Category: Cold Civil War

Trump Being Bonkers Is A Lulz, Until…


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, for some time now, Trump’s mental acuity has been in self-evident decline. In short, he’s slowly going bonkers. But he’s been bonkers for so long in a very publish fashion that at this point we see it as white noise.

So, what has to happen is Trump really, really, REALLY has to go bonkers for it to matter. Specifically, he has to do something that would hurt himself politically because it’s so bad that it would puncture the bubble of “I haven’t see the tweet” that currently surrounds him.

What, exactly, would that be?

Well, all I got is he starts to actually spew racist vitrol on Twitter. He starts to use the N-Word on Twitter. He starts to call AOC obscene names on Twitter. He does has to do something so batshit insane and offensive that it actually causes people to sit up and take notice.

Or, lulz, he starts a war.

I just don’t see any of that happening, though. Even as bonkers as he is, Trump would really, really be out of it if he actually did something concrete that was actually impossible to defend.

Who knows.

Our Coming Political 9/11


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the purposes of the media is to help construct reality. They make it so there’s an ebb and flow to life. It’s when something so jarring, so astonishing happens that they can’t do their job of making us just accept things that you have a crisis on your hands.

Two things are true right now: Biden is doing well politically. Trump is going to use extra-political means to “win” the election.

So, as such, the question is — are we careening towards a “political 9/11” in which CNN’s Anderson Cooper has to look at us and say, “For the first, time, the United States is in the midst of an attempted coup.”

It will really get that bad. Trump and Barr are going to try to steal the election through extra-political means post election no matter what. Even if Biden somehow wins the popular vote by a landslide, Barr is going to use the full weight of the United States to prevent Biden from actually taking office.

If you throw in batshit insane MAGA-Qanon people running around blowing shit up and murdering people in cold blood for political reasons, well, you got the beginning of a civil war or a revolution. Something bad, to say the least.

So, I would suggest you buckle up. Get ready like you did for COVID19. We’re either going to turn into a Russian-style managed democracy or there’s going to be a civil war – revolution. There’s no middle ground, tragically.

Comparative Political History: Claudia Conway & Martha Mitchell


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You know you live in surreal times when have to start wondering if a 15-year-old should be up for the Pulitzer Prize. But, here we are.

But let’s look into the person who Miss Conway is most analogous to: Watergate’s Martha Mitchell. She was called “the Mouth of the South” and loved to gossip. In 1972, she overheard her husband — Attorney General Bob Mitchell — talking about the Watergate coverup.

We’re sorry, Martha.

Her husband found out and for her troubles she was tranquilized and held captive. (If I remember the story correctly.) Because she was so outrageous and kooky, when she started rambling about the Watergate coverup, no one believed her — they thought she was a nut.

The weird thing about Miss Conway is, to date, she’s been able to speak freely on Tik-Tok (of all things.) So, the question is — can we trust her? I think so. What we can’t understand is the internal dynamic of the Conway family and how it is she can blab about such important things without fear of retribution. So, that, in itself, makes you scratch your head and wonder if any of this can possibly be true.

Anyway.

Things are weird right now.

The Darkest Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As of right now, it seems as though Trump is going to be fine. There may be a lot of rumors about him being near-death, but just like Little Rocket Man, he’ll pull through and be fine. He can go about his work of destroying the Republic unfettered.

But, let’s imagine that doesn’t happen.

Two major issues immediately confront us — what to do with Republican ticket and any political violence on the part of MAGA-Qanon who think it’s all a Deep State effort to stop Trump from taking “total control.”

The Ticket
The few MAGA people I talk to say Pence is not for them. So, it seems as though there will be a very brutal power struggle to figure out who will lead the Republicans. Because he’s already on the ticket, Pence has the 9/10th rule on his side. But this things may grow very untenable for him politically very quickly. I could see Ivanka becoming the Republican nominee or some negotiated deal whereby Pence promises to name her veep should he win. All I know is — House Trump ain’t going nowhere.

Violence
I believe the United States would suffer unprecedented political violence from the moment the Dear Leader flew his unicorn into the sky. In fact, it could be that Trump’s legacy may be the thing that brings down the Republic and pushes us into civil war / revolution, not the living Trump.

But I just don’t see either one of those being an issue. Just because Claudia Conway says he’s “sicker” than we’re being told, doesn’t mean anything. I would, however, check with her immediately if rumors of The Dear Leader’s demise pop out of the darkness.

Everything Is So Dumb


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Seems like we’re cruising towards what I expected all along, anyway — autocracy. Biden is going to win the election politically, but Trump is going to steal it.

That definitely seems like what’s going to happen.

If anything, of course, it helps keep the novel I’m working on “timely.” I wish something “fun-interesting” would happen.

But, no, I find myself in an autocratic managed democracy because everyone is too lazy to do anything about it. Oh well.

‘Rona Rock’ — The New Sound


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re overdue for a “new sound” in pop music. The history of pop right now goes something like this:

1955 – 1959 “American Pop Rock”
1959-1963 “Waiting”
1964 – 1970 “The British Invasion”
1970-1979 “Punk, Prog and Disco”
1980 – 1983 “New Wave”
1984 – 1989 “Big Hair & Rock”
1989-2000 “Grunge & Britpop”
2001-2008 “Dance Pop Rock”
2008-Now “Adult Contemporary”

The above is not exactly perfect, but it gives you a rough back-of-the-envelope assessment of things. As you can tell, we’re overdue for a new era in pop rock. In short, we need a New Sound.

The thing is, I can hear faint element of a New Sound in this song by, of all people, Miley Cyrus. The production gives the song just a tinge of mid-80s pop rock to it. And, yet, it sounds rather modern.

I find a similar proto-New Sound in some of the more recent stuff done by Dua Lipa. In a sea of Adult Contemporary crap, anything that sounds different is noteworthy.

But there’s something missing. It needs a bit more rock to it to qualify as a “good” song to my old fart ears. All you would need to do is add a bit of THIS song.

I guess what I’m saying is, I would add a strong rock guitar and drums to this New Sound. It wouldn’t really have to be all that much, just enough for people who grew up on pop rock to sit up and take notice. I even know the producer who could do it — Butch Vig.

If he could somehow manage to rustle up a super girl group, then, well, that would rock. Or, put another way, if pop music is ever-so-subtly drifting towards a New Sound, why not give it a push and bring back the rock sensibilities of guitar and drums?

American Implosion 2021: Is Texas ‘American’ or ‘Southern’ or ‘Texan?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As we careen towards a possible implosion –> revolution — > civil war type scenario here in the United States, I find myself wondering about Texas. The thing about Texas is it’s something of a trans-purple state. It’s not there yet, but it’s working on it.

So, it’s possible if the country goes tits up on a national level that Texas as a polity will also collapse as the it can’t figure out if its the Texas of Ted Cruz or Beto O’Rourke. Or, it might be something like Kansas right before the civil war – it’s both and only through the force of arms does it figure it out.

Texas has a tradition of both being an independent republic and a part of the CSA.So, it’s possible it might just bounce altogether and take a wait-and-see approach if the Federal government collapses in some way. As I keep saying, if the United States imploded, there would be, maybe, five polities that would find themselves with a lot more power than they ever otherwise would.

But Texas is a crucial player in any revolutionary America. It’s a lot easy to put the Union back together if you have both Texas and California on your side to do it.

And, yet, maybe this is just me being hysterical. It’s very possible. I hope I’m wrong. I hope we punt all this down the political history road for another four years.

How The United States Implodes


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States, much like France before the 1789 revolution, dominates global politics. And, yet, the only thing that holds it all together is a shared idea of what it means to be American –and maybe the U.S. Military.

I propose that even if Biden decisively wins in November, that Barr is going to try to steal the election anyway, because, lulz. As such, my scenario of Red States absolutely thinking Trump is president and Blue States absolutely thinking Biden is president will happen and the whole rotting structure will collapse rather abruptly.

I still think it might not be a civil war we have to worry about, but a fucking revolution. I say this because no institution will escape unchanged. The Civil War was, in a sense, a revolution — for the South — but it actually made a lot of institutions far, far stronger. There’s a reason why Lincoln went from calling the United States “these United States” in 1861 to “the United States” in 1865.

But if the whole thing goes tits up, we really need to look at California. California simply leaving the Union is not only a massive self-own, it’s also a huge fucking cop-out. Why leave the Union to tyranny, when you could join up with other Blue States and re-imagine the whole thing? Only California has the population and economy to be a political cornerstone to a Renew American Covenant.

I guess the point of all of this is I’m a traditional Unionist by nature and I want to save the Union rather than give up. It’s just if my choice is between tyranny and the riskier (and more destructive) implosion, I want to at least want to know where California stands in all of this. I love America and simply want “a more perfect Union.”

As I keep saying, I’m being so hysterical for no other reason than it at least makes my fears concreate. I refuse to live under the tyranny of abstract fears and uncertainties.

But I do think we have to take the idea that the United States — the most powerful, most stable nation in the world — maybe isn’t so stable after all. We could actually have something akin to a revolution. If we’re lucky, it’ll be a Glorious Revolution.

If we’re not, well, glup.

House Trump’s ‘Regency’ & The Fate Of America — & Humanity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me state that I think Trump is going to be fine. But, let’s suppose he’s a “long hauler” and is incapacitated by COVID19 for a longer amount of time. What happens?

The World Without The United States.

I think we’d have some sort of Regency, then. Probably made up of Ivanka, Jared and Barr. I say this because apparently Ivanka and Jared run everything already and Barr would be the goon that inforced everything legally.

This is how “Trump” would do exactly what we all expect him to do anyway — steal the election post-election. Now, this raises and interesting situation — what if Biden clobbers Trump politically and the House Trump Regency STILL tries to steal the election (which they will.)

This is a recipe for the United States to implode.What I mean by this is our national polity goes –poof! — and we devolve into our major local and regional polities. Even the U.S. Military may not be able to keep things together if that happens. They won’t chose POTUS, because they won’t exist.

Major polities in the US below the national level are California, Texas, the Deep South, the Northeast and NYC. If we were to, God forbid, Balkanize, those would be the polities that would sort things out.

Three things of note — if you keep California in the Union, then that’s the bedrock of any “Renewed American Covenant.” Texas is a real question mark as to which direction they would go which can be summed up by the question, “Is Texas American or Southern?” Also, there would likely be massive domestic political refugees as the Blue and the Red consolidated their political positions internally.

But, remember, the entire 70 year old liberal global order would go tits up the moment the US imploded, so the very existence of humanity might be in question as China-India-Pakistan-Israel-Iran-DPRK began to attempt to get a lot of their geopolitical dreams for no other reason than they know they can now.

Do I really think that’s going to happen — no.

But is something to at least take seriously enough to think about.

The Scenario That Dare Not Speak Its Name


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love scenarios. I also hate the idea of anything physical happening to POTUS, no matter who it is — even someone I keep calling an American Hitler like Donald fucking Trump.

The Scenario That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

Anyway, let’s run this one.

If Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, Pence becomes POTUS. But what happens to the Republican ticket? There are a number people Pence might pick. I think he goes with Ivanka Trump to “keep it in the family.” She’s moderate, she’s Jewish, she’s a woman and she a Trump. She seems the perfect veep to help Pence shore up those sweet, sweet excerb votes.

Other options are the obvious Nikki Haley and, gulp, Tom “Brown Shirt” Cotton. A long shot is maybe Eric Trump because he’s a Trump and doesn’t have the apparent and alleged drug problem that Don Jr. has.

Or, put it another way, don’t count House Trump out just yet.

Meanwhile, I would assume that the race will get far closer. Like 1976 or 2000 close. But at the same time, Pence has a traditional American pols adherence to democratic norms. So, things get a bit more tricky for MAGA-Qanon to go nuts on us.

But the key thing we have to remember is MAGA-Qanon is going to think that anything that happens to Trump is some sort of Deep State attack on the Dear Leader. They’re almost sure to blow something up or start running around murdering liberals because of this.

The point is — I want to defeat Trump politically. I want him to live long in prison with no access to the Internet and Putin and Ivanka his only visitors. Fuck that guy.