehow manages not to go insane.