Category: Cold Civil War

Week One Into Trumplandia Redux: This Sucks

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I still can’t focus. It’s been just about a week since Trump won and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. What I should be doing is working on the newest version of my novel, but, no I’m writing aimless blog posts and listening to Charlotte Gainsbourg.

It’s just really difficult to focus for some reason. I’m struggling to do anything other than just stare out into space at the moment — no matter what I’m doing. But I do have a few really good novel ideas in my mind that I need to work on.

I think tomorrow — the actual one week anniversary of this shitshow — I’m going to buckle down and start to do some creative work. I think some of my inability to do anything comes from a lot of abstract fears — I just don’t know how bad things are going to get with Trump.

As such, I’m spaced out.

My fear is, of course, that things are going to get just as bad as I’ve been ranting about for years now and, before you know it, Trump is going to be using Red state National Guard units on Blue states and I’ll be on the lamb because my life will be at risk.

I *hope* things don’t get that bad, but you never know. And that’s the fear — that things *will* get that bad. Then what am I going to do? Those are some dark possibilities that I struggle to figure out the endgame to.

Contemplating Being An Expat Again (Eventually)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For various reasons — including just the basic means — I’m not leaving the country anytime soon. But at some point in the next few years, I may be forced out of the country simply because won’t shut the fuck up about what a cocksucker Trump is.

Yeah, I get it.

I’m currently listening — for some reason — to a lot of Charlotte Gainsbourg. All of her music is very French and sounds like it should be the soundtrack to some sort of erotic thriller. It makes me think about maybe living in Quebec or even France itself.

But, I have my doubts. Given how fucking poor I am at the moment, the only way I’m ever leaving my state, much less the country, is if there is a general collapse or I become a well known dissident and I somehow am spirited out of the country.

The first is a maybe, the second…meh. I don’t see that happening. I’m too old and bonkers for any such notoriety to get to me.

Anyway, I really, really, need to get into a different headspace. I’m still fucking locked in neutral mentally and am having difficulty doing much of anything at the moment.

Cost-benefit-analysis wise, I think Southeast Asia would probably be my best bet. But there are limitations going that direction that make me blanch to think about. That’s why I still think if I leave the country at all it won’t be at my own behest — it will be because I have to.

Moody Blues

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to just tune out from the news. It’s just not worth it. And if I was engaged I would just even more depressed than I already am. I’m not yet medication-strength depressed, but I fear I’m getting there.

And, yet, because I know the specific source of my depression, I think I can avoid slumping into a full-bore clinical depression because I live in a fascist state now.

The biggest issue is that I know that even if I wrap up a really good novel of some sort in about a year, I will be so old that I’ll be a “success” just as a lot of other “normal” people are thinking about retirement.

That sucks and kind of puts a damper on my interest in much of anything going forward. But there remains a chance that Something Big might happen that will throw my life up in the air and I’ll be rushing North as the country collapses into chaos.

Hopefully, of course, that won’t happen — but it could.

I’ve been listening to “Cigarettes After Sex” a lot and it’s the exact band for this moment in the nation’s history. I have been listening to the group’s music all the way through on Spotify and it makes me feel a lot better.

And, yet, I have to continue to acknowledge to myself that this is who we are — a majority of Americans want a fascist state. I don’t quite know what to tell you about that one.

Once More Unto The Breach (Again)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The numbers are not on my side. I live in poverty, I’m bonkers and I’m old-ish. So, even if something happened out of the blue to make me some sort of a “success” it would all happen in the context of it happening when most people are thinking of retirement.

And, yet, you have to have hope. You have to have something to think about when you’re not thinking about how the only people who seem to read your blog are haters, stalkers, or FBI agents about to push you out a window once Trump is in office (sigh.) (I’m aware there’s at least one actual nice person who reads this blog on a regular basis, but that’s the exception, I fear.)

You have to believe, you know? You have to believe in something, anything to keep you going.

So, once I finally shake off my existential dread that I’ve been feeling the last few weeks, I’m going to throw myself back into writing at least one novel.

‘The Fall Of France’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Even though I’m trying to tune out all news at the moment, the general vibe of the country seems to be that equivalent to the sudden fall of France in 1940. We’re all kind of stunned — at least I am.

I feel your pain, bro.

And I continue to stay in mental neutral. I just can’t do much of anything than stare out into space. It’s like I have a cold — maybe a cold of my emotional system.

But I will admit that I also feel like there’s a chance that I will have an adventure sometime soon — like my life is going to be upended in a pretty dramatic way. I have no idea if that is going to happen or not, but I sense that either I’m going to die in a camp or by being thrown out a window — or something “cool” is going to happen.

Like, maybe, I flee the country and live my life in Southeast Asia or something. Something that sort of squares the circle of how shitty things are about to be in the United States.

I don’t think we appreciate fully what we’re about to lose. The president is going to be above the law and if he orders someone to be pushed out a window, what are we going to do about it?

There’s just nothing that can or will be done.

Get out while you still can.

Liberals Are A Bunch Of Pussies

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a chance that all my ranting about the possibility that liberals might actually resist MAGA Nazis in the real world if Trump goes nuts….could be just a bunch of mindless bullshit.

It could be that liberals are such pussies that they just can’t be bothered to risk their lives and sacred honor in the real world no matter how bad Trump gets and we’ll drift not-so-slowly into something akin to a legalistic autocracy pretty quick.

I still don’t know.

But what I do know is the only thing “protecting” me at the moment is how I’m living in oblivion. No one listens to me. And while I’m probably on some sort of FBI watch list now, it’s clear (I hope at least!) that I’m totally harmless and there’s no need to do anything drastic.

Yet given how I’ve vowed to never shut up, I suppose if things get really bad ICE or the FBI will come after even me and I get pushed out a window or go to a camp and die.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

The Predicted Fate Of Late Night Hosts

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jimmy Kimmel
Either arrested in a really dramatic fashion or simply “disappeared.” He just won’t show up to work one day, but we’ll all know what happen to him.

Jimmy Fallon
He’s such a suck up, that he should be fine. He will just suddenly be a lot more pro-MAGA and Trump in his monologue.

Stephen Colbert
Defenestration, definitely. Given his mentality about such things, there’s going to be a new report that he fell out a window at the Ed Sullivan Theatre and that will be that. We’ll move on to the next thing.

Seth Myers
Either canceled or disappeared.

Bonus:
Saturday Night Live: It will “end” because Lorne Michaels has decided to retire and NBC will mysteriously decide not to keep it going without him.

Things Being Existential Has A Way Of Focusing The Mind

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

But for the fact that I live in poverty, I would leave the country as soon as possible. Things are going to get pretty hot for people like me a lot sooner than you might think.

I have to accept that there is a pretty good chance that I’m either going to get pushed out a window for being a loud mouth anti-MAGA crank, or I’m going to end up in camp of some sort.

They say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once and it definitely seems like this is the “…all at once part” of that equation.

But because my poverty is limiting my ability to go anywhere, I think I need to focus on working on my novel(s.) I’m slowly beginning to get out of the mental neutral I’ve been in the last few weeks.

Slowly.

The hope is that maybe I can, within a year, finish a novel or novels to the point that I can query one or more of them. I have half a mind to jump to the last novel in the projected six novel series simply because suddenly…it’s the most relevant of them all.

But there’s a problem — I really do have a lot of backstory that I want to tell readers about before I get to that point. And, yet, maybe there’s some way I can finagle it so I focus on the last two novels in a way that facilates me writing the prequels.

Maybe?

I don’t know. I’m still thinking about that particular situation. But anti-MAGA people are going to be in a pretty precarious situation pretty quick, given some of the rhetoric coming out of the Trump transition team.

As I keep saying, I like to think of myself a survivor and I just refuse to sit still and wait for the FBI or ICE to get rid of me. I do believe that once the shock wears off for Blues, that…oh boy.

Things are going to grow pretty existential and hairy pretty quick for everyone concerned.

A Minority of One

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have to be prepared to be a minority of one, I guess. If I’m prepared to be the only person in the whole country opposed to Trump and MAGA if need be. I just fucking hate racism, misogyny and ignorance that much.

Or, alternately, I have to be prepared to become some sort of domestic political refugee.

I don’t know how or when that might happen, but it’s something I have to be prepared for. I really want to leave the country already — I’m ready to become an expat again — I just don’t know where or how I would go.

The United States’ population is so big that even if a few percent of the population fled, it would have huge consequences for the greater global culture. I’ve given it some thought, and I think if a lot of Americans began to flee the States, they would go to Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and maybe the Philippines.

The fear is, of course, that the States are about to implode.

It would happen because Trump is so lazy and stupid that he would rile Blues up by doing something really crazy like using Red National Guard units on Blue States — something he has repeatedly explicitly said he is interested in doing, as I understand it.

Anyway. I’m going to turn my attention to my novel again. It’s all I got. I’m going to try — try — to simply ignore the news until something happens that directly influences my life.

MAGA Rising

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is clear that MAGA is now ascendant. The question, of course, is what does that mean in practical terms. A lot of people voted for MAGA on the basis of abstract fears or anger towards brown people, or gays, or what have you. But when Trump actually starts to govern as a fascist dictator, it makes you wonder what the reaction will be.

As always, let me be clear — I’m not advocating anything! I’m just trying to make my abstract fears concrete.

Trump wants to do a lot — A LOT — of things that if he actually did them on a practical basis they would really make a lot of people upset. Just the issue of deporting 20 million people alone will rile up Blues in an unprecedented fashion.

As I keep saying, if Trump was smart — which he is not — he would do a lot of the things he wants to do gradually and somewhat on the sly. But he’s so stupid and lazy that he’s probably going to try to cram everything into his first 100 days.

If he literally begins to govern like a fascist dictator from day one, then, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Some pretty astonishing things *might* happen. Or, what do I know — maybe they won’t.

Maybe there might be a little bit of commotion here and there, but, in general, people will accept the changes and move on — or leave the country if they can. It’s going to be very interesting to see what, exactly, happens going forward.